[1] The book is intended for beginners and uses a programmed learning approach,[2] permitting readers to go back and retry each question if they give a wrong answer.

[14] The software received mixed reviews, PC Gamer noting the "ugly 2-D board" and Entertainment Weekly describing the lessons as "humorless... dogmatic, and fearsome".

[17] According to Margulies, Fischer wanted a high-quality work free of any errors, so Michael Valvo and Raymond Weinstein were brought in as proofreaders.

[18] Frank Brady, who was hired by Basic Systems as a promotional consultant, later said the book "lacked color or even a fleeting glimpse into the real way Bobby's mental processes work" and that it "was not ... one of the great introductory chess treatises of modern times.

"[17] The Times Literary Supplement, reviewing a 1973 British edition, criticized Fischer's grammar as well as the lack of content, which they said could have been compressed to fifty pages.