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Rodolfo Pardi
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Encyclopedia of Chess Patterns, part 1: 101 PATTERNS, 600 pages, 300 diagrams, links to 300 games (Chess manual) Kindle Edition

by Rodolfo Pardi (Author), Evelyne Nicod (Illustrator) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 28 ratings
See all formats and editions
I suggest you look inside:
to check that you will understand
to see 17 out of the 101 patterns
to see figurines instead of piece initials
to appreciate the neat diagrams
to link to sample games

This ebook is a combination of "Fundamental Chess Patterns 1-50 and 51-100", a directory of 101 patterns to be used as a reference, AND the complete analysis of the following patterns: Critical squares , Illusory Pin, Smothered Mate, Attack to the castled King. It presents on my web site one game for most of the patterns.

With a small increase of price, the size increases to more than 600 pages, with a lot of diagrams (300 total) to help understanding the patterns

It is not easy for beginners and intermediate players to learn how to play chess and improve their game. Instead of learning mainly through practice (which could take years) or the study of the games of Masters (difficult and easily forgotten, trying reverse engineering on things one does not understand), this book presents a toolkit of weapons: essential patterns that are necessary to know in order to play well!

What you need to know before reading this book:
* How to use algebraic chess notation
* The ability to visualize at least 4 plies without a board
* Standard tactical devices, such as Counting, Forks, Skewers, Pins

What you will learn in this book:
* Basic patterns that every player must know
* How to improve your game
* How to use Opposition and Critical Squares

What you will NOT get, and why:
* Capablanca: nobody can learn to play well merely from the study of a book, it can only serve as a guide, and the rest must be done by the teacher

There is no limit to what is available to a chess student today: you can find gigabytes of books, software, and video - a jungle in which the student can go astray.

It is well known that strong players see a position broken down into elementary groups (chunks), each having specific, known characteristics. This is due to the huge number of games they have played, analyzed and retained in memory. As a result, they immediately recognize winning patterns.

This book includes NO puzzles, BUT a selection of 101 patterns chosen from among the essential patterns. They need to be engraved in your mind, so that you recognize them immediately (regardless of which side of the board you are on), without any doubt or hesitation.
These are all patterns that are essential to know in order to be able to play well. They are not endless lists of moves, which would be impossible to remember, but rather positions that occur frequently, that you can learn to recognize without thinking, the way Masters do.

Are all these patterns known?
Sure they are, but this is not the point. A GM knows over ten thousand, a CM about 200, but what about you? Can you afford not to know these few key patterns?

Novice and intermediate players are the target of this book, class B (1700 rating or less).

Periodically going through these patterns will help you avoid losses, win more games, and reduce your thinking time. If only one of these patterns was unknown to you (or you were uncertain what to do when you saw it), your learning time will not be wasted.

New! You can see for free on scacchi.vecchilibri.eu/partite (copy the link to your browser) many related games, with English comments. Follow through and download PGN. Appearance is simple and neat, and diagrams start at the appropriate move. An Internet connection is needed. Use a tablet or computer for best results.

Enjoy the reading!

Rodolfo Pardi, librarian, FSI (Italian Chess Federation) instructor and arbiter

Notice:
Translation from Italian was recently checked, however some minor language errors might still be there, for which I apologize.
To make it easier to read, this book uses algebraic notation with figurines
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Previous page
  1. Reading age
    10 - 18 years
  2. Part of series
    Chess manual
  3. Print length
    688 pages
  4. Language
    English
  5. Grade level
    7 - 12
  6. Publication date
    July 25, 2014
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Not Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  11. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

We use the patterns of this book as screening tests for admission to courses aimed to players at expert level, who should know them all.

Fide Candidate Master Andrea Gori

Fun chess book packed with useful patterns
One of the keys to getting better at chess is to fill your brain with as many useful patterns or "chunks" as you can. When you do this, you can offload a lot of the processing and computation that is needed in a position, and just see the pattern.This book contains patterns that every chess player should know. If you have been playing for a while, you will probably know some or all of them, but as Tony Robbins says "Repetition is the mother of skill".

The English in the book is quite fine (the author warns that it might not be in the intro), and I had no problems following it at all.

I liked how the author had figurine notation, and cute original pictures, which makes the book fun.

For new chess players the book is a good intro to the fundamentals, and to a more experienced player an easy refresher course.

Tim Brennan, the creator of Tactics Time

About the Author

Since 2010 he is a Fide-rated chess player, a librarian, an Instructor and a Regional Tournament Director of FSI (Italian Chess Federation) engaged in activities for hischess club. He is no longer an active player as age prevents him from playing tournaments with two 5-hour games a day.The experience he has being an arbiter allows him to directly see all the recurrent errors players make; this is especially true in blitz games and endgames, that he closely watches. The club library he attends has 1500 books, and so has he. On the other hand, the public library Braidense also has the same amount of historical chess books: he is not saying he read them all, but he has access to them all, and knows therefore what's not covered.He has prepared 20 short handbooks in English (out of 50 in different languages) about subjects that are not usually covered by training books.While the ebooks have been especially prepared for 6" monochromatic readers (600x800 dpi), they can be better appreciated on color displays, like Kindle Fire.There are plenty of neat diagrams to reduce the need for a Chess Board, and, so that they can be be easily identified, pieces names are not foreign capital letters, but figurines, designed for a neat appearance. These were some of the first ebooks with this feature (the symbol of the piece appears instead of its capitalized first letter, so anyone can follow in any language).These books are aimed at novice and intermediate players, with up to 1700 ELO rating.For book covers and images inside these books, he used the immense material prepared by Evelyne Nicod for Gatteria. This explains all the cat images, that effectively release tension.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00EXVCBQI
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Gatteria; 6th edition (July 25, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 25, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 12820 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 688 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 28 ratings

About the author

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Rodolfo Pardi

Rodolfo Pardi

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Rodolfo Pardi has had many careers in his lifetime. He was an electronics engineer for military aircraft equipment for 25 years, then a publisher for 20 years. Since 2010, he has been librarian, coach and arbiter of the Italian Chess Federation (FSI); he prepared more than 20 chess manuals in English and many more in Italian, covering many subjects not often seen in chess books.

His book, Chess Patterns, became a bestseller on Amazon.com.  As with all his chess books, there are plenty of diagrams, reducing the need for a chessboard. Piece names are not foreign capital letters, but figurines - one of the first ebooks with this feature.

Books are also linked to sample games on his website, keeping the books neat, but making it easy to follow many more games, and download the PGN versions. Additional free training material is also available on the site.

Most books target novice and club players, up to 1700 ELO.

While English is not his native language, the books are well-structured and easy to read.

The cat covers are designed by Evelyne Nicod, to be found in Goodreads as an illustrator.

To see all his books, just click on "Visit Amazon's Rodolfo Pardi page" above, or go to http://scacchi.vecchilibri.eu/biblioteca/books.htm, a catalog with links and samplers.

Find him also on goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/lapaget

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
28 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Mike Powers
5.0 out of 5 stars Rodolfo Pardi’s “Encyclopedia of Chess Patterns, Part 1” teaches me how to master basic chess patterns.
Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2017
Verified Purchase
I recently purchased the “Encyclopedia of Chess Patterns, Part 1” by Rodolfo Pardi. This is an expanded version of Pardi’s “FCP: Fundamental Chess Patterns 1-50, a Handbook,” which I had purchased earlier this year. The “Encyclopedia of Chess Patterns, Part 1” (shortened to "ECP Part 1" for this review) includes the first fifty patterns shown in “FCP,” but adds 51 more patterns of increasing difficulty and complexity.

The book’s author is Rodolfo Pardi, a self-described “librarian, instructor, and arbiter of the Italian Chess Federation.” He has an interesting theory about how to improve chess playing skills through the mastery of basic move patterns. He believes that a thorough understanding of these patterns on a chessboard will help chess players improve their game better than “learning through practice” or “studying the games of masters.” In his “ECP Part 1," he offers a set of diagrams showing 101 of what he considers the most fundamentally important patterns that players should learn by heart. According to Pardi, players who do this will definitely improve their game.

At first, I was a bit skeptical of Pardi’s theory, but I dove into the “ECP Part 1" anyway. I now can attest to the soundness of Pardi’s ideas and the usefulness of his books. My game has improved a great deal since I started using this book. When I started last winter, I was playing at about a 1000 Elo level; today, today, my estimated Elo rating is about 1350.

“ECP Part 1" comes in a Kindle version, and it benefits greatly from its large, clear, and colorful diagrams and a large and easy-to-read font. “FCP” is translated from Italian to English, and the English translation is nearly flawless.

I have discovered that using “ECP Part 1" along with one of my computer chess programs provides me the greatest benefit. I can set up a given “Encyclopedia” position on my computer, analyze it, find the most correct solution, and play through variations. As a result, I continually gain a greater understanding of the game I most love to play.

I like the “Encyclopedia of Chess Patterns, Part 1” FCP” so well that I recently purchased Pardi’s “Encyclopedia of Chess Patterns,” Part 2.” Most highly recommended.
2 people found this helpful
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David J. Couture
5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Buy This Book Unless You Want to Improve Your Rating!
Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2013
Verified Purchase
I gave this book 5-stars for multiple reasons:

1) The book itself is excellent. It shows and explains patterns that you see frequently and need to recognize immediately without calculating variations. The explanations go beyond just showing you the moves. For example, in his explanation of mating with just a rook and bishop against a safely castled king, he points out what the key move in the sequence is, which was an a-ha moment for me and permanently burned the pattern into my brain.
2) The book is a great value. It is a combination of his ebooks "FCP: a Handbook of Fundamental Chess Patterns", "The most important Chess Pattern: Opposition & Critical Squares", and "A Selection of additional Chess Patterns", along with a number of very useful appendices, one of which is made up of the games from which the various patterns and positions were taken. That's a lot of book for $1.99! You can't go wrong at that price and I can almost guarantee that if you are below expert (under 2000 USCF) you will find much that will be new to you.

Conclusion: Just buy it! It's a cliche, but true in this case, that it "would be a bargain at twice the price".
4 people found this helpful
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Midwestern guy
5.0 out of 5 stars CATegorically helpful
Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2017
Verified Purchase
Cleverly organized with links to the author's webpages to see the patterns in better context of actual games. Difficult to see some illustrations on small screens but great on larger tablets and laptop / desktop screens. Well worth the economical price.
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Daniel
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book at a great price. Very well conceived.
Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2014
Verified Purchase
This is an excellent book for beginners at chess. Mr. Rodolfo should be praised for his effort, since the book is original and very well conceived. It is flooded with high quality diagrams, accompained by concise, but very objective explanatory text. I highly recommend it to anyone who seeks to learn the basic chess patterns.
2 people found this helpful
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Good Book
5.0 out of 5 stars Fundamemtal Chess Patterns
Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2014
Verified Purchase
Essential knowledge for all players from beginner to master. Outstanding basic technique is mastery. You cam never study the basics enough. Going through this book will reinforce the basic patterns in your memory. It will make your fiundation stronger and stronger. Highly recommended.
One person found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!!
Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2015
Verified Purchase
Excellent! This ebook is three previous books by the same author (thwe cover page "says" that) combined, plus other material and features.
The combination improves an already excellent product.
Highly recommended!
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TimB
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully-distilled chess tactics
Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2015
Verified Purchase
Even though English is clearly not the author's first language, he does a fantastic job of distilling a large volume of chess theory into something that can easily be learned.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good. Clear simple patterns
Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2014
Verified Purchase
Very good. Clear simple patterns, and by learning to recognize them in a game has been the best way I have found to improve my game fast
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Top reviews from other countries

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P Lec
4.0 out of 5 stars conforme
Reviewed in France on May 2, 2021
Verified Purchase
RAS conforme à la commande
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Corrado
5.0 out of 5 stars Conoscere gli schemi fondamentali
Reviewed in Italy on February 5, 2019
Verified Purchase
Ho trovato molto utile e formativo acquisire familiarità con questi temi.
La narrazione è semplice; la conoscenza acquisita induce maggior sicurezza e disinvoltura nello svolgimento della partita.
One person found this helpful
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Pete, East Yorkshire
5.0 out of 5 stars A very good book.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 18, 2014
Verified Purchase
I have only had this for a couple of weeks and have learned a lot from it already.
There are links to games that show how the patterns are used in actual games.You can follow the links on a laptop or tablet.
A very good book.
4 people found this helpful
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Cliente Amazon
2.0 out of 5 stars Deludente
Reviewed in Italy on July 19, 2017
Verified Purchase
Forse nutrivo troppe aspettative e mi aspettavo patterns più avanzati. Libro per principianti e per chi ha iniziato a giocare da poco tempo.
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