Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess

Introduction

I have no idea what the book is supposed to be about. The title is misleading and it hadn’t been written by Fischer himself. Now, that’s also true for his 60 Memorable Games, in which the only part Fischer had actually written are the annotations, and I suspect he must have had those written down long before the idea for the book came about. Technically, Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess is a puzzle book for absolute beginners. It teaches mating patterns on a very basic level. The only reason I’ve decided to cover it is because I was astonished with how useless it is and Fischer is by far my favorite chess player.

The Basics for Beginners

The only truly useful part of the book, albeit for total beginners, is the introductory section, where the authors explain board geometry and how the pieces move.

So, if you don’t know the rules of chess or the most basic patterns, you’ll get something out of the book. Secondly, the explanations of tactical patterns are well written. As seen below, the authors have explained geometry in an easily understandable way.

Problem difficulty

I would say that the book is aimed at beginners. Complete beginners who’ve only just grasped the rules of the game. I solved every problem I looked at within 3 seconds without using a board.

Quality of annotations

The solutions to the simple problems can hardly be called annotations. They’re simply a one or two-sentence answer to what the question was. No variations, nothing.

Conclusion

Unless you don’t know the rules of chess and you don’t have access to the internet so that you can learn them in 10 minutes online, you won’t benefit from this book.