Invisible Chess Moves

Invisible Chess Moves by Emmanuel Neiman and Yochanan Afek is an original work dedicated to helping chess players improve their ability to eliminate blind spots when selecting moves.

As the authors show, even very strong players can overlook “simple” moves. Consider the following game where French 2700 GM Etienne Bacrot is lost after 5 moves!

Bacrot – Relange, France 2006, 1.e4 c5 2.Ne2 d6 3.g3 d5!? 4.Nc3?! d4 5.Nd5? g5! 6.d3 h6! 7.Bg2 e6 and Black quickly won.

A glance at the table of contents shows this is a unique book that presents material rarely covered.

Part I – Objective Invisibility – 21

Chapter 1 – Hard-to-see moves – 22
A: Quiet moves – 23
B: Intermediate moves – 27
The desperado – 31
C: Alignment – 36
D: For getting the rules – 53
E: Quiet positions – 57

Chapter 2 – Geometrically invisible moves – 71
A: Horizontal effect – 72
B: Circuit – 74
Rook circuit – 74
Bishop circuit – 75
Queen circuit – 75
C: Changing wings – 77
D: Backward moves – 83
E: Back ward knight moves – 86
F: Pin and self-pin – 89
G: Geometrical moves – 96

Part II – Subjective Invisibility – 111

Chapter 3 – Invisible moves for positional reasons – 112
A: Pawn structures – 113
B: Weakening of the king’s defences – 118
C: Unexpected exchanges – 123
D: Unusual position of a piece – 126
E: Anti-developing moves – 133
F: Residual image – 135

Chapter 4 – Invisible moves for psychological reasons – 151
A: Anticipation of the probable result – 152
B: Blunders in World Championship matches – 163
C: Forward moves in defence – 167
D: Backward attacking moves – 176
Test – 191
Test solutions – 205
Explanation of Symbols – 237
Index of Players – 238

Plenty of instructive exercises and positions to solve make Invisible Chess Moves an interesting book for players from 1800 on up.

Highly Recommended