1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners: The Tactics Workbook that Explains the Basic Concepts, Too

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First of all, I've never seen a tactics book that doesn't explain the basic concepts of the different tactics. While the easier problems can be solved without a chess board, we suggest that for the more difficult ones you set up the positions on a board and try to find the solution as if you were playing a real game. Over the board, individual tactical motifs are often hidden in the complexity of the position, and a player must train his eye to recognise how a combination of tactical themes can be put tog ether to achieve his objective, be it mate or winning material.

Author Franco Masetti and International Master Roberto Messa do an effective job selecting informative puzzles that, when known by heart, make similar positions simple to navigate. It's not a huge deal if you don't expect yourself to solve everything perfectly, but sometimes I found myself asking "Wait, what is this doing here? I love the fact the it is divided in two parts: One classical with puzzle organized by theme and the other part an revision with no hint (randomn puzzles).

I knew I'd have some difficulty with the problems seeing as I was at the lower end of the intended rating range. However, double attack is most commonly used to describe a position in which one piece attacks two undefended pieces simultaneously and only one of those threatened pieces is able to save itself. Naturally, I‘d like to keep up this type of dedicated study after the current project is finished, but I‘m unsure whether it would be smarter to continue along the tactics route (1001 Chess Exercises for Club Players would be the obvious suggestion) or shift focus to other areas of the game, such as strategy or endgames, both of which I‘ve never studied seriously before. White initiates a combination that includes deflection and a pin; Black has no choice but to part with his rook to avoid checkmate.

On a slight tangent, I find this to be an infuriatingly common slip-up with chess literature — hide the damn spoilers! I was already familiar with the tactics, but the selected puzzles helped iron out my understanding and recognition of them. I'm 1700 on Lichess Rapid right now, and I joined a club recently, I don't have a rating at the moment, but they've paired me against 1500 rated USCF players who I've been at least equally matched against. Plusieurs variantes très pertinentes pour presque chaque diagramme, donc très bien pour s'entraîner à calculer !

Notwithstanding that White has a two pawn to zero advantage, Black immediately draws by eliminating the only dangerous pawn: 1 . This book starts with hundreds of essential mating positions that train immediate visual recognition; first there are the easier mate in one or two move exercises; then there are exercises for various crucial tactical motifs that must be mastered by any aspiring chess player; these are followed by more demanding positions where these various motifs are often combined. It's also very nice to have the chapters on "Mixed Motifs" where each problem can have several tactical ideas and you don't have a hint like "look for a skewer. These exercises are more than just good fun; they improve pattern recognition, visualisation and creativity as well.