Why You Lose at Chess
by
Fred Reinfeld
21st Century Edition
Fred Reinfeld Chess Classics
Peter Kurzdorfer, General Editor
2016
Russell Enterprises, Inc.
Milford, CT USA
Why You Lose at Chess
by Fred Reinfeld
Fred Reinfeld Chess Classics
Peter Kurzdorfer, General Editor
ISBN: 978-1-941270-26-4
© Copyright 2016
Don Reinfeld and Judith Reinfeld
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any manner or form whatsoever or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Published by:
Russell Enterprises, Inc.
P.O. Box 3131
Milford, CT 06460 USA
http://www.russell-enterprises.com
info@russell-enterprises.com
Editing and proofreading by Peter Kurzdorfer
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
From the Editor
Chapter 1
You Have No Idea What Kind of Chess Player You Are
You lose because you have certain basic misconceptions about your play
Know yourself – and your opponent
Chess personality quiz
Discard your alibi
Have faith in your play
Differentiate among your opponents
The shock value of surprise
The eternal triangle
Chapter 2
You Play the Openings Blindly or by Rote
Playing the opening blindly
Playing the opening by rote
Unforeseen crisis
Crime and punishment
Chapter 3
You Don’t Know the One Basic Principle of Chess Play: Control the Center
What is the center?
How do you control the center?
Why is it important to control the center?
The powerful pawn center
The powerfully centralized piece
Striking through the Center
You’re bothered by unusual openings
Chapter 4
You Lose Because You Can’t See One Move Ahead
You’re obsessed by the “obvious” move
Beware the forced move
Chapter 5
You Don’t Know When to Attack – or When to Defend
When to attack
Defender’s queen out of play
Attacker’s local superiority
Defender’s pawn weaknesses
When not to attack
When to defend
Chapter 6
You Lose Because You Ignore the Odds
What is an endgame?
Mating attacks in the endgame
Brilliant sacrifices in the endgame
Queening a pawn
King and pawn endings
Zugzwang, or the squeeze play
Chapter 7
You Lose Because You Play the Board – and Not the Man
Playing the man and not the board
Bamboozling a world champion
How to beat your equals
Chapter 8
You Lose Because You’re Easily Bored
The winning technique
Missing the point
Give a man enough rope…
Chapter 9
You Lose Because You’re Lazy
Winning the hard way
Meet the challenge!
You lose because you dawdle
Chapter 10
You Lose Because You’re Stubborn
Half a loaf is better than none
A bishop is better than a knight
Overprotecting the castled position
When pawn moves are good
Notes from the Editor
From the Editor
Mid twentieth century best-selling author Fred Reinfeld introduced thousands of players to the wonderful game of chess through his tireless efforts. His books were ubiquitous and covered every conceivable aspect of the royal game.
I was one of countless chess players representing several generations who grew up surrounded by Reinfeld books. We couldn’t get enough of them! He not only taught us how to play the game well, but also implanted in us his enthusiastic passion for learning the game.
Fred’s books are peppered throughout with words and phrases in italics to emphasize ideas. Moves are punctuated with single, double, and even triple exclamation marks and question marks to span the entire spectrum of emotions the moves conjure up.
He had a way of reducing the most intricate, complicated combinations to their basic components. After Reinfeld explains a combination, it makes sense.
Thus I am pleased and honored to be a part of bringing back my old mentor to new generations of chess players. Russell Enterprises Inc. is engaged in a project of resurrecting the immortal Reinfeld classics, republishing them with the modern algebraic notation in place of the archaic English descriptive notation that was popular years ago to make them accessible to twenty-first century chess players.
This undertaking, begun under General Editor Bruce Alberston, has been passed on to me. So I get to reread these wonderful old books, change the notation in ChessBase, type up Fred’s snappy prose, and look out for potential errors.
The few analytical errors that crop up from time to time are easily checked with the monster chess engine Fritz, which Fred never had access to. In those far-off pre-computer days, you analyzed each and every position, including any variations you thought up, with nothing more than a board and pieces, using your knowledge of the pieces’ potential.
Thus the few errors are no reflection on the author’s ability or knowledge at all. I have called attention to only the most egregious ones, and they certainly do not detract at all from the fresh charm he imparts on each and every position he looks at. The few editing comments are indicated by an asterisk in the text, referring the reader to Notes from the Editor, page 128.
Why You Lose at Chess is vintage Reinfeld. He pulls no punches, showing the reader why he or she loses chess games. This is quite a remarkable feat when you think about it, because he never saw any of the games the vast majority of his readers played. But Fred knew the thinking that lurks behind poor chess decisions, and he let us all know what is wrong or irrelevant or misguided about the types of moves he witnessed far too often.
Beginning with a chapter on self-appraisal, he links a lack of understanding of your own personality with erroneous choices of moves and plans in a chess game. He goes on to delve into playing blindly (with no idea what you are actually doing) or by rote (memorization vs. understanding).
A couple of technical mistakes he points out include a lack of understanding of the tremendous importance controlling the center makes as well as knowing what features in a position should be present in order for an attack to be likely to work.
Among other observations, he gets on amateur players for being easily bored, impatient, lazy, and stubborn. And all of this comes with lucid examples from master play that back up his contentions.
All in all, this is a very excellent treatment of a subject players generally do not pay enough attention to. It has the potential to open anyone’s eyes to what playing strong chess can be like by showing what happens to those who fail to do so.
Peter Kurzdorfer
May 2016