Winning Chess Tactics

This book is an appropriate tactics book for every class of player. It begins with more simple motifs and proceeds to the more complex in a logicall progression. There are detailed explanations for each type of tactic with good examples and descriptive high quality analysis. This book is organized by tactical motif and is probably the only tactics book that most beginners and intermediates will ever need. If you are very serious about the game, you may want to add a book on traps in the opening and drill different positions with a computer program or problems book. However, this book in itself along with game experience will take you to the next level of play. It is ideal for advanced beginners! If you advanced, then CHESS TACTICS FOR ADVANCED PLAYERS by Yuri Averbakh is a nice continuation at a higher level. I also like the ART OF CHESS COMBINATION by Eugene Znosko-Borovsky. While not related to tactics at all a useful book I stumbled upon that will help with "how to practice" is called RAPID CHESS IMPROVEMENT by Michael de la Maza. This is basically a methods book about how to take all of this information on various topics and internalize it in the most rapid possible way. This last book is geared primarily to competitive players.

I've never seen such a good introduction to tactics. Seirawan explains everything very clearly, with excellent illustrations.Seirawan included several hundred problems in the book. I'd recommend following up this book with Reinfeld's 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations. In fact, if you're a talented player, you might want to skip Seirawan's book and go straight to Reinfeld. But most of us could use Seirawan's book.

First, a disclaimer: I'm not a grandmaster. Far from it. I'd estimate my rating to be somewhere in the 1300's.Without this book, it would probably be about 600 -- scratch that, it would be zero, because I wouldn't be as hooked on chess as I am, and I probably would never get around to playing it.Simply put, Seirawan has THE GIFT. You know -- the very rare ability, among those of world-class skill in any discipline, to actually explain his knowledge clearly to a layman. And to convey not just the knowledge, but also the passion. That is his genius. And this fabulous series of book is the result.If you've got someone on your Christmas list who is getting interested in chess, but -- like most newcomers -- believes that she/he will never be any good at it, give her/him this book!Perhaps give this one and the overview "Play Winning Chess" together. But this the book that will truly change your friend/son/niece/spouse/whomever into a *competent* chess player.One strength of the book is its focus on problems. There are a lot of problems, which appear as the relevant concepts are introduced, and also in the back (so you have to discover for yourself which tactics are involved). The problems are very challenging -- or, they were for me anyway! -- yet completely solvable knowing only what's been taught. This makes them FUN.Yes, I said fun!You might eventually progress far past the level this book is at, but the book will never stop being useful to you. You can still use it as a means to drill yourself -- to see how fast you can spot the solutions, burn the lessons they illustrate into your head, and keep the fundamental patterns fresh in your mind for when you go into battle.Well, I'll stop, but really, this book is beyond excellent and I can't praise it highly enough to match the gratitude I feel toward GM Seirawan for showing me how incredibly awesome this game really is. Thanks, man.

Anyone who is serious about learning to play chess well should begin with Seirawan's Winning Chess series. I had heard good things about it, so I bought this series for my wife. I figured that it would all be too simple for me, but decided to skim through the books quickly anyway. I learned quit a bit from both the Tactics and Strategies books. Seirawan's system is very similar to the system that co-author Silman teaches in his more advanced How To Reassess Your Chess (which would be the perfect book to read after finishing the Seirawan series). I learned things from Strategies that I hadn't learned from Reassess; and Tactics goes into greater, very helpful detail about setting up and executing tactics and combinations. This is a great series, I recommend it strongly to any player rated under 1600.