Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, by Bobby Fischer (et al)

Photo by Wil C. Fry

★★★★ (of 5)

Full Title: Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess
Authors: Bobby Fischer, Stuart Margulies, Donn Mosenfelder
Year: 1966 (mine was reprint of 1972 edition)
Pages: 334
Genre: Instruction, chess
Publisher: Bantam Books
ISBN 978-0-553-26315-2
Wikipedia page
De Firmian’s Wikipedia page

Summary

Originally published by “Basic Systems Inc.”, a subsidiary of Xerox (seriously), Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess was co-authored by two men working for Educational Design Inc. and produced by an educational company called Learning International. It has been disputed whether world chess champion Fischer contributed anything other than his name to the work, though Fischer’s biographer Frank Brady says Fischer did actually contribute to it. It is reportedaly among the best-selling chess books of all time.

The book uses a system called “programmed instruction”, which the introduction says is “a new concept in teaching”, meant to help the reader “learn quickly and retain the material far better than with ordinary textbooks or lectures.”

After a short biography of Fischer and the co-authors, there follows the longest description of chess and its rules I have ever seen: fourteen pages. Pages 20 through 59 are spent describing check, checkmate, and the various ways to avoid checkmate (capture, flight, and interposition). Anyone who’s familiar with the rules of the game can skip to page 60. From page 60 through the end of the book, the “frames” (and the answer box on the following page) each show a particular position (at least some from actual games) and ask the reader to determine something. Early on, the questions are simpler, such as “is this checkmate?” and “how does black avoid checkmate in this position?” Then they become progressively more difficult, eventually resulting in relatively complex sequences of checkmates (or setups in which no checkmate is available).

It is also odd in that the reader only looks at right-hand pages. Upon reaching page 178, the reader is asked to turn the book upside-down and head the other direction, again looking at only the right-hand pages.

The Good

I did learn things. I learned how to more accurately count how many defenders a player has on the back rank, and of course I became better at recognizing whether checkmate is possible, can be forced, or can be avoided. Some of the puzzles, I set up on a physical board in order to actually make the moves, but in most cases I was able to visualize the subsequent positions.

During my time reading this book, I was of course playing actual games against real people on both Chess.com and Lichess.org, and I think it helped — because I started to win a greater percentage of my games, looking for (and sometimes finding) checkmates that I hadn’t before known possible.

Even for a beginner, the book is easy to understand. It doesn’t use chess notation at all (overuse of notation is a common complaint of many beginners, including myself, about “learning to play chess” books). Fischer simply describes the moves using actual words. (Note: there were several times that notation would have made more sense, but not having to teach notation in the first place probably saved time and frustration early in the book.)

Points Off For...

First, I think the title is misleading. The book doesn’t teach chess; it teaches checkmate. And lots of it. After the fairly lengthy section on the rules of the game, Fischer skips straight to checkmate and ignores openings and middle games. Obviously, it could be said that checkmate is the most important part of chess, but a player can’t get to checkmate without successfully navigating the opening, avoiding traps and blunders, and getting her pieces in the right places to successfully execute checkmate. This is a minor complaint; most instructional chess books seem to focus on one particular facet of the game and ignore others.

My second (and final) complaint was the consistency of the printing, especially regarding the chess board diagrams. In places the dark squares were so dark that I had trouble determining whether black pieces were on them or not. And, weirdly, the size of the diagrams was not consistent. Sometimes they were large enough to see easily, but on another page the diagram would be half-size and therefore much harder to make out (especially if that was also a page that came out darker).

Conclusion

I know my own game got a boost from reading this; I think if I had been more of a beginner, I would have gotten more use out of the first 60 pages. Finding and executing checkmates was not the weakest part of my chess game, but I am far from expert level at it and studying this book improved my game. (For the curious, what I really need help with is avoiding blunders in the opening and finding advantages during the middle game.)