This is one of the last books of the twice Hungarian Champion, Attila Schneider, who died recently of heart failure. His work is characterized by what is termed an ironic humour, and is interspersed with wisecracks by such classics as Moliere, Goethe, Shakespeare, Dostoyevski, Villon and others. The annotations to this splendid selection of games are funny, original, and instructional. It is a highly entertaining book for beginners and Professionals alike, as well as for all those who are interested in fine games of chess ended in spectacular mates.

Here is one of the cracks, made by the composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Chess is too earnest for a game; too much of a game to be earnest about."

At the time when I was laying out Grandmaster Bilek's splendid book entitled In Perpetual Check Till Death, it was myself who wrote the foreword to it. Permit me to start this one also in the same manner.

I don't like humans. I don't like them, because I don't know them. It is the epitaph of the Hungarian writer Milan Fust that I agree with: "He liked few people, and even them he hated". I want this inscribed on my grave, too. Nor do I like myself, either, though it's a fact that I do not know myself.

You are holding an unusual book in your hands. Its subject is checkmating, the path leading to mate, or the avoidance of it. The better understanding of the games is assisted by innumerable diagrams, analyses and annotations. About this latter, some words are indispensable.

I have introduced a new kind of style into the book, that's why its sub-title is "or a very Rude Chess Book". To put it more clearly, I have created two sorts of caricatures: that of the brilliant writer, and that of the fatuous reader. I accuse the readers, while entertaining them with the spectacles of games and mates one more beautiful than the other, with the most primitive mental aberrations; whilst I, the writer, am infallible. The reader is ignorant, dumb and is usually regarded as one who does not know his ass from a hole in the ground, whilst the writer is brilliant and is probably the greatest thinker of our century, and I could yet enumerate further instances of pompousness, one more repellent than the other. Yet, if someone is fond of black humour, and is listening to what I say, and is just laughing at the way I say it, (s)he can easily fall in love with the book.

Since it frequently occurs that I impartially express my opinion of such things, too, which seem to have nothing to do with the art of giving mate, I do solemnly declare that apart from my constant pecking at you, you are wrong again. In this work everything has to do with the subject of the work, you just fail to notice it. The subject of the work is mate-giving, but as you are already accustomed to it that even the most voluble chess book writers content themselves with such stereotypies as "White stands better" or "Black stands better", it is possible, I admit, that the sometimes philosophical thoughts I expose, the quotations helping better understanding, and the new, refreshing tone I'm using may seem to be unusual and may mislead the reader. Therefore, in order that you can better understand what I am just setting forth, permit me to use a quotation: