Most if not all games played in the club level are decided by elementary tactical mistakes. Even more games could be decided by them as patzers like me cannot notice the mistakes by the opponent or they cannot find the right way to punish the other player for his or her weak moves. This was one of the ideas that gave rise to the movement of Knights Errant a couple of years ago.
There are two main difficulties in following the route proposed by Michael de la Maza. One of them is to find enough time and stamina to work through a huge collection of tactical puzzles. The other problem was to collect the puzzles needed for the exercise. The latter problem can be solved by using Richard Palliser's book which includes on more than 300 pages 1200 tactical chess puzzles with computer-checked solutions.
The first one hundred puzzles are solvable by even beginning players. For the more experienced players, these can function as warming up for the more difficult puzzles. The next chapters are organized on a rather wide theme. The second chapter of the Complete Chess Workout is dedicated to the attack and the puzzles in the chapter are certainly useful exercises for any chess player. As the chapter is probably most important in the book, it does not surprise that it has almost 100 pages.
The next chapters include tactical positions with opening tricks and traps, followed by fifteen pages of endgame positions. Endgame is probably the weakest part of any club players chess skills. It could well be argued, that the chapter should have considerably more pages than it has been given. Unfortunately, I believe that most of the readers of this book will not spend as much time with this part of the book as with the more sexy attacking puzzles. The last three chapters are about loose pieces and overloading and "fiendish calculation". Finally, the book ends with ten "test yourself" tests, each with sixteen tactical puzzles. And of course, the books last pages present the reader with solutions to each of the problems printed in the book.
One of the great things about this book is the fact that Richard Palliser has spent some time looking around the latest chess databases in his search for tactical positions. Most of the puzzles are from recent games, played all around the world. So the puzzles are mostly new ones even if some old classics are included in the collection as well.
I warmly recommend this book to any chess player under master level. It should be especially useful for patzers like me!
Rating: *****
Buy the book: The Complete Chess Workout: Train your brain with 1200 puzzles! (Everyman Chess)
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To whom it may concern,
ReplyDeleteIn 2008, I published a book by the title of The Final Theory of Chess. This book uses computer generated analysis to explore openings such as the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, the French Defense - Advance Variation: Nimzowitsch Attack, the Dutch Defense - Ilyin-Zhenevsky System and many others.
This book represents four years of around-the-clock computer analysis using several computers. In total, approximately three-hundred sixty-five pages are filled with computer analysis. I have also begun a chess openings wiki ( http://finaltheoryofchess.game-server.cc/mediawiki/index.php/Initial_Position ) based around the openings which are analyzed in my book.
I would like to mail you a complimentary copy of the book. Would any book reviewer associated with chessbookreviews.blogspot.com be interested in receiving a copy and possibly reviewing the book? Thanks in advance for your response.
Sincerely,
-Gary M. Danelishen
gary@finaltheoryofchess.com