This was one of the first chess books I owned. I won the brilliancy prize in my first national championship and this was it. I won it for a Scotch Gambit and I suppose this book might have encouraged me along such paths. In practice, however, this did not happen...maybe once I realised that the road to victory was paved with traps, pitfalls and swindles, it moved me towards ways of playing that would avoid that whole short, sharp, painful way to lose.

I'm a coward, what can I say?

Oh, for the record, Reinfeld is great. He went through a period of being denigrated for no more than being popular. Maybe he still is??? But he made chess fun. And if you owned, as I once did, a library of his obscure, early, roneoed publications in purple ink, you'd realise just how much he loved the game. ( )

3/3/22