Opening Moves Made Easy

Its important to get off to a good start in a Chess game. Both sides start in a weak position, most pieces cannot move and the Kings need to get castled.

Most opening books concentrate on showing concrete variations. One shortcoming of knowledge of a concrete variation is that a move might be valid in one position, but even if another position has only one small difference then the same move may be a terrible blunder.

Another difficulty of memorization is the huge possible number of opening positions. Even after only a few moves there are many millions of possibilities. This book offers an alternative approach.

Understanding of ideas is more valuable than memorization of specific move sequences. Ideas can often be applied in different situations. It does not matter how much opening theory you know, you will always get into opening positions you have never reached before. The ability to improvise is invaluable.

There is an article titled 'My First Chess Tournament' on the Melbourne Chess Club website by a committee member, Simon Dale. His son Ari is now an IM (International Master). Here is part of his article.

I was most nervous about losing in 10 moves, so I asked Bill Jordan, a coach at Melbourne Chess Club, to show me chess openings. I am well known at the club because of my children and I am a volunteer committee member, so Bill was very happy to help. His one hour accelerated opening course was about opening principles, he did not teach me a single opening, but rather gave me confidence to just play with general ideas. This was brilliant because I did not have to learn anything and had the bonus of taking the experienced players out of theory pretty quickly. In my opinion this was a very solid approach for the beginner. This book is inspired by that lesson.

Opening Principles

The book examines standard opening principles and explores their strengths and weaknesses.

Opening Moves

This book examines likely moves in the opening, including the 20 possible moves in the initial position. It looks at the strong and weak points of each move. This is he bulk of the book. There are numerous example positions from real openings.

c3

• Controls b4.
• Controls d4.
• No longer controls the b3 and d3 squares.
• Obstructs the Queen Knight from its best square.
• Opens a new diagonal for the Queen.

c3 defends d4 and opens a diagonal for the Queen.

This book has over 250 large clear colour diagrams. You do not need a chess set and board to read this book. It is designed to be read several times. Each time it is reread, you may grasp points that were previously obscure to you. Enjoy!

Opening Traps Book 1 and 2

Opening Traps

Playing through opening traps can be a lot of fun.

Also learning them gives you the opportunity to try them on your opponents.

Studying them also helps prevent you from falling into them.

As a FIDE master and chess coach I recommended studying opening traps as a good way for new players to learn openings beyond the basics. You can view my author for information about my other books.

Not only does studying opening traps help you develop familiarity with openings in general, it can also help develop your tactical skill in the middlegame and endgame. It is one more step that you can take towards being a tactical wizard.

This book uses hundreds of large clear color chess diagrams. The winning side will play up the board. You do not need a chess set to read this book.

This is Book 1 of a set of 2.

Book 1

This book concentrates on common basic tactical patterns. Variations of these patterns happen in many ways. To help you learn the patterns better, only relevant pieces will be present. The more tactical patterns and themes you are familiar with, the easier it will be for you to see tactics.

There are traps involving the King, including checks on the short diagonal, long diagonal, file, rank and by a Knight.

The Queen mates on the short diagonal.

These traps may involve checkmate or win of material by using tactical devices such as:

• Forks
• Pins
• Skewers
• Discoveries
• etc.

There are traps not involving the King, including forks, trapped pieces etc.

Book 2

This book consists of a collection of hundreds of short games with brief notes. Most of these games I have either played or watched while they were being played, over several decades. Some are famous games. In some cases the games have been played more than once. Some games include well known opening traps, some with names, others without. Games are in approximate alphabetical order of their moves. This means that openings are grouped together.

1.d4 b5 2.e4 a6 3.c4 Bb7 4.f3 bxc4 5.Bxc4 e6 6.Qb3 Nc6

Setting the trap.

7.Qxb7?

...Na5

Trapping the Queen.

You can either play through them and guess the next move of the winning side or simply play through them. The level of games varies from being one move deep up to more than 10 moves deep. There are traps that masters have fallen into.

Chess Basics Made Easy

The rules of chess are not especially complicated. They can be explained in 10 minutes and memorised in about an hour. One chessboard and a chess set of 32 chess pieces is used. Chess is a two player game. The player taking the white pieces is called White, while the player taking the black pieces is called Black.

Acoustics is the science of sound.
Music is the art of creating beauty from sound.
Mathematics is the science of logic.
Chess is the art of creating beauty from logic.

Every square, except the corners, is intersected by two diagonals. They are never equal in length. Two diagonals intersect the d4 square. The a1-h8 diagonal is the long diagonal, while the g1-a7 diagonal is the short diagonal.

The rules and basics of Chess are explained using diagrams, text and examples.

If you already know the rules, this book will help to reinforce your knowledge of the basics.

Topics include:

• The Chessboard
• Chess Notation
• The Chess Pieces
• Moves
• Captures
• Promotion
• How to win
• Castling
• Drawing
• Basic functions of the pieces
• Values of the pieces
• Types of Moves
• Tactics

..and much more.

The book teaches and uses standard chess notation, which is short Algebraic notation.

My Chess Books

This is an introduction to some of the Kindle chess books I have written.

They are all available at Amazon. Some of them are available at Barnes&Noble and Apple.

Look Inside

At Amazon you can double-click on the cover to Look Inside the book. This allows you to sample the first 10% of a book. Line breaks which are in the full version, are removed in the Look Inside version.

All books use standard chess notation, which is short Algebraic notation.

Except for Chess Basics Made EasyIt is presumed the reader has familiarity with chess rules and Algebraic notation.

Diagrams

Most of the books have many clear colour diagrams. A few have black and white diagrams.

Paperbacks

Some of these are available as paperbacks at Amazon.

Level of books

This is a rough guide to what level of player books may be suitable for. There is nothing to stop you reading any book.

Intermediate level is between novice level average club player or strong social player level.

Average club level is about 1300 - 1800 ELO. Note that ratings on some websites where you can play chess can be inflated by hundreds of points.

Chess Basics Made Easy is aimed at novice players.

Checkmate Made Easy is aimed at intermediate players.

Attacking the King Made Easy is aimed at intermediate players.

Chess Concepts Made Easy is aimed at intermediate players.

Tactical Patterns Made Easy is aimed at intermediate players.

Opening Moves Made Easy is aimed at intermediate players.

Opening Traps is aimed at intermediate players.

Opening Traps 2 is aimed at intermediate to average club players.

Opening Strategy Made Easy is aimed at intermediate to average club players.

Tactics Practice Book 1 series is aimed at intermediate players.
Tactics Practice Book 2 series is aimed at average club players.

The Endgames Made Easy series is aimed at intermediate to average club players.

Tricky King Pawn Openings is aimed at intermediate to average club players.

The Rate Your chess and Play Like a World Champion series are designed for players of any level.

How I Learned chess is designed for players of any level.

Optimise your Chess Thinking is designed for players of any level.

The Computer Chess books are designed for anyone interested in computer chess.

The My Favourite Chess Variants is designed for anyone interested in chess variants.