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If you are looking for a totally absolute complete course on tactics, my suggestion is to get this book and the "How to Beat your DAD at chess" book. Put together you get coverage of all tactics themes in a format that is fun and contains tons of instruction.
Between them that is a total of 100 different tactics motifs, with over 700 diagrams overall to illustrate the ideas and provide test positions.
A motif is an idea for a combination that can be used in lots of different situations, even if the position is different each time.
The themes are shown in a fantastically clear way that is easy to understand, and I don't think it matters in which order you read the books. My experience was that the DAD book was extra fun because it covers attack against the king, and everyone loves playing sacrifices to give a forced checkmate.
But I also found that "Chess Tactics for Kids" has lots of tactical ideas that I get to use nearly every game I play.A real incentive to learn all the positions.
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If you are not already an experienced player, this neat little book will improve your game for sure. It's all about pattern recognition: spotting familiar clusters of pieces that alert strong players to the possibility of a combination. There are 50 different motifs covered, and all win material in one way or another.
All strong players know and use these patterns frequently. Learning them is essential if you want to improve. Chandler's book is clearly intended for the lower level player (though not only juniors), but it is an intelligent read, and often fun. The author is a grandmaster, and you can be sure he knows what he is talking about.
Layout is friendly and I like it that the book opens flat,a benefit of hardcover.
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This is a sequel to the book How to beat your Dad at Chess and once again Murray Chandler gives us an overlooked work of genius. This book is not just for kids, it's for all beginners to intermediate players who want to get ahead in the middlegame. This time instead of giving tactics leading to checkmate it allows you to gain material- from a pawn to a queen- or save a game by forcing stalemate. I think it should have been called Using Tactics to beat your Dad in chess.
The sub-title of this book is 50 Tricky Tactics to Outwit your Opponents, and it contains 50 tricky tactics that can get you out of a tough situation. While the beginning tactics teach the more basic tricks, like forks and pins, when you get deeper into the book, you'll find tricks that even grandmasters could miss. In the introduction, there is a great page that explains the algebraic notation which can help all chess players to read moves made in the book and enable them to write down moves in their own chess games. This isn't new information, but I like the concise way its explained and the symbols used through out the book.
How to beat your Dad at Chess was all about pattern recognition and this one is about motifs. Each tactic merits its own chapter. He breaks studying tactics into three steps. Step one is learn what the basic tactical motifs are and how they operate. He says there are 12 basic tactical motifs, which are: forks, pins, skewers, decoys, deflections, overloads, discovered attacks, discovered checks, double checks, desperado sacrifices, stalemates, zwischenzugs (in-between moves), perpetual checks, and breaking the pin. In the first chapters he teaches you what every one of those tactics are and how you can use them to crush your opponent's defenses.
Step two is recognizing typical patterns by seeing where piece formations make it possible to execute different tactics. Chandler gives three examples. I find this part the most difficult to identify because the tactic is often hidden from both yourself and opponent. When using tactics, you need to look ahead more than one move, and be intentional in your choices of strategy. You always have to look ahead. Once you see patterns often enough, it becomes easier to recognize. That's why you have to play a lot and study different games to be able to "site read" the formations and recognize patterns quickly.
In Step three, he combines tactics to out-calculate the opponent. This is also a very difficult step because instead of just having to recognize where one tactic can be used, you have to recognize other tactics to set up one ahead of time. An example is sacrificing a knight to pin the opponent's queen. I knew this before, however, Chandler gave me new distinctions by telling how to recognize that the sacrifice will gain material. Near the end of the book, he shows you how to use step three.
A great example of combining tactics is Tricky Tactic #13, The Rook-c8 and the Knight-e7 check Trick. Some hints to show you when you can use this tactic, or when your opponent can use it on you, are:
A White knight on d5 and a White rook on the open c-file;
A black queen on d8 and a black king on g8; and
Black's e7 square is undefended, except by the black queen.
I have fallen victim to this tactic several times before reading this book. What happens is the White rook comes down to the c8 square, using itself as a decoy sacrifice. The Black queen then takes that White rook putting herself in position for a knight fork. Then the knight on d5 jumps to the e7 square. This forks the Black king and queen and wins the Black queen for the White rook.
Once again, at the end of the book, there is a wonderful test to determine how much you've learned about tactics. First, you're tested on identifying the tactics, then on how well you can find and executive tactics.
I think that people should read Chess Tactics for Kids before reading How to beat your Dad at Chess because Chess Tactics for Kids helps you get to the middlegame and endgame positions where you can use the checkmates shown in How to beat your Dad at Chess. So even though Chandler may have written this second, I think it should read first. I recommend this book to beginner and intermediate players of all ages because it will help you defeat any opponent that comes at you or maybe even your poor old suffering Dad. It might even help your Dad if you let him read it!
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Learning Tactics will help you win 90 percent of your games. I like this book because it covers a good variety of tactics ranging from forks to pins and more. Could probably use more problems but the problems it has are very good. [...]
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This book is the companion volume to the popular training book How to beat your Dad at chess (which covers checkmating motifs) by the same author. Chess Tactics for Kids is presented in a very similar format,including hardcovers. As other reviewers have described this in detail,I won't cover it here,except to say there are 250 positions of varying levels of difficulty, all taken from international tournament games. The examples are very well-chosen, amd the content is a near perfect balance of text and chess moves. It is worth noting that both of these books have been selected for major scholastic packages,such as the one prepared by Susan Polgar, former women's world champion and owner of the Polgar Chess Center.
Where this book differs from its predecessor is that the themes covered deal with tactics which generally win material. The initial examples in the book begin with the usual suspects - knight forks,pins. Gradually the themes become more specific and detailed,to encompass Desperado Sacrifices,Perpetual Checks,and various thematic ways to trap the opposing queen. This is quality text-book material,presented in appealing fashion. If you loved the Beat Your Dad book, you'll love this one too.
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