The book offers the reader 250 positions created by Ziyatdinov, 250 of the 300 original positions that he found out during years of practice as a chess player and as a chess coach. The positions do not give us any hint at all, we have to find out who is move it is who winning etc, it sounds silly but it really is this way!
There are no answers not even in the end, basically it is 250 “random” or “not so random” positions for us to solve.
But theres more to this book then just the tactics problems! The author also presents to us a collection of old master games not annotated at all, and games that come freely with any database manager software.
The bottom line for me was I wasted 10$ buying this book, it does not even have enough written text to fill a good article from chesscafe! At least the answers to the problems should be there, the idea of no hints at all from who move it is to play becomes silly, when you are facing middlegame positions that as tactics for both sides and theres no clear win for any of the sides, maybe one or even both sides can win material. The endgame exercices makes more sense to have no hint on who move it is, since generally only one side as the win or the forced draw. If you buy it anyway and you are into this kind of book please feel free to email me and Ill sell you one cheaper with 500 positions and no hints at all either!
