1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations

This is an excellent introduction to chess tactics. The various motifs (pin, knight fork, removing the guard, discovered check and a multitude of others) are presented separately. But it is only an introduction. Still it is enough in my opinion to bring a player to a USCF Class A or Expert rating. A follow-on exercise to reading this book is to be able to recognize these motifs in random positions, and then to be able to create positions where these motifs arise. Definitely worth the price. BTW, there is an annoying printer error in the book that seems to have been carried over to the newer editions.

Both books 1001 winning chess sacrifices and combinations and 1001 brilliant ways to checkmate are different read figure out the moves on chess diagrams. I'll give it a try.

After reading a basic book on checkmate patterns like "The Art of Checkmate" or "How to Beat Your Dad at Chess" you will want to get a workbook with lots of problems to work on to sharpen your skills. Checkmating is one of the important patterns along with learning general tactics where I recommeend the companion book, "1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations" and for opening traps and opening tactics, "Chess Traps for Juniors". With all of these books you will have a balanced approach to learning all about tactics!

This book is a necessary part of your chess library if you are under 1700. Recognizing chess positions is something we all do, no matter how weak or strong you are, and this book will show you---and instill in your memory---every important tactical concept out there. Very highly recommeded.

I am currently a 1400-1550 player in standard games on the ICC. I started my adult chess interest about 6 months ago, my initial rating being 900 for several weeks. I have read many books and played many games in the last six months to make this modest improvement I've made. I've read them all, Silman, Nimzovitch, the Microsoft Chess books, etc (all good in their way), but this one book took me from 1200-1500 in one week, by far the biggest single jump of all (about 300 points or so). And that level of play has stuck, showing it's really in the head, for good. It's basically like strength training for your chess muscle. Just carry it around, do random puzzles to keep from getting bored. Work on the same puzzle (sometimes for days . . .) until YOU get it. Then check the answer. If you spend three days and can't get it, don't look it up, just go to a different one. If you use it in this disciplined way, it is incredible what changes occur in the WAY you look at the board. All the positional concepts that I currently know are really are about getting your pieces active, and avoiding potentially dangerous positions for your pieces. If you can't extract tactics out of a good position, the best position in the world won't help you. While I'm sure at a higher level of chess, there is really more to positional chess than just tactical potential, for anyone like me, or really anyone from 1100-1800 this book would be indispensible for improvement. Simply the best chess book (for us average joe's) EVER written, hands down, just look at the other reviews!

This is a must have for any tournament chess player. It helps your visualization of chess moves and patterns for creating a checkmate.It is easier than the 1001 combinations book because you know the goal is to get the king checkmated.The 1001 combinations book was too hard for me until I went through a lot of the checkmate book. The reason is that you don't know which piece you are trying to make a combination on.However, after going through this checkmate book, the combination book is much easier now.My advice--start with the checkmates then move on to the combinations book. However, if you are already good >1600-1700, then maybe start in directly with the combinations, since they might be more realistic positions. (However, the books are cheap by chess book standards so get them both...)