I blogged about Chess Tactics, aka Predator at the Chessboard — put together by my friend and fellow lawprof Ward Farnsworth — a few days ago. Pejmanesque links, and calls it his “dream site.” Mind Poison writes:
Today I discovered a book online that I absolutely love. It’s called (I think) Ward Farnsworth’s Predator at the Chessboard (linked to from Volokh).
There’s two things I take from this. The first is that this is probably the best book on Chess that I’ve ever read for beginners (I am obviously not qualified to comment on more advanced books, being a beginner). I’ve long known all the rules of the game, but I’ve never had any idea what I was doing at all. . . .
This book talks about chess like a human being, explaining the elements of tactics, and how you should be looking at the board, then provides many examples of the same ideas over and over. . . . [F]or the first time I felt like I was able to read the board positions provided and figure out a decent picture of what was going on. Well-written, and highly recommended.
The other thing I’ll say about this book is that “My God, this is a fantastic way to present a book.” If you dig in, you’ll find that the book is done in small chunks, with a frame on the left for the board illustration. This is such a fantastic way to present the materials in a book, because when you need to scroll down, you can keep the relevant illustration in sight. I often read math books or economics papers, and find myself having to stick most of the fingers on one hand between different pages to keep an easy reference to the equations or diagrams referenced throughout the text. Imagine if people adopted this sort of organization for math books, easily presenting everything that each chunk of the text refers to while you read. Brilliant.
High praise, and well-deserved.
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