Book Review: Logical Chess, Move by Move, by Irving Chernev

Some of my personal thoughts on this well-beloved classic Chess book

One book title that comes up quite often when beginners ask “What books should I get?” is the classic Logical Chess, Move by Move by Irving Chernev. This book is a classic of chess literature, containing 33 annotated chess games analyzed by possibly Chess’s most pure appreciator.

This book is not without its detractors, nor without its criticisms (much doing with the analysis of the ~master-level strength annotator), but I still think that this is one of the best introductions to chess books one can possibly find. Lots of people have written reviews of this book, so I’m not going to do a huge deep dive on this one; but I do want to discuss my experience reading it and why I think that you should read it if you haven’t already.

I began this book by the time I had already passed the 1600 rating mark on chess.com blitz. In other words, I was already an intermediate-skilled player, and I still benefited from this book.

Some chess books have a quality that’s hard to really define at first, but at its core is an element of culture that transcends the era of the games they contain and in which they were written — there’s a feeling in the air when you read these books that put you into the shoes of the author — suddenly you’re wearing their glasses and you’ve got a new lens through which you can interpret the world. That’s what reading this book was like for me.

Logical Chess was first published in 1957. So, yeah, Chernev’s assessments of opening ideas and plans just do not stand up to modern scrutiny. Heck, some of his analysis should be easily refuted by today’s average club player. But that doesn’t really touch on the point of the book, which is still chock full of chess wisdom that is explained in such a levitous way even today. It’s funny. It’s witty, and it keeps you hooked. You’ll learn a lot simply by being entertained by all the anecdotes.

On 7.O-O: “This remarkable coup, by means of which the king is spirited away to safety while the rook magically appears on the scene, is probably the most significant contribution to civilization since the invention of the wheel.”

The games themselves are not diamonds in the rough. In fact, they’re often one-sided affairs, because how else can you clearly show a plan than when your opponent simply allows it? You’ll see lots of Colle Systems in this book, and you’ll also see how habitual pinning knights with bishops can backfire. You’ll get a taste of 1.e4, 1.d4, and even 1.c4. Every single move is annotated. Yes, Chernev always finds something interesting or new to say about 1.e4. Some people find this annoying — but I think it’s part of the charm of the book. Chernev refuses to be bored by this game — he refuses his reader to be bored as well. Give it a chance.

Chernev’s first introduction of 1.e4 is as follows:

The chief object of all opening strategy is to get the pieces out quickly — off the back rank and into active play.

You cannot attack (let alone try to checkmate) with one or two pieces.

You must develop all of them, as each one has a job to do.

A good way to begin is to release two pieces at one stroke, and this can be done by advancing one of the centre pawns.

Remember — he always finds something insightful to say every time he introduces the move 1.e4 in an particular game, and that happens a lot in this one. This kind of enthusiasm for the game is extremely infectious.

My favorite part about this book is that it introduced me to Capablanca in a way that I think only Irving Chernev could have. I’d never seen an endgame played so buttery-smooth before, and after reading through the small sample of Capa games in this book, it was clear to me I would need to study more (for the record, I’ve studied over 130 Capa games since reading Logical Chess a few years ago).

Overall, this book is well-deserving of the “classic” label. Really, you could read this book once you’ve reaching 900 or 1000 rating on chess.com, and you would be plenty set to learn lots of good principles you can carry with you and learn to modify via later experience. Chernev seems to have an eye for the kind of questions that novice and amateur players are likely to have, so his advice comes with a sort of clairvoyance, even over 65 years later.

5/5