Chess for Beginners: How to Win Almost Every Game with Proven Tactics, Mind-Blowing Opening Strategies, and a Deep Knowledge of the Rules and Pieces Paperback

I thought I was buying a book about chess strategy but it appears the author 'John Carlsen' may have never played chess before in his life. I read a few pages the first day, put it down disgusted, and tried again a few days later. It was just as bad the second time. An example from page 21: "Chess Knight: The best piece. King's Bishop: Without a doubt, the best piece. Queen's Bishop: ...but best piece, period." Ok, which is the 'best piece'? Also; "Pawn: it is the only piece which can make two squares in a move making it the only piece which can jump over other pieces." Umm, it can't jump over pieces, only the Knight can do that, and most other pieces can move two or more squares.This is just one example of how bad this book is. You can find many more incredibly poor pages, pretty much any page you open to. I suspect all of the 5 star reviews are either paid or bots.

I don’t understand anybody giving this book a positive review. It was so disjointed and incomplete I believe most of the content was a cut and paste operation from one of the authors other publications. There were references to examples that didn’t exist in this book; there were sections that repeated other sections almost word for word and lastly almost a third of the book was about the history of chess, although it also disjointed and confusing. There are references to chess greats that make little sense to a beginner and at best lacked context. Don’t waste your money on this book, there are many more that have got to be more helpful.

This book was promising at the start, and it was interesting to learn the origins of the game. However after the initial draw of the good opening, the middle game was confusing - badly written with poor grammar and a meandering narrative - and the end game was a flop. It didn't give me any indication of how to substantially improve my game.