Chess Master vs Chess Amateur: A Closer Look

A Summary Of The Book

Chess Master vs Chess Amateur by Max Euwe is a very straightforward book: twenty-five annotated games between a strong player and a weaker player. There was usually a discussion of the opening moves chosen, followed by an analysis of how the Amateur misunderstands the position and how the Master takes advantage. I read this book cover to cover in around three weeks, played three classical games in this time and can really say I saw an improvement.

What Euwe does well is showing how seemingly innocent moves, even moves that don't change the computer evaluation, can be long term mistakes that lose games. Instead of catastrophic blunders, Euwe makes great example of moves that either achieve nothing or are the start of a bad plan. This was something that was seriously lacking in my own play. I struggled greatly with moves that seemed just fine, moves I know that could never be right but I couldn't see how to exploit them. These three games really show how I was able to take advantage of these mistakes.

Game 1 - Jobava London in 4545

If you've seen my blog in the past, you know I'm used to playing in the 4545 league. I put off writing this blog post for a little while but my game today really felt like it belonged here. I had expected an Alapin Sicilian as black, but my opponent chose to surprise me with the Jobava London system.

My opponent had clearly tried to surprise me in the opening while not being familiar with his opening choice. This then meant playing his "mechanical" plan of Nb5-Nxc7+ even though he had the other thematic idea of f3-g4-h4-h5 to trap my light square bishop. The lack of familiarity in the opening meant he did not know what to do and quickly fell apart at the simple problems created.

Game 2 - Chekhover Sicilian

Game 2 was from an OTB league game I played against a similarly rated opponent. This was a great way to see how empty moves (moves that do nothing in the position) can quickly come back to bite you. Just like the last game, it is a game where I had the Black pieces but relatively slow and passive play from White gave me enough opportunity to take over the initiative and cruise to a win.

I really like this game as an example of how my opponent's empty moves ended up causing problems as I took over the initiative. These problems eventually became more concrete and led to a comfortably winning position.

Game 3 - Alapin Sicilian

The final game is by far the most exciting. I thought I had blundered the game early on and did a good job at setting practical problems. In reality, my superior position completely offset the material deficit and the game was won early on. The game is taken from the first round of my local club's annual championship tournament and I was paired against an unrated player.

I wish I went into this game planning on sacrificing the Rook rather than having to figure out the tactics over the board. I nearly resigned after dropping the Rook. It was very instructive to see how my opponent's ideas were bad from the very start.

In Conclusion

I know a lot of these games feel very straightforward: they were won after some trivial blunder from each opponent. That's the point. The ability to recognise my opponent's moves as mistakes as they were happening beyond the game-ending tactic was incredibly useful. From knowing when to chase the initiative to using leads in development in space, it was all covered in Euwe's book. This must be how our games look to Grandmasters in terms of how easy we are to beat. I find it strange that this book isn't talked about as much as other World Champion's classics like Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games. I strongly recommend this book to people looking to learn how they're making mistakes and where they should be looking to close the gap. Most of the issues raised in the book were not things I'd have picked up on when I started reading that first game.