Looks at Books / Basic Chess Openings for Kids / Chess Endgames for Kids
Openings & Endings
for Scholastics Two recent titles aimed at children By JOHN HARTMANN
T
he number of children playing chess continues to grow, but there remains relatively few good books for them to study. Part of this involves a generational
shift away from paper and towards the world of apps, but I suspect that it also has to do with the difficulty of actually writing for children. There are precious few instructional works that manage to entertain and enlighten without sliding into farce. Two books explicitly aimed at kids—Basic Chess
Openings for Kids by Charles Hertan, and Chess Endgames for Kids by Karsten Müller—have recently been published. Both authors have impressive track records, but do these new efforts really work as books for children? Basic Chess Openings for Kids is Charles Hertan’s
fourth book with New in Chess, and his third written for children. The new book has much in common with its predecessors (Power Chess for Kids and Power Chess for Kids 2), including its terminology and the four helpful characters who ask questions along the way. For those unfamiliar with Hertan’s earlier works, a brief chapter on piece value and counting attackers/defenders is included, as are a glossary of terms and twenty quiz positions. Hertan believes that the main goal of the
Hertan, Charles. Basic Chess Openings for Kids. New In Chess: 2015. ISBN: 978-90-5691-597-17. 160 pages. Paperback. (Available from
uscfsales.com, catalog number B0158NIC, $18.95)
Müller, Karsten. Chess Endgames for Kids. Gambit Publications: 2015. ISBN: 978-1910093610. 128 pages. Hardcover. (Available from
uscfsales.com, catalog number B0187GB, $16.95)
14 October 2015 | Chess Life
opening can be summarized as follows: “get your pieces into action quickly and effectively!” (10) He argues that development or mobility is thus key to good opening play, and to that end, he devotes full chapters (2-5) to developing knights, bishops, rooks and queens. Chapter 6 focuses on the relation between pawn and piece play, analyzing two pairs of opening ‘schemes’ to make his points. The book concludes with an outline of five typical opening mistakes in Chapter 7. Hertan’s basic strategy—investigating what each
piece ‘likes’ to unpack good piece play—is solid, and his ideas-based approach to the opening is good for beginners. The reading level is not simple, so it might vex young readers, and I do worry a bit about the wide variance in the level of ideas presented. It’s one thing for beginners to why knights like to be on c3 and f3, and another entirely for them to grasp the concept of outposts or knight maneuvers in the Ruy Lopez. I suspect that this
is a book that would reward re-reading as players climb the ratings list. Karsten Müller is, with apologies to our own
Daniel Naroditsky, the world’s leading authority on the endgame. Having authored three classic books and 14 DVDs on the topic, Chess Endgames for Kids is his work aimed at the youth market. The book is very good indeed, but I’m not convinced that it’s really designed for kids. Chess Endgames for Kids consists of 50 distinct
lessons or mini-chapters. Some of the initial lessons cover very basic endgames, including king and queen versus king and king and rook versus king. The complexity ramps up dramatically, however, and it does so very quickly. Just about half the book is devoted to king and
pawn endings and rook and pawn endings. The king and pawn coverage begins with the rule of the square, key squares and the opposition. I’m not convinced that most juniors need to know more than this before they reach class C. Reti’s famous study (Lesson 12) is more aesthetically pleasing than educational for the beginner, and Bahr’s Rule (Lesson 15) is simply overkill. We find much the same in the lessons on king
and rook endings. The analysis of basic positions like Philidor and Lucena (Lessons 34-36) is useful and appropriate for novice players, but even GM Hikaru Nakamura lacked knowledge—or so he claimed on Twitter, anyway—of the Vančura position (Lesson 38) in his draw against Radjabov at the Gashimov Memorial in 2014. Knowing Vančura is obviously important, as is
the concept of the bodycheck in rook versus pawn endings (Lesson 32). The question is: for whom? Beginners would probably do better with Winning Chess Endings by Seirawan or Silman’s Complete Endgame Course, and younger novices might best be served by starting with Ten Ways to Succeed in the Endgame by Onions and Regis. Chess Endgames for Kids is best seen as a terse
endgame primer, slightly less complex than similar efforts by de la Villa (100 Endgames You Must Know) and Nunn (Understanding Chess Endgames). It is excellent for players with some experience who need to learn key theoretical endings, and it’s a steal at $16.95 in hardcover.
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