303 Tricky Checkmates

As a thirteen-year old, I bought this book at Borders as part of my birthday money. It's a wonderful book on checkmating (maybe one of the bests). Although I'm only up to chapter two, the rest of the book will probably be good too. However, if I could have looked at every checkmating book on Earth, I probably wouldn't have bought this. For example, Fred Reinfeld's "1001 Brilliant Ways to checkmate", probably beats this book by a mile. It's slightly cheaper, I think, and has 698 more diagrams! (I haven't bought this book, but look at the reveiws for it, and you'll know why I'm saying this.)Even though this probably isn't the greatest checkmating book you can get, it's good enough, and will keep you busy. One more thing: I suggest that you get a used one, because if you want to use about $12.00 or so on a book, don't use it on this one.

The first hundred checkmate positions are fairly simple for intermediate players. The checkmates start to get somewhat "tricky" after that. I am glad that the authors did not just lump the positions together thematically, such as "Queen Sacrifice," like the Reinfeld "1001 Checkmates." Outstanding diagrams are clear and easy to study. While many of the solutions are simple, they are still beautiful. Great book if you love two and three move checkmate puzzles.

This book presents fun chess puzzles in an easy to understand, progressively difficult format. While it may be true that these puzzles are carefully constructed rather than the result of actual play, they teach the dynamics of checkmate in a simple, yet challenging way. The puzzles are designed and arranged to show how the various pieces work together in diverse circumstances and how slight changes influence the checkmate. This book teaches how to find that all-important first move in the series of moves that lead to checkmate and is good for young players just getting started and for more advanced players who want to stay sharp.

This book appears to be a sequel to "202 Surprising Checkmates" by the same authors, and both books appear to be indebted to the much older "1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmates" for their title. "1001 Checkmates," by Fred Reinfeld, gives hundreds of positions which are apparently drawn from actual game situations, and the student who applies himself to the book can take away practical knowledge that will help in actual play. The positions in "202 Checkmates" and "303 Checkmates" could never be mistaken for actual game situations, and the mating patterns are not normally seen in actual play. Although the book appears to have little practical value, the problems were both challenging and entertaining. If the authors ever write "404 Amazing Checkmates," I'll be sure to add it to my library.

An excellent book for a beginning player to learn to see various methods to checkmate your opponent. The book has excellent diagrams. As you progress through the book the problems increase in difficulty. An excellent learning tool. I found four errors in the answer section.