Modern Chess Tactics

Out of the 80 books I had bought to study Chess for tournament play, this is my favorite book on Chess Tactics. The book is usually readable for a Chess Book, well organized by study themes, and does represent a complete training in tactics. Pachman was a Grandmaster and was considered a leading theoretician. I would recommend everything that he has written to any aspiring student who wants to improve their game. Even his opening books, while the actual analysis is dated now, the discussions and thematic studies I found still useful to go over. The only limitation of this book in terms of tactics is that it still presupposes that the student has already learned to be observant enough to not make a move that throws away a piece and has already mastered two move combinations, knight forks, skewers, discovered attacks, and the like. For those who have not mastered this level first, it would be wise to first study 1001 CHESS TACTICS by Fred Reinfeld before going on to this book.

Pachman is one of the few chess authors whose writings form an entire course of chess instruction. But that is not what makes his chess works so good. The quality of the writing, and the comprehensiveness of the subject matter, is consistently great. He does not cut corners. This book on chess tactics (as well as its companion volume, Attack and Defence in Modern Chess Tactics), is an utterly brilliant work of chess literature. I am working methodically through it, and my game is magically inmproving. It should be as standard as his book on Chess Strategy. It is equally awesome.