John Nunn's Chess Course Paperback – May 13, 2014

I am using the Kindle edition, in which the size of diagrams and the page formatting are just about perfect -- enough so that even an amateur can study most of the main lines without a board.In a rather daring move, Nunn has based his general chess course on the games of Emanuel Lasker. His reasons for doing so are listed at the outset of the book, and make perfect sense. My reasons for agreeing are these:-- Lasker's games, being played against a wider range of openings and wider range of playing strengths than, say, the games of Anand, prove to be a rich source for training material suitable to the club player. We, too, tend to play outside the current main lines and see strategic as well as tactical errors, just as Lasker did before the information explosion and diffusion of chess knowledge.-- These games do not turn on opening analysis or knowing how to win the 2 pawns v 1 pawn on adjacent file ending. The games are "out of book" by move 7 or 8, and are chosen to illustrate how to play chess, not how to play openings. Likewise, the endings are complex, with a couple minor pieces and rook and several pawns, and are chosen to illustrate good endgame play.-- Lasker was not a perfectionist; he was a competitor. While he did not, as some have alleged, play inferior moves in order to mesmerize and deceive his opponents, he did play moves that were not objectively the best, because they gave him complex positions in which he trusted himself to find the right path better than his opponent. Modern equivalents of this approach are Korchnoi and (as Nunn points out) Carlsen.-- The games themselves are just plain fun.Nunn groups the games into chapters devoted to a single theme, such as attacking play. Within this, he presents a broad selection of games that illustrate how a strong player approaches this theme. I am impressed with the diversity of position types that appear in these games, and how nicely each illustrates various nuances within its chosen theme. It turns out that the games of Lasker alone are a pretty stable base on which to write such a book.And finally, Lasker gets somewhat ignored these days. His approach to chess is something that most players will benefit from studying.The book is suitable for novices up to about expert level, although stronger players are likely to benefit both from the enjoyment of the games, and Nunn's thorough if brief review of important ideas in the middlegame and beyond.

I am an enthusiastic, but not particularly good, chess player. To improve my game, I will devote 2015 to studying this book. Why? I enjoy playing through games of masters, and this book is a *course* on chess based on the games of Emanuel Lasker (1869-1941) who was a world chess champion for 27 years. It takes me a long time to play through a game. I record each game in a notebook; I write out the entire game without comments; I play through the game a few times, making my own notes as I go; then I read Nunn's commentary and compare it with my notes; finally, in my notebook, I write out a complete set of notes next to the game using Nunn's comments and my observations. Aided by www, I make notes about the life of each of Lasker's opponents, and learn a bit about chess history en route to becoming some sort of master. For each game, all this takes a few hours; one game/day is my limit. An inexpensive, enjoyable, way to spend a year.

For years Lasker has been an overlooked World Champion. John Nunn tackles this head on. Imagine watching Lasker play and have a grandmaster by your side, explaining the moves. You now have this with, John Nunn's book

I am not a particularly big fan of Nunn's. I only own two or three of his works. Most of his books that I've come across contain to much analysis for my taste. That being said I like this work very much. There is a lot of explanatory prose on top of the more constrained lines of analysis that I do not like to much of. As most other reviewers have noted, and I agree, that this is a very fine work of Mr. Nunn's. My reservations and the reason that I am giving it four rather than five stars is that it is an advanced "chess course." The subtitle says "a complete education..." That to me as well as the main title seem to imply that this is an introductory text/course. Which it is not. I am currently a 1800+ rated USCF chess player. And to me this text seems aimed at 1800-2100 ratings group that of class "A" (1800-1999) and "Expert" (2000-2199). Those serious tournament players who have their eyes set on achieving master. For those below that rating estimate of mine and those who are just casual players there are many works out there that are more specifically aimed at and assimilated more readily than this work of John Nunn. Some of those authors are Jeremy Silman, Fred Reinfeld, Bruce Pandolfini, Yasser Seirawan, Irving Chernev, Cecil J. Purdy, Lev Alburt and Dan Heisman. Also this book, even though I'm old fashioned would probably be more easily worked thru by purchasing the E-book which is available from/thru the publisher. I wish you all well on your chess journey.