Review: How to Think Ahead in Chess

How to Think Ahead in Chess by I.A. Horowitz
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I am rating this as it strikes me now; I would have rated it higher (3 stars?) back the first time I wrote is some decades ago. Basically, I think it has not stood the test of time. Still, hoping that some day I can move my own chess play out of the novice level, I can see reason to recommend this work to other novices. This book often references specific pages in Winning Chess: How To See Three Moves Ahead, also co-written with Fred Reinfeld, so consider reading that first or at least having it on hand especially if you are especially new to chess. (the references are for pins, revealed checks, forks, and other strategic arrangements mentioned without explicit definition.)

Now, why I feel it is dated. First, this is a book celebrating the queen pawn opening and the Stonewall Attack. At the time I first read this I was playing often with newer chess software and computer devices. At the time, it seemed such machines could be easily fooled from such an opening. Now, I think modern ones are onto it. Those older chess computers had been vulnerable to the Stonewall because the positions are usually without clear tactical lines. White simply prepares for an assault by bringing pieces to aggressive posts, without making immediate tactical threats. By the time the computer realizes that its king is under attack, it is often too late. This, however, is not the case with newer chess computers. Even in the early '90s when I began to play others online at a site called Achess, others started to explicitly point out the inherent problems of leading with the queen pawn. The downsides to the Stonewall, specifically, are the hole on e4, and the fact that the dark-squared bishop on c1 is completely blocked by its own pawns. If Black defends correctly against White's attack, these strategic deficiencies can become quite serious. Because of this, the Stonewall Attack is almost never seen in master-level chess any more, let alone my own playing.

Still, study of the techniques here are valuable in advancing strategic thinking. For me, I think this has helped me incorporate a fianchetto generally or even "dragon" bishop in my play, this being a necessary response to the Stonewall walling in its own dark-squared bishop.

Another dating of this text is the use of "English" descriptive notation whereas I think anyone reading more modern texts will expect Algebraic chess notation, being more compact than descriptive chess notation and the most widely used method.

Stil being a product of its time and looking back, master-level games are used throughout a chapter for illustration, including some by Morphy (buried not far from my home) and Alexander Alekhine.

Interestingly, the author here places the work at a time when King pawn openings were being eclipsed by the then crafty Queen pawn ones:

In 1927, when Frank Marshall was preparing to sail for London to play in an international master tournament, he approached friends with the half-comic, half-plaintive query: "What defense shall I play against 1 P--Q4 ... ?" If one of the greatest players in the history of this game felt this way after thirty years, what are we mortals to say?

The fact is that finding a defense against 1 P--Q4 is no laughing matter! Most of us have been brought up on 1 P--K4, and we find something uncongenial in the lines of play which eveolve from 1 P--Q4.

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