Sunday Book Review: Catalog of Chess Mistakes

Catalog of Chess Mistakes
Andy Soltis
David McKay (1979)
softcover, 213 pages
English descriptive notation

Grandmaster Andy Soltis' "Chess to Enjoy" column in the monthly Chess Life magazine has been one of the most popular features with readers for decades. Soltis writes well, and he knows what he readers want to see.

Catalog of Chess Mistakes is one of the author's older titles, written when he was still an International Master. Yet, it is worth a look (or another look) as it fits in well with several titles that I have touched on over the last few weeks: Why You Lose At Chess, Danger in Chess and Surprise in Chess.

Soltis starts right out annoying traditionalists
If you are like me, you have already started giggling.

Chess is a game of bad moves. It it, in fact, the game that most depends on error. No game has a greater variety of ways of going wrong or gives you as many opportunities – dozens on every move. Other games depend heavily on chance or on the mastery of some relatively limited skills. But a chess game is decided by the failings of one of the players.

Yet we refuse to recognize this. We like to think the game is a battle between good moves and better moves. When we win, we tell ourselves – and anyhone who will listen – that the critical difference was our fine maneuvering, our positional cunning, or our tactical ingenuity. When we lose, well, it was a stupid mistake – as if errors were an abberation, an extraordinary accident. Mistakes can only be messy, ugly, and disruptieve, we say.

Soltis is only warming up

The masters know better. They know that a well-played game is not an error-free game. There are errors of varying magnitudes, and each game is sure to hold some small mistakes. "Chess is the struggle against error," said Johanned Zukertort, one of the greatest players of the last century. Victory belongs to the player who struggles best – not just against an opponent, but against himself.

The author lays out his targets in each chapter: Tactical Errors, Mistakes with Pieces, Calculation and Miscalculation, Positioinal Errors, Strategic Errors, Your Attitude Is Your Error, Practical Mistakes and Errors with Material.

He encourages players to examine their own games, asking
1) What kind of error is it?
2) How serious would the error be if punished?
3) When was the error made?
4) What was the status of the game when you comitted the error?
5) How were your errors spaced?

Once you've developed this Error Profile you'll know, in short, what part of your game you need to work on away from the tournament hall and what to watch out for when you are at the board. Self-awareness is the name of the game.

My only concern is that it remains in English Descriptive Notation (e.g. 1.P-K4) which may be annoying to some players and incomprehensible to younger ones. Still, it's worth the effort!
Catalog of Chess Mistakes is an engaging, humorous, enjoyable book; its examples are well-drawn from games and players strong and not-so-strong; read it, and you will begin shedding some of your more memorable mistakes.