Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Wow, so many reviews bashing this book for promising the moon and the stars and then not delivering! It's not a bad book! If you are brand new to chess, want to learn to play relatively quickly, without getting bogged down with the more advanced stuff, and want something you can pick up and put down for short periods of time, this is a good book for you. You will learn the rules of the game and the basics of winning the game (checkmate, not long term strategy). It's pretty engaging because it doesn't spend a lot of time on explanations, instead most of its space is devoted to puzzles. Each page has a short one-move puzzle, with the answer on the next page. It's a pretty quick 'read', and it's pretty basic, probably anyone over 1300 should look for something more advanced. I'm a little amused at all of the gripes: "It wasn't written by Bobby Fischer." - OK, fine, but that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile. Many books supposedly by experts were really ghostwritten, doesn't make them worthless. And knowing Bobby's anti-social nature, I suspect he wouldn't be the greatest teacher himself, anyway ;) "It doesn't teach chess." Sure it does. No, it doesn't teach *all* aspects of chess, but it does teach chess! It teaches everything you need to know to complete an entire game. "Not enough written text." This is more of a learn-by-doing kind of book. "Other books are better." Yep, there's lots of great books out there. This one has some good stuff in it, too.