Book notes · Levy Rozman (GothamChess) · Ten Speed Press, 2023
How to Win at Chess
16 chapters246 interactive boards77 puzzles~6 hours of study
Board 00 — Every board in these notes is live: step through Scholar’s Mate, the four-move trap chapter 2 teaches you to play once and defend forever. Black’s natural-looking 3…Nf6 ignores the double attack on f7.
How to use these notes
The chapters follow the book’s order: Part One takes a beginner from the rules to a first opening repertoire, the basic checkmates, draws, and simple strategy; Part Two repeats the cycle — openings, endgames, tactics, strategy — at intermediate depth.
The boards replace the book’s diagrams. Static boards show the point with arrows and marked squares; boards with Back / Next buttons play a line move by move, and boards with variation chips let you switch between lines where they split (⑂ marks a line that branches at the position you are looking at). Every position and move sequence was machine-checked for legality and against an engine.
Boards tagged “Your turn” show only the starting position and a question: find the move yourself, then press Show solution. Under every board, Analyse / practise on Lichess opens that exact position so you can play it out against the computer.
Each chapter ends with “Check yourself”: short questions with collapsible answers. Try to answer before opening them — then go play a game and look for the same pattern.
This is a personal rewrite of the book in original words: every idea, verdict, tip and example is here, reorganised for study. The annotated practice links and the author’s own voice are in the original.