Excerpt from De Witt's American Chess Manual: Containing Full Instructions for Young Players, by an Old Chess Player; Also, the New Rules of the Game, Adopted by the American Chess Association in 1880 IN adding a Chess Manual to the series of DE witt's hand books OF games the publishers have endeavored to occupy a space in current chess literature which has been too long vacant and that is; to present a work on Chess which would at once be readably interesting and specially instructive to young chess players, while at the same time its low price would place it within the reach of all. The primary fault of the Chess Manuals hitherto published, has been that they have either been written too much on the scientific plan, if we may so express it, or, in going to the other extreme have been made so Simple in their wording as to be devoid of in terest to the more intelligent class of readers. The happy medium has been the one thing sought for by the editor of this Manual. In doing this he has en deavored to combine instructive and interesting reading, and added such information in regard to the prominent events of the American chess world as would be appro priate for a Manual of the game. In the first part of the Manual will be found a guide to young beginners in the game, from the pen of Mr. Charles H. Stanley, taken from a work on chess, pub lished by Mr. De Witt some twenty years ago. These chapters cannot well be improved upon, and as they were written when that chess veteran was in his prime we present them unchanged. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Although a Chess game differs from a battle in that the material strength of the opponents is equal, the order of events is the same in Chess as in war. The troops are first mobilized and made ready for action with utmost speed, then important positions are occupied which give the troops freedom of action and insure safe lines of retreat and, finally, when the formation of the enemy is known, the strategic plan is made which the generals try to carry out by means of different tactical maneuvers.