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Kevin Houston Provides a Vital Bridge for Elementary Chess Players.

First let me say that Kevin Houston's book of chess puzzles is laid out with simplicity as its foremost objective. He says that it isn't about grandmasters' deeds, or targeted at officionados and that's true; it isn't.

Let me also say something which is important. We must define what 'the average chess player' means; for it is towards him that what I'm going to say next is directed.

My own definition is that the average chess player does not play competitive chess at adult, or senior-youth, level and nor does he play actively in a chess club. Those individuals I call keen or studious chess players. And my own view is that this book is aimed below their level.

The typical chess books that I own are both densely worded and filled with lists of grandmasters' moves and tiny diagrams. Kevin's text is minimal and explanatory. And his diagrams are large and enlightening, although, once you've learned the 'secret' of each puzzle you feel foolish for not having spotted it.

If you play through these puzzles with a board, my advice would be: Before reading Kevin's answer, to twist the board to sit in its natural position as if you were facing a real opponent and then guess what your move would actually be. It's sometimes possible to predict Kevin's answer if you do that. I did with the second puzzle.

In Puzzle two, to be fair to Kevin, I didn't spot White's attack on Black's king and knight. But I was naturally drawn to the exchange of a knight for White's bishop.

I spent more time looking at Puzzle Three. Kevin's final solution is to withdraw Black's black-squared bishop. But the mayhem and misfortune, including the destruction of Black's whole centre, resulting from an ill-advised, penetrating attack on the part of Black's white-squared bishop, as the puzzle initially suggests, would exhibit a move made by a player with absolutely no knowledge of the risks of chess moves!

At the end of the puzzles, in Puzzle Twenty Three, white is fending off a fairly simple checkmate. If White fails to advance his king then he's doomed. Presumably White has been under some pretty intense pressure up until this point, so he ought to be aware of the difficulty that he's in.

In all I'd say that this book contains several elementary lessons in the art of thinking like a chess player. I'd call it the Bridge Between Learning How the Pieces Move, which is all that many people ever manage to do, and Learning to Plan a Chess Strategy. I'd advise inexperienced players not to believe that they'll start winning club-level games after reading this book, because they probably won't. But if after reading this book and working through its exercises they begin to realise what kinds of devious thoughts are going through the minds of the players who've always beaten them, now that they've read Kevin's book, they'll understand what those thoughts consist of!