Some books are meant to make a player think, and that is a good thing - in this case GM Beim accomplishes this goal from time to time. The book's premise is that players can benefit from learning the birth of the solution in the chess grandmaster's brain to various problems that confront them during a chess game. The author takes the reader on a tour of many chess situations in that search for understanding.

The author is a European chess grandmaster and author who has also worked as a trainer.  There is some interesting material that focused my attention on aspects of chess in ways that I had not previously conceived. However, the book as a whole is somewhat smaller than I would hope and includes some run-of-the-mill chapters that ultimately detract from its overall value

The book contains eight chapters; they are The Technique of Analyzing Variations; Inverse Thinking in Chess; Something Extravagant (covering the variation 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.f3 d5); Tactical Ideas in the Middlegame; Opposite-Colored Bishops Win!; Transition to the Endgame; A Mighty Weapon (discussing zugzwang and stalemate); and Attacking the King in the Endgame. There is also a brief introduction, exercises at the end of each chapter, solutions, and an index of players and analysts.

The second chapter, the longest in the book, is, according to the introduction, of special interest. The author's premise is that often candidate moves for a position aren't readily available, and in order to find a plan a player will look for aspects of the position that are familiar to him from other games or study. The player will then seek to find a way to lead the present game into that familiar position, starting from the familiar position and working backwards to the position of the game.

When I first read through this, it didn't strike me as all that dissimilar to a method that Jeremy Silman espouses, of taking a position and envisioning your "dream position" and then seeking to find a way to accomplish it. It is possible that, unlike the Silman method, the author's examples rely on players having knowledge of other games or concepts and steering toward them, rather than finding a plan by "knowing" a position is a dream one.

Regardless, this is an interesting concept and probably the most interesting in the book.  Spurred on by it, I spent some time looking through my own games to see if I could find evidence of the use of this process. I did find some murky kingside fianchetto positions where I was able to steer the play eventually into clearer structures where black had good play, but I cannot honestly recall if I was conscious of this "inverse thinking" process at the time.

The next chapter, on the line 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.f3 d5 is probably of most interest to a minority of the chess playing public. Being part of that minority (since I play the Pirc as black and/or have played 3.f3 as white), I found it moderately useful, but it's not a primary selling point for the book.

Unfortunately, in most of the following chapters, there are better treatments of the key concepts already available. For example, the author spends about 14 pages on the topic of winning with opposite colored bishops. Mark Dvoretsky, in his classic POSITIONAL PLAY has already done a great job of covering this middlegame topic - in greater length and depth. Likewise, the author in the chapter on transition to the endgame starts off with discussion of trading off the defending player's queen. This is very often a useful strategy and one that I first learned about from the extensive coverage given this transition topic in Mednis' FROM THE MIDDLEGAME INTO THE ENDGAME. It is still the best work of its kind on this part of the game, and Shereshevsky's classic ENDGAME STRATEGY (click to see reviews of this book by Watson and Silman) also does a nice job on this topic.

Throughout, the author relies on many examples from his own play. I always find this makes for a more interesting read, because the author can impart more of the specifics of the situation into the explanations. The author has also chosen some useful exercises to back up the material from each chapter. While these make the book useful as a learning tool, I do not think that there is sufficient depth of coverage or new concept here to make this a compelling choice for the serious player.

There is certainly value to studying the methods the author highlights. Perhaps, for players not familiar with the works I've mentioned that provide superior coverage, this book will suffice to introduce players to these concepts. Ultimately, a player will be better served by exploring these important topics in greater depth.

In conclusion, the author seeks to demonstrate chess recipes a la a grandmaster.  However, I think this is more a book about appetizers than the main course. While it may prove a useful introduction to a variety of important chess topics, an aspiring player is going to need more calories than it provides to get their fill of chess knowledge on these subjects.

Click to see Donaldson's review of this book.

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