The Winning Way: The How What and Why of Opening Strategems

Most tactical books either group the quizzes by type (ie, pin, discovered attack, etc) or don't group the quizzes at all (and both types of books are helpful). However, this book groups the quizzes by move (ie, Qh5, Qd5, Bxf7, and Nxe5 for example). It really helped me to locate winning combinations early in the game. It also showed me how to attack early in the game. I think it would be of great value to any chess player ranked below USCF 1800. I suspect that the people who gave this book such a terrible rating assume that it's trying to teach people to "win quickly." Generally, there is no way to "win quickly" against a good opponent. So why bother to study these "tricks" that you will probably never get to use? Well, actually, there is much value in studying them, but you are not studying "tricks" but learning tactical patterns that can be widely used if your opponent should happen to make an opening mistake. Whenever there is a winning combination available, anywhere in the game, it means that your opponent has made a mistake. Studying tactics is the way to learn to identify the winning combination when a mistake has been made. I think many people study openings hoping to get an advantage over their opponent early in the game. However, studying chess opening "lines" is just not of much value to someone rated under 2000. Frankly, I think it would be wiser to study and re-study books like this one (or Pandolfini's other opening books called Traps and Zaps and Traps and Zaps 2). As I have already stated, you want to learn how to punish someone if they should happen to make an error, but that doesn't mean you memorize the opening "line" and hope your opponent makes it. Instead, you learn the PATTERN, so that you will recognize it if an opponent should ever make it. Of course, this is exactly what should be done when studying tactics in general. We don't try to wait for the identical postition to arise. We just learn the pattern, and then practice identifying it in many different positions. If a player is ranked below USCF 2000, he should spend the bulk of his study time practicing tactics, and this book is one of the best.

For what it is worth: my present ELO-rating is somewhere around 1650, but I've only played about 20 games in tournement and feel there's lots of room for improvement - books like "The Winning Way" are certainly amplifying this sentiment. Best standard rating on ICC: 1820 (it went down lately, under 1600, but at the moment it's moving upwards again up to +1700 and going steady :-). I've struggled my way through lots of chess books. Many of the tactics shown and explained by famous GM's like Nunn, Dvoretsky, etc. are very good to learn from, but it's always hard work. If you feel like getting away from this "serious chess studying" and just enjoy yourself while still learning something, then get this book. I can't play through more than one or two examples from "The Winning Way" without feeling the urge to get up and start playing on the internet (I prefer ICC). So, while I always have trouble studying chess for a longer period of time (say, 15 minutes or so :-), this book makes me walk to and fro between my computer (playing games) and the chessboard (every time getting more amazed about the simplicity of the demonstrated "chess mechanics" - although, of course it really isn't that simple...), and so on and so on... This book really is an eye-opener; after reading half way through it I found myself looking at the whole game in a different way (taking notice of loose ends in my opponent's set-up and trying to exploit them). And you know what? It's not just an impression, my rating went up and (contrary to what normally happens) it stays up now! Also, I feel much more confident behind the chessboard. Get this book, it will improve your awareness of chess.

The title is not quite accurate. This is really a book of opening traps. The explanations are not nearly so helpful as the traps themselves. Unfortunately, this book is not nearly so useful as Pandolfini's other trap books. As another reviewer stated, the traps here are categorized by the winning move, e.g. Bxf7 or Qh5. That makes the book useless for drilling tactics, as the winning move is already named in boldface at the top of the page. Also, the diagrams do not always follow the blunder immediately.However, this book has the broadest coverage of the three, with maybe 25% non-king pawn openings. Perhaps you could cut out the pages and clip off the headings, then go through these in random order.Definitely read the Traps and Zaps books first. I find this one valuable in improving my pattern recognition still further, as I can go through several examples of a single motif in one sitting, but you might consider skipping this one altogether nd going straight to the deeper traps in Chernev's wonderful Winning Chess Traps, then on to Burgess's Quickest Chess Victories of All Time.This book seems to have fewer errors than the others, so I give it 4 stars.

This book has gotten some undeserved bad press. This book simplifies the avoidance of falling into elementary traps. There are a bunch of books about the various traps, but they aren't systematic, and, therefor, they are impossible to remember. Here the traps are systematically presented and easy to spot. Most of the traps involve checks and hanging pieces. The book also teaches the pluses of early aggressive Queen moves. I found it very informative and have avoided falling into some of the traps in my games. It also teaches you to take advantage of the opponent's mistakes. If you are getting boloed in the opening, take alook at this book.

Outstanding collection of puzzles that do require a certain amount of memorization. But be careful! You should not rely on this book if you're playing against an experienced player or a computer. Pandolfini himself states that you will "encounter these problems from time to time" and that's when the knowledge of this book will come in handy. It helps if the reader is already familiar with the names of the openings and variations.