Is this book a wise purchase?
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I've never seen that book but it may be good. 2 books that really helped my game are "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess", by Bobby Fischer and "Attacking Chess", by Josh Waitzkin. You can find both on ebay or amazon for about $5.
sconie, I have gone through 50% of his course and yes it's excellent if your goal is either to learn the basic tactical motifs or improve your ability to spot them.
A couple things I particularly like about his approach is, he provides fast scanning tips and for each problem he spends a paragraph explaining what thought process(es) would have helped you find the correct solution. I've also corresponded with him and he seems like a nice fellow. Note, I took the 'online' version of his course.
I looked at your game against eshultz, and while your tactics were much stronger than your opponent, they could still use some sharpening so this book would be a reasonable choice for your chess improvement effort.
ashdown33 wrote: I've never seen that book but it may be good. 2 books that really helped my game are "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess", by Bobby Fischer and "Attacking Chess", by Josh Waitzkin. You can find both on ebay or amazon for about $5.
I have both of those and they are really good. I also like "The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played" by Irving Chernev and "How to Beat Your Dad at Chess" by Murray Chandler, which looks like it would be for kids, but is really geared towards helping anyone win against someone who they've never been able to beat. It covers all the basic checkmates, many of which are obscure to beginners but masters can see them at a glance. But all of them are really geared towards the endgame, so if you can find a decent book on tactics, it should be able to fill the gaps in your education. The Tactics Trainer here (on Chess.com) is also quite good. Opening theory is covered in "Modern Chess Openings" by Walter Korn/Nick DeFirmian. Or you could spend some time on Wikipedia or YouTube.
I like Farnsworth's material and the book has received good reviews. There is a free on-line version of his work at http://www.chesstactics.org/ As a novice you are right to focus on tactics training above all.
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I want to thank everyone for taking the time to reply to my post. All advise is greatly appreciated.
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The book is Predator at the Chessboard A Field Guide to Chess Tactics (Book 1) by Ward Farnsworth. I am a chess novice and trying to improve my game.