Each exercise invites you to step into the shoes of the masters:
– Can you find the hidden combination that turned the tide?
– Will you spot the knockout blow that secured a brilliant victory?
– Can you defend as resourcefully as the Armenian greats when under pressure?
This collection is designed for players of all levels who want to sharpen their tactical vision and gain insights from the rich legacy of Armenian chess. With positions ranging from instructive classics to breathtaking brilliancies, the book offers a training ground where calculation, creativity, and intuition meet.
Whether you are a club player looking to improve, a coach seeking fresh material, or a chess enthusiast who loves the beauty of tactics, this book is your gateway into the magic of Armenian chess.
Zwischenzug! is the first-ever comprehensive guide to the chess tactic also known as the intermediate move, or intermezzo. This exciting manoeuvre can catch opponents off guard because it is against the expected run of play. You will learn how to spot Zwischenzugs, when to look out for them, and how to set them up in your games.
The authors have studied thousands of games and have identified the patterns that appear frequently in practical play. The book categorizes the different types of Zwischenzugs and distils them into easily accessible themes. The concepts are given catchy names to make them more memorable, and historical details and anecdotes are added throughout the book.
Included is an extensive mix of sample puzzles for learning and practice.
When published on Chessable, the course was received very enthusiastically and awarded an average rating of 4.82 out of a possible five stars. Another welcome effect is that the authors are now finding a lot of Zwischenzugs in their own games!
Natasha Regan is an award-winning chess author, best known for her book Game Changer, co-authored with GM Matthew Sadler. She has represented England at two Chess Olympiads and is also an accomplished Go and shogi player.
Matt Ball is a content creator and chess coach. He holds the FIDE title of National Instructor and is also a regular tournament player. He represented England at the World Senior Team Championship 2022.
IM Gary Lane (Australian Chess)
“An absorbing puzzle rush with a twist.”
IM John Donaldson (Oklahoma Chess Magazine)
“Players in the rating range 1600-2200 will find this book helpful in breaking the habit of making automatic recaptures without first looking for an in-between move.”
WINNER of the ChessCafe 2008 Book of the Year Award
SHORTLISTED for The Guardian 2008 Chess Book of the Year Award
Why is it that the human brain so often refuses to consider winning chess tactics?
Every chess fan marvels at the wonderful combinations with which famous masters win their games. How do they find those fantastic moves? Do they have special vision? And why do computers outwit us tactically?
Forcing Chess Moves proposes a revolutionary method for finding winning moves. Charles Hertan has made an astonishing discovery: the failure to consider key moves is often due to human bias. Your brain tends to disregard many winning moves because they are counter-intuitive or look unnatural.
It’s a fact of life: computers outdo us humans when it comes to tactical vision and brute force calculation. So why not learn from them? Charles Hertan’s radically different approach is: use COMPUTER EYES and always look for the most forcing move first.
By studying forcing sequences according to Hertan’s method you will:
– Develop analytical precision
– Improve your tactical vision
– Overcome human bias and staleness
– Enjoy the calculation of difficult positions
– Win more games by recognizing moves that matter.
This New and Extended Fourth Edition of Hertan’s award-winning modern classic includes 50 extra pages with new and instructive combinations. There is a foreword by three-time US chess champion Joel Benjamin, and a special foreword to this new edition by Swedish Grandmaster Pontus Carlsson.
Steve Goldberg, ChessCafe:
"When the clock is ticking away, and you have too many viable candidate moves to choose from, remember Hertan's advice."
Former US Champion Joel Benjamin:
"By organizing and explaining the nature of great chess moves Hertan has brought us all closer to being able to find them."
Marsh Towers Chess Reviews:
"Hertan develops the reader’s skills methodically, thus enabling each tactical lesson to be learned and absorbed properly."
Erik Bouwmans, Schaaknieuws:
"Entertaining and instructive. You simply cannot stop looking."
Erik Rausch, Rochade Europa:
An intensive training course for advanced players to improve their tactical vision and calculation. You will increase your tactical striking powers a lot."
Cor Jansen, Provinciaalse Zeeuwse Courant":
"Thrilling, instructive and witty. Right on target."
Harold Dondis, The Boston Globe:
"The categories in this book are quite unusual. This work is an ample and accurate collection of startling problems bulging with combinative surprises."
Elisabeth Vicary, US Chess Federation Online:
"I love this book."
Irving Chernev's outstanding chess books earn him a high rank among the world's top chess authors. In this well-annotated text, Mr. Chernev guides his readers to an understanding of the subtleties of combinative play.
Step-by-step from the simplest combinations to the most complex, the book explains the intricacies of pins and counter-pins, Knight forks, smothered mates, and other elements of combination play. There is a discussion in chapter five of combinations lurking in roads not taken — alternate lines of play show up in Chernev's notes to the game, while the sixth chapter, "Convincing the Kibitzers," shows the second-guessers what would have happened had the masters done the obvious. (Some disastrous combinations show up here.) A host of boomerangs follow — cases where the player didn't look far enough ahead and his combination, instead of bringing about the opponent's ruin, paved the way to his defeat. Chapters 8–21 take up combinations used by such great players as Tarrasch, Botvinnik, Nimzovich, Steinitz, Rubinstein, and Pillsbury; the sacrificial combinations of Anderssen and Spielmann; the dazzling brilliancies of Morphy, Keres, and Alekhine; the deadly attacks of Marshall; the almost unfathomable ideas of Lasker; and the matchless creations of Capablanca. Mr. Chernev's thoughtful annotations unravel the secrets of each of these plans. A diagram accompanies each combination; an index, by player, leads the reader to the combination he is looking for.
Themes: Annihilation of Defence, Blockade, Clearance, Deflection, Discovered Attack, Pinning, Demolition of Pawn structure, Decoy, Interference, Double Attack
Levels: Basic, Intermediate, Advanced
Finally, a word of advice!
Beginners and relatively inexperienced players should study and play through all the examples on a chessboard. Also, it is advisable to write down the solutions with all the variations you calculated, and only after the training session to compare those with the Solutions given in the Encyclopaedia. Keep your notes in a notebook especially dedicated for that purpose, so you could monitor and assess your own progress. As you progress you will be able to solve many of the basic and intermediate examples without a chessboard, but still writing down the solutions and variations is of extreme importance. Of course, when you successfully reach higher echelons of chess mastery you will be able to solve large portions of the examples without a chess board, only by looking at the diagrams.
The Encyclopaedia of Chess Combinations is a benchmark work on the art of chess tactics and combinations. It is designed to offer the infinite pleasure for chess enthusiasts, everlasting source of training for most diligent students, and would-be-grandmasters.
This workbook offers over five hundred carefully selected exercises to accompany the book 100 Tactical Patterns You Must Know.
Experienced chess trainer Frank Erwich has not only identified the 100 most important tactical patterns, he has also collected hundreds of exercises for you to train these patterns. Solving these puzzles will drive home the key ideas, refresh your knowledge and improve your technique.
It is probably best to study the manual and workbook together, but you can also use the workbook as a stand-alone training tool as each pattern is summarised.
Frank Erwich is a FIDE Master and an experienced chess trainer from the Netherlands. He holds a Master’s degree in Psychology. Frank is a book editor for New In Chess and has published the best-sellers: 1001 Chess Exercises for Club Players and 1001 Chess Exercises for Advanced Club Players.
Chess is 99% tactics. A tactical pattern is all about immediate threats that produce immediate results. Learning the 100 Tactical Patterns You Must Know will dramatically improve your performance.
This book is the long-awaited middlegame companion to 100 Endgames You Must Know, the all-time bestseller of all chess books published by New In Chess. In three hundred pages, experienced chess trainer Frank Erwich teaches you all the tactical patterns that
– occur most frequently
– are easy to learn
– Explain ideas that are useful in practical games
You will get a huge amount of clear, concise and easy-to-follow chess tactics instruction, ideal for every post-beginner, club player and candidate master who wants to win more games.
The book contains 500 of the most instructive examples from the games played during 2023 in tournaments around the world. The positions are selected owing to their practical value, importance and inherent aesthetics, and are divided into 4 levels of difficulty to make your training and browsing through the material smooth. Exercises are not organized in sections according to tactical motifs they are based on, because my intention was to present examples which are resembling real game situations.
El Tratado General de Ajedrez es un clásico de la enseñanza del juego ciencia. Se trata de una obra que nos permite descubrir de forma amena y sencilla la esencia del juego, desde las enseñanzas básicas hasta la estrategia superior. Está íntegramente transcrito al sistema algebraico de notación, los nombres de las aperturas y de las líneas han sido actualizados y se han solventado algunos errores tácticos detectados en la obra original con notas al pie.
TÁCTICA Y ESTRATEGIA
Esta entrega es la llave al apasionante mundo de las combinaciones. El autor, sirviéndose de magníficos ejemplos, logra transmitir las ideas esenciales de forma fácil y comprensible. Los temas subyacentes, como el balance entre material y tiempo, el sacrificio, el espacio o la iniciativa, están tratados con especial detalle.
Roberto Grau (1900-1944) fue un estudioso del ajedrez, actividad a la que consagró gran parte de su vida, como periodista, jugador y maestro. Obtuvo el título de Campeón Argentino en 6 oportunidades, y participó en 6 olimpiadas, logrando excelentes resultados. Dirigió las publicaciones Ajedrez Americano y Ajedrez Argentino. Su columna Frente al Tablero, en el periódico La Nación, cautivó a los aficionados de su época. Además de su obra cumbre, el Tratado General de Ajedrez, escribió La Historia de Ajedrez, Códigos del Ajedrez, Aperturas y Finales, Estrategias del Ajedrez y Cartilla de Ajedrez.
A 21st-Century Edition of a Great Checkmate Collection!
Ask most chessplayers from the “baby boomer” generation how they acquired and sharpened their tactical skills, and chances are a Fred Reinfeld tactics collection will be part of their answer. And now, for the first time, 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate is available in modern algebraic notation.
This may be the all-time great checkmate collection, with forced checkmate positions culled mainly from actual play. And Reinfeld's selection is simply marvelous, touching on all the important tactical themes.
In short, this is an outstanding book to hone your tactical abilities. It will help you recognize mating patterns, develop visualization skills, enhance imagination, and improve tactical sharpness. And now, with a modern 21st-century edition of this great checkmate collection finally available, there is no excuse for not only improving your tactical skills, but also enjoying yourself along the way.
One of the best ways to improve your results in chess is to study tactics.
In the present book, you will be challenged more than 200 times with positions taken from the author's popular Chess Life column.
Each set of puzzles contain three easy puzzles, three medium puzzles, and three difficult puzzles.
Working through the puzzles and then carefully playing through the annotated solutions will help you to improve your tactical radar as well as your calculation skills.
Enhance Your Tactical Weapons!
1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combination is the companion volume to Reinfeld's 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate. Of course each book can be taken on its own, but together they make a wonderful collection, and cover the full range of tactical chess. And they are now both available in 21st-century editions, using modern algebraic notation.
Reinfeld has arranged his quiz positions so that they fall into orderly chapters, each with a common theme. Still, the degree of difficulty varies widely. Easiest are one move shots, suitable for players starting out. Most difficult are the examples that run seven moves and more; some of these may even stump an ordinary master.
Most of all, this a book of combinative ideas, all designed to enhance your arsenal of weapons. The first step toward mastery is to become familiar with the different types of tactical motifs. The second step is to study a great many examples of these tactical themes. So, the object of this book is to add to your knowledge, to make you a strong chess player, and (last but not least) to delight you with some of the most beautiful moves ever played on the chessboard.
