Practical Chess Tutor - From Basics to Mastery 1

This book is primarily intended for all who are entering the magical world of chess, beginners, children and their parents and of course - adult ambitious improvers. This chess textbook will enable readers to strengthen their knowledge of the chess basics and fundamentals and will help trainers and chess teachers in working with their students. The book is divided into 5 chapters. The first chapter is devoted to all the basic rules of chess. In this chapter we will explain how the pieces move, the value of pieces, terms such as check, checkmate, stalemate, pawn promotion, etc. Of course, if the reader is familiar with the basic rules of chess he can skip most of the introductory themes. The second part of the book is devoted to executing checkmate with various pieces, which is extremely important to know and understand well. There are also one move checkmates with defensive tools against checkmates explained in detail, and also simple combinations for achieve a material advantage. When I started working as a chess trainer, I often skipped teaching the students checkmates in a move. As a result, my students played endings and openings very well, and were even able to see some more complex combinations, but were often overlooking mates in one move! In addition, they were not able to see simple defences against opponent's threats. The chapter also contains basic exercises for solving checkmates in one move. The third part of the book is devoted to all the basic chess endgames.Here you will also find various theoretical draws and stalemate positions, examples of perpetual check. I advise you to learn the endgames well because they form the basis for the middlegame plans. In addition,you will improve your technique and learn the value of small material gains. The fourth part of the book deals with tactical motifs and themes and contains a great number of instructive exercises. Tactics are extremely important because we achieve goals such as checkmate or material advantage by executing powerful tactical motifs. My legendary coach Grandmaster Bora Ivkov insisted on knowing tactical themes by heart since such knowledge allows us to find the patterns and combinations much faster and easier in practical games. The fifth part of the book is all about the opening phase of the game. We will tackle opening principles, most common traps and mistakes in openings and show how to avoid grave mistakes and blunders. Quite often parents and inexperienced coaches suggest learning openings by heart, playing for tricks and traps, encouraged by some initial successes their children and students achieve in tournaments. However, that approach can cause long-term negative consequences for the development of a chess player. Traps are quickly learned by all opponents, while precious time is lost for learning more important positions and themes. Also, modern computer engines are often used before the student has grasped fundamental knowledge. On the very first move alone, there are 400 possibilities for both sides - so you can imagine how rich and diverse the game of checc can be. Of course, most of those first moves are bad, but still the number of realistic possibilities in the first ten moves is huge. So, the real "work" on opening theory and forming one's own opening repertory should come only later on when the player has a truly solid command of opening rules and principles.