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Test Your Chess IQ Book 1. A. Livshitz. Translated by K. P. Neat. Pergamon Press. First edition 1981. Second edition 1988.
One of the first examples of the since world-renowned Soviet School of Chess training methods to be published abroad, as part of the Pergamon "Russian Chess" series, which brought many little-known Russian chess books to an English-speaking audience.
Livshitz presents 458 positions, arranged by type and sorted into 56 lessons of 8 positions each. Each type is spread over several consecutive lessons, which become progressively more difficult.
Like most if not all such books, not all the solutions withstand close scrutiny. For example, position 148, p. 40 (1r3rbk/4q1pp/p2pn1p1/1p2p1P1/4P1B1/P3BP2/1PPQ3R/2K4R w) is busted. The printed solution is 1.Rxh7+ Bxh7 2.Qh2 Kg8 3.Qxh7+ Kf7 4.Qxg6+ Resigns (4...Kxg6 5.Bh5+ Kh7 6.Bf7#). But 2...Nxg5 prevents the mate (3.Bxg5 Qxg5+).
Again, for position 182, p. 48 (3rr1k1/ppq2ppp/8/5b2/2B1p3/1PP4P/P1Q2PPb/R1B1RK2 b), the solution given is 1.e3!! [sic] 2.Qxf5 Qxc4+!! 3.bc e2+ 4.Rxe2 Rd1+. But this dramatic finish can be avoided quite easily by 2.Qe2, when Black has nothing better than 2...Bf4.
Test 28 has 2 broken positions out of 8! In position 217 (r5k1/4p2p/qp2PppB/3p4/n5Q1/7P/5PP1/R5K1 w) a side variation 1.Qb4 Qa7 2.Rxa7 Qxa7 3.Qxe7 is given as winning for White; but simply 3...Qa7 is an adequate reply, leaving Black the exchange up and White struggling to draw. In position 224 (r1b2n2/ppp1kr1p/1q2pb2/5pN1/7Q/2P5/PP1BBPPP/2KR3R w), an unexpected Black defence upsets White's combination: 1.Bh5 Rg7 2.Be3 c5, with an unclear position, but no mate in 3!
In the Introduction, Livshitz explains
Anyone beginning a systematic study of chess is invariably faced by the question: with what should I start? One of the greatest of chess teachers, the Czech grandmaster Richard Reti [sic], wrote: First you should learn to make combinations, before attempting to play positionally. This principle has been confirmed throughout the history of chess, and we seriously advise every chess player to firmly adopt it.
True enough; but I seriously doubt whether this book is where one ought to begin a study of combinations. To my mind, the first book in Ivaschenko's "School of Chess Combinations" is much better suited as a starting-point. Books 1a and 1b of Ivashchenko give a firm base from which Livshitz's book can then be used with profit.
Livshitz's further advice to tackle no more than 2 tests a week seems wrong-headed, and unsupported by any paedagogical method that I know of; though in fact this was the approach I followed when I discovered the first edition of this book back in 1998, working through it sporadically over the next year or so.
In my latest reading of the book, at the time of writing, I am doing one lessons (8 positions) a day. It deosn't seem excessive. When I'm finished the book, I'll redo all those positions I got wrong the first time round. If I am still getting some wrong, then I'll attempt those a third time; and so on until I am scoring 100%. It might be better for pattern-learning purposes to repeat all of the tests, but I think my method a more appropriate use of my limited time.
Virtually the only criticism of the book's 1st edition concerned the quality of the diagrams, and so for this new edition they have been made both larger and clearer. This has necessitated a slight restructuring of the material, and each test now consists of exactly 8 positions, a change which has been achieved by adding some new examples, and deleting a few.
This second edition has since been republished by Cadogan (Pergamon having gone out of business with the collapse of the "Maxwell Empire"), as far as I am aware without change save for the addition of the subtitle "First Challenge". Cadogan have also republished Book 2 (q.v.), subtitled "Master Challenge"; and I think they commisioned Livshitz to write a third volume, "Grandmaster Challenge". I have looked through this Book 3 in a shop, but didn't buy it as I found the diagrams the worst I had ever seen. Cadogan, by the way, are now called Everyman Chess.
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Last changed: Sun Mar 3 11:49:40 CET 2019