By far and away, the quickest and most effective way to improve your chess performance is to increase your tactical skill so that at a glance you are able to see the typical mating patterns and material-winning tactical motifs that so often decide a game. The positions are grouped by tactical motifs (pin, discovered attack, and so on), but the book also presents mixed motifs and mate puzzles.

n\nThis book would benefit not just the beginners of the title, but also inexperienced players, casual and lower rated players. He explains all the basic concepts, and provides you with a huge amount of exercises for each theme and each chess piece. hanging piece an undefended piece that is under attack loose piece an u ndefended piece that is not under immediate attack mating net usually q u iet moves that trap the king in preparation of mate Novotny theme this is the term used when a piece is sacrificed on a square where it could be taken by two d ifferent opponent pieces - which­ ever piece makes the capture obstructs the action of the other. In this position, which is almost identical to the preceding one, Black can save both pieces with the simple move 1 . In hindsight, I can see why it's a good move and can imagine the train of thought that could lead one to considering that move.blow that secures a draw by perpetual check or stalemate is just as rewarding as a brilliant checkmate. The name is a slight misnomer — I wouldn't recommend it to literal beginners — but it should be appropriate for people over 1400 Lichess rapid, and is certainly a good first puzzle book to get. 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.

However, checkmate is much easier to achieve when we have an advantage in material, namely more pieces. The King can't capture it as it's protected by the pawn on f4, the King has no available square to move too so it's checkmate. Thought this book cover chess introduction and some endgames, 90% of the book's contents are tactics problems. If an unim­ peded king is in that square with the opponent to move, the king can prevent pawn promotion. I would classify it more as an excellent practice tool for advance beginners, and a fun, convenient tactics review for intermediate players.I‘m currently on the 4th repetition cycle on "1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners“ and I intend to do a 5th one as well, but figuring out what to do after that is a bit of a struggle. Not purely puzzle book, but 1200 or so Tactics positions can be treated like a puzzle book if you ignore the text.

Chess masters Franco Masetti and Roberto Messa have done both: they explain the basic tactical ideas AND provide an enormous amount of exercises for each different theme. Players up to 2000 Lichess rapid can certainly get good use out of it, but from there the book's value peters out, as most puzzles will be trivial for players much stronger than that. There is also a small section where the reader is instructed to place a named piece on the board to achieve mate or the gain of material, which I found to be quite creative and refreshing. I'll post a few books that I've collected on my wish list that seem to be advised at least once on this site. As the author says in his preface (his emphasis): ‘"},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"Where should you go if you want to become a tactical wizard?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. This book has been my first serious, focused, daily effort to work on my chess (before that it‘s been all Youtube videos, some sporadic online puzzles here and there and occasionally going over master games on chessgames.