How to Be a Winner at Chess
by
Fred Reinfeld
Forword by Bruce Pandolfini
21st-Century Edition
Fred Reinfeld Chess Classics
Bruce Alberston, General Editor
2013
Russell Enterprises, Inc.
Milford, CT USA
How to Be a Winner at Chess
by Fred Reinfeld
21st-Century Edition
The Fred Reinfeld Chess Series
Bruce Alberston, General Editor
ISBN: 978-1-936490-61-5 (print)
© Copyright 2013
Don Reinfeld, Judith Reinfeld and Bruce Alberston
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any manner or form whatsoever or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Published by:
Russell Enterprises, Inc.
P.O. Box 3131
Milford, CT 06460 USA
http://www.russell-enterprises.com
[email protected]
Cover design by Janel Lowrance
Table of Contents
Preface
Foreword
Editor’s Introduction
Introduction
Chapter 1. How to End It All
Checkmating
Three Tests for Checkmate
Checkmate
More Checkmates
Chapter 2. Don’t Give Up the Ship
Resigning
When to Resign
When Not to Resign
Ripe for Resigning
Chapter 3. What’s It Worth?
The Values of the Pieces
Even Exchanges
Relative Values
Cruising Range
The “Lowly” Pawn
More Comparative Values
Bishop vs. Knight
Winning Material
Chapter 4. The Three Strongest Moves
1. Checks
Priority of Check
Forking Check
Removing the Defender
The “Discovered” Check
Double Check
Chapter 5. The Three Strongest Moves
2. Capturing Threats
How to Win Material
Removing the Defender
The “Double Attack”
Pinning Attacks
Chapter 6. The Three Strongest Moves
3. Pawn Promotion
The Power of Pawn Promotion
A Pawn Gives Checkmate!
Promotion by Capture
Remove the Blockader!
How Pawn Promotion Wins Material
Watch for Passed Pawns
Pawn Promotion Wins Many a Game
Looking Ahead
Chapter 7. “How Do I Get Started?”
Five Rules for Opening Play
Simple Plans Are Best
Five Basic Rules
Control the Center
Develop Quickly
Develop Effectively
Protect Your King
Avoid Premature Queen Moves
Summary
Chapter 8. “What Do I Do Now?”
Two Basic Rules for the Middlegame
Give Your Pieces Mobility
Make Your Piece Cooperate
Chapter 9. The Endgame Is the Payoff
Five Basic Rules for Endgame Play
Know the Elementary Checkmates
Have Your King Play an Active Role
Utilize Passed Pawns
Post Rooks on the Seventh Rank
Simplify When You Have a Material Advantage
Chapter 10. “You Can’t Move That Piece!”
Winning by Pinning
The Irritating Pin
How Pins Work
Double Play
Chapter 11. “Give Till It Hurts!”
Winning by Sacrificing
How Sacrifices Work
Sacrificing the Queen
A Chess Refresher
The Basic Rules of Chess
How the Pieces Move
How the Pawn Moves
How the Pieces Capture
More about the Pawn
More about the King
How to Record Moves
Standard Chess Symbols
For my wife, who asked for a chess book that she could read
Preface
Many of today’s players, now the grandparents of chessplaying teenagers, fondly recall growing up with the Reinfeld books, which covered all aspects of chess, from the openings to the endgame, and included generous helpings of chess lore and the lives of the greatest chess masters.
Reprinting chess books by our father, Fred Reinfeld (1910-1964), ended in the 1980s as descriptive notation was phased out in favor of the more popular algebraic notation. We are extremely grateful to Bruce Alberston, who has taken up the task of converting Reinfeld’s notations to algebraic.
Thanks also to Russell Enterprises for publishing a 21st-century version of this, and, hopefully more, Reinfeld chess classics, thereby introducing Fred Reinfeld’s teaching genius to new generations of chess enthusiasts, especially to beginners and mid-level players eager to sharpen their skills at the chessboard.
Don and Judith Reinfeld
Foreword
Mention the name Fred Reinfeld to different chessplayers and you get different reactions, not all supported by the facts. There are those who claim he wrote books mainly for beginners. True, but he also produced a number of quality volumes for more experienced competitors as well. Those more involved tomes will always have value to aficionados and others wanting nicely gathered material, while not being too far beyond the reach of the newcomer. I’m especially thinking of various outstanding works he did on tactics, endgames, and the collected games of particular players.
There’s an implication in some criticisms that Reinfeld wasn’t a good player. But the reality is that he was a very good player. On the 1950 rating list, the first one put out by the USCF, he was rated sixth in the country. In 1933, as another example of his playing prowess, Reinfeld won the New York State Championship ahead of Denker and Fine. Furthermore, in individual encounters over the years, he was able to beat Fine, Reshevsky (twice – certainly, no mean feat), Marshall and Denker. Not too many “weak” players could boast of vanquishing members of that group. Nor is it likely that an ordinary player could draw with world chess champion Alexander Alekhine (when Alekhine was truly Alekhine), as Fred Reinfeld once did.
To be sure, Reinfeld was prolific. He may have authored as many as 200 books, if we count those he did for other people. And he wrote not solely about chess, but on an array of other disciplines, and as nimbly. Medicine, coin collecting, physics, checkers, law, geology, and stamp collecting are just a sampling of the fields Reinfeld tackled and conquered, rendering their substance in beautifully clear texts. In a way, he came from the same mold as Isaac Asimov. He loved ideas and was able to write with power and clarity on practically anything.
Reinfeld, no question, had an uncanny facility for language. He could take abstract concepts, often expressed in numbers and symbols, and somehow convert all of that obfuscation to cogent utility. Fraught with wonderful metaphors and delightful anecdotes, Reinfeld was always a great read. That expertise – all of that mastery – can be found in the offerings in this series. How to be a Winner at Chess and How to Play Chess Like a Champio
n are among the very best introductory chess books ever produced, bar none. In both offerings, Reinfeld manages to capture the essence of good chess in a most readable, enjoyable, easy to grasp format. Indeed, he dedicates the first book to his wife, who he states “asked for a chess book that she could read.” And now these two volumes have suddenly become even more accessible, thanks to the efforts of master teacher/writer Bruce Alberston, who has changed everything from the obsolescent descriptive notation to the more popular algebraic notation. Another nice feature instituted by Alberston is the two-column format, making the material much easier to read and follow.
But those two excellent manuals are not alone. Alberston has also put into algebraic notation Reinfeld’s two classic texts on tactics: 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate and 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations (both scheduled to appear late 2013 or early 2014). That’s more than 2000 problems to work on and from which the overwhelming majority of chess enthusiasts can benefit. Hey, even if I hadn’t written what I have here, I’d still buy a bunch of all four titles every year, as long as I had students who loved the game of chess, just like the great Fred Reinfeld.
Bruce Pandolfini
New York
January 2013
Editor’s Introduction
This is a book for beginners, but not starting beginners. It’s designed for folks who already know how the pieces move and the main rules of the game, although they may not know a whole lot more. It’s a description of your average chessplayer.
The assumption is that the average chessplayer wants to know more, wants to get better, wants to become a Winner, or why else pick up the book. Well, as the title suggests, How to be a Winner at Chess will help you do just that. One word of caution: It’s written in adult language, so it’s not for the little kiddies. But any teenager who can read can handle it.
As an aside, we mention that should a total beginner happen onto this book, there’s a quick refresher course in the back that will introduce the pieces and the rules. Author Reinfeld covered all his bases.
But what does a chessplayer need to know to get better? That’s the tricky part. Many authors, afraid of giving too little, often go off in the opposite direction, overwhelming their readers by giving too much or too advanced. Reinfeld is well aware of the trap and the beauty of his approach in the present work is that he keeps everything simple.
He got all the basic concepts down and as you can see from the table of contents, there are not all that many. Moreover, there is nothing abstract here; everything is geared for practical play and so all the basic concepts are illustrated with concrete examples.
In the world of chess, Fred Reinfeld is considered the supreme wordsmith. There’s no point rendering what he says in different language as Reinfeld can speak perfectly well for himself.
So I’ll confine myself to the task of the editor, which was to read the book, and prepare the modern manuscript. Along the way, many new diagrams were added and the old English descriptive method of explaining moves was converted to modern algebraic notation.
Notation is something every chess reader has to deal with. It can be a pain untill you get the hang of it, after which everything moves along nicely. I suppose you could do a chess book with figurine pieces and arrows but it would be a pretty simple book, not quite what we have here.
And Reinfeld has made the process of following notation as easy as possible, using verbal explanations to suplement the moves. The editor also has done his bit by making diagrams with letters and numbers to ease the learning process. Just don’t expect letters and numbers in advanced works. You’re expected to have graduated by then.
Bruce Alberston
Astoria, New York
March 2013
Introduction
This book is the result of more than twenty years’ thought about the problems of the average chessplayer and what he needs to learn to improve his game.
I have tried in every way I know to make this book an effective tool for becoming a much better chessplayer. The emphasis has been on those basic problems that turn up in every game. My hope has been to give the reader the goal, the purpose, the incentive which he may not previously have seen in the game of chess.
My aim has been to preserve the light touch. The technical approach and the grim forbidding attitude have been ruled out. I have tried to present complicated subjects in the simplest language that has ever appeared in a chess book. The chess notation, the traditional stumbling block of most chess readers, has been made as painless as possible.
Players of any degree of strength can benefit by studying this book. Those already familiar with the rules of chess will find it useful to read the refresher material at the back of the book. Even complete beginners, who know nothing at all about chess, will be able to read this book profitably after first learning the basic rules which are explained in the refresher section.
I want to thank Harold Kuebler, my editor, for his invaluable aid in helping me show the reader “how to be a winner at chess.”
Fred Reinfeld
Chapter One
How to End It All
Checkmating
When I first learned to play chess as a youngster of twelve, I thought it was a wonderful game. I still do – after more than thirty years of playing, studying, talking, teaching, writing. What makes chess so fascinating and so tantalizing, I suppose, is that it’s an unbeatable mixture of the complicated and the simple, the difficult and the easy.
Yes, it’s a wonderful game even though there are 169,518,829,100,544,000,000, 000,000,000 ways to play the first ten moves! Check the figures or take my word for it – either way we’re on safe ground if we say there are zillions of possibilities in a game of chess.
Does that make chess a complicated game? Yes...and no. True, it’s complicated in the number of possibilities involved. But – and most of us tend to forget this – chess has a very simple and clear-cut objective.
You win by checkmating your opponent’s king – by attacking the king in such a way that no matter how he plays, his king will still remain under attack. This clear-cut objective makes chess an easy game.
Three tests for checkmate
There’s an old saying among chessplayers: “Always check, it might be mate!” Usually made jokingly, this remark points up the most important feature of chess: you win by checkmating your opponent’s king.
Obvious as this sounds, all too many players forget about it in the heat of battle. Others play aimlessly, at a loss for a guiding idea, content to play from move to move.
More than once I have come into a chess club and watched a game between two inexperienced players who had checkmated each other without knowing it! Such unawareness makes a farce out of the game. Let’s be clear, then, at the very outset, just what we mean by “check” and “checkmate.”
When you give check, you are attacking your opponent’s king. When you give checkmate, you are attacking your opponent’s king in such a way that the king cannot escape.
Every checkmate is a check; but not every check is a checkmate! To grasp the difference, you have to follow through every check to one of its three possible conclusions: (D)
1. The checking piece is captured
White has just played his queen to check Black’s king by queen to h8 (Qh8+). Black disposes of the check by capturing White’s queen with his bishop ...bishop takes queen (...Bc3×h8). (D)
After ...Bc3×h8
With the disappearance of the white queen, Black’s king is no longer in check. This was a check, but not a checkmate. (D)
2. A piece is interposed between the checking piece and the checked king
In this position too, White has just played his queen to check Black’s king at h8 (Qh8+). Black cannot capture the checking queen.
He has a different way of getting out of check: he interposes his rook to shield his king from attack.
Black’s move in the diagram then is ...rook to d8 (...Rd8). (D)
After
...Rd1-d8
This cuts off the attack on the king, which is no longer in check. Again, this was a check, but not a checkmate. (D)
3. The checked king moves out of the line of attack
Once more White has played queen to h8 check (Qh8+). Black cannot capture the queen, not can he interpose a piece to ward off the attack. Luckily, his king can save himself on the principle of “the gods help those who help themselves.” Let’s see...Black’s king can move, but where? To play one square directly to the right – king to c8 (...Kc8) – would be no help; the king would still be in check.
To play one square diagonally to the left – king to a7 (...Ka7) – would not do either, as Black cannot play his king to a square controlled by White’s king.
Playing one square down – king to b7 (...Kb7 – is impossible for the same reason.
But Black does have a way out – one square diagonally to the right – king to c7 (...Kc7). (D)
After ...Kb8-c7
This “flight square” is not commanded by White’s king or queen, and thus the black king is out of check. Again, this was a check, but not a checkmate.
Checkmate
So far the checked king has had a way out each time. But if these defensive methods are not available, then we have a case of checkmate, as in our next diagram. Some checkmates are planned far ahead; others come as a terrible surprise, as in the case of the heavily bearded player who lifts his beard at the critical moment – only to disclose a rook that gives checkmate on the spot!
As you will see later on, whiskers are not the only way to hide a coming checkmate. When we say that a checkmate comes as a surprise, what we really mean is that the victim had has his mind on other things and completely missed the danger that was threatening his king.
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