Description
The Modern Chess Instructor
by Wilhelm Steinitz
Steinitz was justly proud of The Modern Chess Instructor, which he quoted from extensively for the rest of his career in columns and game annotations. Although he hardly made a financial profit at the time, this masterpiece by the First World Chess Champion is still profitable to the chess play of anyone who makes a study of its pages. Steinitz has here added greatly to our common chess heritage.
The book makes a carefully designed attempt to be the complete and self-contained chess course for beginning players. The movements of the pieces and setting up the board; the rules, technical terms and piece valuations. All wrapped up by a discussion of the "Modern School" in chess, by which time the student is prepared for a synopsis of chess openings. This turns out to be detailed summaries of master practice, supplemented by many original suggestions and analysis. The discussion of each opening system (8 openings, including "Part 2, Section 1" published in 1895) concludes with a well annotated selection of Illustrative Games. The book ends with an account of the 1889 match for the world championship between Steinitz and Tschigorin.
This eBook contains 20 text documents, followed by complete analytical coverage of 8 major King's Pawn openings. Each opening is illustrated by annotated game examples - about 100 in number, and including the 1889 Steinitz-Tschigorin match.
Not surprisingly, The Modern Chess Instructor was well received in 1889, and today it retains its value as an introduction to chess. Even the opening analysis offered by Steinitz 130 years ago would make a difficult opponent of anyone using it today, since many of these basic variations do not appear in popular opening books. If one had to select a single title as his guide to chess, then The Modern Chess Instructor might still to head the list.
Players adopting either side after 1.e4 e5 need this book! Of course, anyone attempting to employ the opening analysis here will likely find certain assessments overturned or move-orders discarded by modern practitioners. All the better if the reader is prepared for some original thinking, and The Modern Chess Instructor could doubtless be formed into a viable tournament repertoire even in the 21st century.
That is because the principles handed down in this classic manual remain sound, for they are built on Steinitz's scientific method. The foundation of The Modern Chess Instructor is fixed in the bedrock of our game, and the passing years will not move it.
System requirements:
You will need ChessBase 6.0 or higher, or Fritz (Komodo, Houdini, etc), or download the free ChessBase Reader here. Also: Pentium 1 GHz, 512 MB RAM, Windows 10, 9, Vista, or Windows XP (Service Pack 2)