Chess for Ordinary Mortals

 A study, through games analysis, of the problems
facing players who are average or below
and who wish to improve their game  

by

 Trevor Palmer

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Preface

A great majority of chess players actively seek to improve their playing strength.  They do so in a number of ways.  They may select a likely-looking book, usually written by a grandmaster or known expert, to help.  They play through and analyse their own games and despair at the blunders they have made or their astonishingly poor positional play, clearly revealed away from pressures of the over-the-board encounter and, worse, that grim two-faced watcher which has pushed them into the inevitable time trouble.  Nowadays they also have the luxury of computerised chess programs.  The choice is vast.

But it still seems a hard slog to improve one's game.  There always seems to be someone in the club, or a friend or a match opponent who, in most encounters, emerges victorious – often when it seemed a win was within your grasp.  How did it slip away?

The young aspiring chess enthusiast may, of course, make rapid progress, belying the grading level imposed by last season's results.  But even these agile young minds may puzzle over grandmaster games analysis.  However good the annotations, questions spring to mind yet there is no grandmaster sitting by their side to explain.  How do they continue to push back the barriers and become, at least, strong club players?

This book is intended to add to the armoury of the weaker or average player and perhaps encourage such wood-pushers to join their local club or, if they are already active club players, help to push up their grading by a few points.  It is written by as well as for an average player.  It will contain no explanations of in-depth strategy or of combinations too deep for "Mr Average" to have possibly foreseen.  The reader will not be "blinded by the science of chess".  Together we will look at "ordinary" games played, with varied results, by the author and see what lessons can be learned.

Never-the-less, anyone playing through chess games likes to be entertained too so, hopefully, the games selected here will also achieve that purpose.

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Table of Contents

Preface
Index  
List of illustrative games
Chapter 1:   "In general"   (as a pdf file)
                         Part 1
                         Part 2
                         Part 3
Chapter 2:  "Opening play"
Chapter 3:   "After the opening"  (as a pdf file)
                         Part 1
                         Part 2
                         Part 3
Chapter 4:  "End game play"
Chapter 5:  "In conclusion"

Index  

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