Comments on: Review: Chess Strategy for Club Players

By: Arne Moll

Arne Moll — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:17:07 +0000

@Martin, I’d say the book is very useful for players 1900-2300, which I guess is the ‘advanced club player’ level. And players of other levels will no doubt find many interesting things in it as well.

p.s. Well, perhaps 2200-2300 players won’t learn many new facts as such, but I think the book is very good for them, too, if they study the games seriously (and I’m speaking from personal experience!)

By: Martin Glimmerveen

Martin Glimmerveen — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:04:22 +0000

Arne, my compliments on the review. It’s one of the books I was considering of buying sometime. I feel you missed one element though. What do you reckon is the playing level this book is suitable for? I feel this is rather important if the writer gives his book the rather vague qualification “for club players”.

I understand this is a hard question, but it would be interesting to know your opinion, and after all, a review is an opinion

By: Arne Moll

Arne Moll — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:13:55 +0000

Creemer, you may be right but I’d be interested to know if this is also the case for chapter 8, ‘Training Experiment’ in which Grooten discusses and analyses training games with his pupils. These games were all played in 2002-2004. This chapter seems entirely new to me.

Update: Grooten himself informs us that about 70% of the book consists of new material, consisting of either updated and computer-checked old analysis or completely new games. There are also 8 new chapters about training methods and ideas.

By: Creemer

Creemer — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:34:02 +0000

Actually. chapter for chapter, this book is the same as the three Dutch volumes. Of course, the material has been updated, with new games and some tests, but for 90% or so it’s the same.

By: Arne Moll

Arne Moll — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:53:41 +0000

@Willem, unfortunately I don’t know exactly, since I couldn’t find my old copies of these books. There are quite a few very recent games in the new book which definitely couldn’t have been in the Dutch parts, which appeared in the late 90’s if I’m not mistaken – but I suppose a fair amount of the older examples is the same. But then there’s also the explanations about the pattern recognition research and Steinitz’s elements that looks new to me. But to what amount exactly it’s worth buying the new book if you have the Dutch ones already, I’m not able to say for the moment. Someone else, perhaps?

By: Willem

Willem — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 17:43:00 +0000

How much of the book is also covered in “Elementen van de schaakstrategie”?