https://web.archive.org/web/20140708112659/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review848.pdf
Best tactics book for player of my ranking
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Also, many tactics in chess are based off of three basic ideas: forks, pins and double attacks. Also, look to find out if there are either weak squares or overworked pieces. If you find these, you usually will find tactics.
One other thing: don't go for sacrifices just because they look good or you think your opponent will fall into a trap. IF you sac a pawn or piece, look to see if you gain one of those other tactical ideas listed above or you get the material back or a better position. Another book though hard to digest is Art of Attack in Chess by Vukovic.
My best tactics book is Understanding Chess Tactics by Martin Weteschnik . It's syntax is awkward in places because it's a translation from German. Could've used an editor who was a good English wordsmith. But it's not for novices.
For beginners :
Winning Chess Tactics by Seirawan
Back to Basics : Tactics by Dan Heisman
For practice put the Android app iChess on your phone or tablet. I carry over a thousand problems on my tablet. The New-in-Chess files are inexpensive and graduated in difficulty starting at ELO 1400-1600. Also I have created my own pgn files with my favorite problems. Just add to the header ( the so-called seven-tag roster ) the lines [SetUp "1"] and [FEN " 8 line position plus the 5 'switches' "]
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708091717/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review851.pdf
https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/Chess-Tactics-Scratch-excerpt.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708233537/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review585.pdf
https://www.chess.com/article/view/book-review-back-to-basics-tactics
Honestly, and maybe people won’t like this answer, but I think with the excellent computer generated tactics puzzles as well as online chess tactics problems it is probably easier and faster to solve them on computer rather than by looking at the book.
You will look at some puzzle in Tactics Time books and without knowing how easy or difficult it is you will try solving it in your mind, then having to set the pieces up will seem like a waste of time.
Since there is benefit from solving as many problems as possible then you’d be doing more tactics per minute by loading them on the computer screen.
For books where games are explained move by move and variations shown I strongly believe that is best to set up a board. In my experience you’d be making moves and making pauses to look at the board and then read the next sentence in the book, so it makes sense for that.
By the way, there are excellent apps in Apple App Store (one I am familiar with. Don’t know about android) which are couple dollars and they give you collections of chess tactics taken from books or games. There are also apps I saw that provide a digitized chess book and as you read and turn pages they give you a virtual board where you can play the moves and see positions as you go.
You will look at some puzzle in Tactics Time books and without knowing how easy or difficult it is you will try solving it in your mind, then having to set the pieces up will seem like a waste of time.
Since there is benefit from solving as many problems as possible then you’d be doing more tactics per minute by loading them on the computer screen.
For books where games are explained move by move and variations shown I strongly believe that is best to set up a board. In my experience you’d be making moves and making pauses to look at the board and then read the next sentence in the book, so it makes sense for that.
By the way, there are excellent apps in Apple App Store (one I am familiar with. Don’t know about android) which are couple dollars and they give you collections of chess tactics taken from books or games. There are also apps I saw that provide a digitized chess book and as you read and turn pages they give you a virtual board where you can play the moves and see positions as you go.
Drawgood wrote:
Honestly, and maybe people won’t like this answer, but I think with the excellent computer generated tactics puzzles as well as online chess tactics problems it is probably easier and faster to solve them on computer rather than by looking at the book.
You will look at some puzzle in Tactics Time books and without knowing how easy or difficult it is you will try solving it in your mind, then having to set the pieces up will seem like a waste of time.
Since there is benefit from solving as many problems as possible then you’d be doing more tactics per minute by loading them on the computer screen.
For books where games are explained move by move and variations shown I strongly believe that is best to set up a board. In my experience you’d be making moves and making pauses to look at the board and then read the next sentence in the book, so it makes sense for that.
By the way, there are excellent apps in Apple App Store (one I am familiar with. Don’t know about android) which are couple dollars and they give you collections of chess tactics taken from books or games. There are also apps I saw that provide a digitized chess book and as you read and turn pages they give you a virtual board where you can play the moves and see positions as you go.
You will look at some puzzle in Tactics Time books and without knowing how easy or difficult it is you will try solving it in your mind, then having to set the pieces up will seem like a waste of time.
Since there is benefit from solving as many problems as possible then you’d be doing more tactics per minute by loading them on the computer screen.
For books where games are explained move by move and variations shown I strongly believe that is best to set up a board. In my experience you’d be making moves and making pauses to look at the board and then read the next sentence in the book, so it makes sense for that.
By the way, there are excellent apps in Apple App Store (one I am familiar with. Don’t know about android) which are couple dollars and they give you collections of chess tactics taken from books or games. There are also apps I saw that provide a digitized chess book and as you read and turn pages they give you a virtual board where you can play the moves and see positions as you go.
Check out the Perpetual Chess podcast adult improvers series with Vinesh Ravuri. He jumped some rediculous amount of ELO points (I think this is the ranking system yes?) and he said literally all he did was tactics over the board. He explicitly says online tactics does not produce the same results as over the board in his opinion.
This makes intuitive sense to me. Looking and seeing the patterns in the physical pieces on the board must be better than seeing it on a computer surely? Just my take on it .
I would suggest using the tactics in chess.com complete 100 a day in 100 days you will do 10,000 tactics! you will get better and faster by using tactics programs, chess.com gives you a breakdown of the tactics categories so you'll know what to improve on. Books tactics take way longer, use them after you've improved your tactics. Good luck.