Beautiful Puzzles - Ebook by Rucha Pujari
When a top grandmaster was asked why he didn't write a book on chess, he replied, "It's a lot of hardwork!" Surely writing a chess book takes a lot of time, efforts and research. But quality work helps many people become better at the game. WFM Rucha Pujari spent months going over thousands of games and combinations and has finally come out with an ebook - "Beautiful Puzzles". In this article she describes the process of writing the book and also what you can expect to find in it.
As I walked into 2016, the year seems to have started well for me as my first ebook got released. I can call myself an author now that ‘Beautiful Puzzles’ is available on Amazon!
After months of work, and going through a lot of chess games, the book is finally here.
Personally, I admire the artistic aspects of Chess. With this interest in mind, I started exploring and going through hundreds of games – mostly recent ones in search of aesthetics. The positions are completely new and ideas, fresh. Presenting in this book 150 hand-picked chess combinations for you to solve and admire.
Journey:
The journey to achieve this final product started in 2015, it was a long voyage, let me divide it into two stages. The first part of the year was spent on brainstorming, discussions with the publisher - Asim Periera, and generating ideas. This part was very important to get a direction to proceed.
Where to start?
This is an open-ended question, so the approach was not to arrive at a solution but to create many options and ideas. What will be the book about? How to collect the data for it? How to organize this data? How to make this interesting and unique? What will the readers gain from this ebook?
The later part of 2015 was specifically spent on developing and shaping the book. It took longer than expected to finish, as it was not easy to get back in the momentum whenever there was a break, for example when I went away to play in tournaments. Also I started a Chess Academy in Kolhapur in September, and the work on the ebook somehow got delayed.
As I look back today, I see that all the time spent on this ebook was worth it.
Content:
Me and Asim arrived at the decision to make this book a ‘solving book’ but with unique things to offer. The initial database that I started working with contained more than ten thousand games. My task was to search beautiful combinations from them. One of the important aspects is that, most of the puzzles selected for this ebook are taken from the recent games. Due to this, the readers will get to see new combinations and fresh ideas.
Throughout the preparation of the material, the focus always remained on quality.
In Search of Aesthetics:
Hundreds of years, millions of games, and yet we keep on finding more and more beauty in this game. Going through thousands of games, I came across wonderful ideas, fascinating plans and unexpected moves. Let me share with you examples from this ebook. Try to solve them on your own before looking at the solutions.
Solution: Here Black plays 1…Rg3!! A spectacular move 2. hxg3 Qe4!! -+ And the mating threat on g2 is unavoidable. 0-1
Solution: Did you find the idea? 1. Bxc4 Rxc4 2. h4!! Deflecting the Queen and White will pick up the c4-Rook next. Yes, we never know when an h-Pawn will make our day!
Structure:
From many games, I cut down to 250 chess combinations, and from that the final 150 were selected. These are presented in ten different chapters, with interesting title names. This was not an easy job, to search and select and finalize every single position did take a lot of time. Also, every single one of the position had to be checked in detail for a unique solution. Then the next task was to find similar patterns and themes to be able to compile them under chapters. One of the best parts of this ebook is that, one position is adjusted on a single page and immediately followed by solution on the next page. Also in the Black to play positions, the board is flipped. Such details make the ebook easy to use.
Media:
A short talk was taken by the local news channel (in marathi), regarding the ebook. Watch it below.
Concluding Words:
My first ebook Beautiful Puzzles, is finally released and is available on Amazon Kindle.
You can buy the books from the link given below
Note: All those who have subscribed to kindleunlimited can read the book for free.
It was a great experience for me writing this book and I really enjoyed the process. I would like to thank the publisher, Asim Pereira, for his kind help and for giving me this opportunity.
I am sure you will take delight in reading and solving the beautiful puzzles from this ebook and at the same time become stronger chess players. Do leave your valuable feedback and reviews in the comments section below.
About the Author
Rucha Pujari is a Woman FIDE Master from India. She fell in love with chess when she was six, and ever since has been actively competing in tournaments. Apart from chess she likes to read, paint, write, travel and take on new challenges. She has written around 35 articles in a weekly column of a very famous Marathi newspaper, where she talked about Chess and life of a sportsperson. She has also taken part in promoting the game in her city by starting the Ruchess Academy. She maintains a personal blog.