Alekhine's Block: The Tactician's Handbook

By Victor Charushin

World chess champion Alexander Alekhine (1892-1946) refined the art of Kingside attack into its purest form. Often Alekhine's onslaught was accompanied by the spectacular placement of a piece directly... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1886846065
• ISBN13: 9781886846067
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Pickard & Son Pub
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 2.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.3" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Charushin is a Genius!

After studying this book's introduction very, very carefully you can pick up some tips to enhance your basic chess middlegame play. Using that knowledge as you play through a game or two in this book over and over day by day can do wonders for your surprise springing ability! You must be patient with yourself, though, as you branch out into the real world of over-the-board chess and lose game after game in trying to win with this "jaw-dropping" tactic! The instruction you receive from Charushin (after the introduction) is strictly through stark notation of games. But, being that you understand the complete idea of Alekhine's Block after reading the introduction, you come to see that Charushin really didn't need to weigh down this slim gem of a chess book with commentary on other aspects of the game. Your first impression after seeing the multitude of stark chess notation might lead you to think otherwise, but, I can see how Charushin did a good job in his categorizing the games which leads to understanding the main idea; Alekhine's Block. I would have to further say a big BEWARE to chess beginners and say be honest with yourself and don't read this book if you are a beginner. Using Alekhine's Block (and even learning how to use it through this book) takes some understanding of chess so that you can use it effectively; you need to understand what's going on in the chess play that leads up to Alekhine's Block!! You also have to know when not to even try to use Alekhine's Block.

Excellent Book

This is an excellent book for those that are Class B or higher (I'm currently class A) that are looking to push their skills one step farther. Before reading this book, I never even considered such moves that would at first appear to just merely drop a piece. Books like this and "Positional Sacrifices" by Neil McDonald are helping me see more into a position than merely looking at trades and moving strictly to squares that aren't under attack. The games are entertaining as well. However, tactics of this nature are probably a bit too complicated for lower rated players.

Excellent but not for beginners

It's too bad Mr Charushin does not provide any comments to the wonderful collection of games in this book. If you riffle through the pages itlooks like a dictionary, just one game after another. It would have really been awesome if Victor Charushin would have had provided the How's and Why's of each move, like Bruce Pandolfini does in his books. Otherwise a good collection of games containing examples of Alekhine's tactic. A few of the games in the book played by Kasparov and Fischer are well worth looking at. Beginners should start elsewhere.