How to recognize tactical moves/patterns

Dear All,

I'm familiar with basic tactical patterns like decoys, pins, etc.. but now I want to improve my abilities.

Some questions about that:

- What software and books are best to use?
- There are a lot of articles on the internet that explain the tactics, but what i miss is some theory about how to recognize those patterns in
a position? are there theories and rules that help us to find/recognize potential tactical patterns?

I would love to get some advice from experts.

Thanks.

I'm far from expert, but I'll toss out a couple of suggestions, anyway.

Ward Farnsworth's Predator at the Chessboard website has a lot of tips about what to look for:

http://www.chesstactics.org/

Chess Tactics from Scratch by Martin Weteschnik is a book that may interest you. It's very much about how to recognize the factors that create tactics. Here's a link to a sample of what that book is like:

http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/Chess-Tactics-Scratch-excerpt.pdf

I second recommendation of Weteschnik's book.

Yeah it's a good tactics book.

In order to try to recognize tactical positions, I recommend John Bain's Chess Tactics for Students. I myself own this workbook, and I cut the problems out of it so I cant see which side is to move and the topic of the tactic. It makes it more difficult but I am beginning to see tactical indicators. 

+Infinity.

This book is the "level 1-1 from Super Mario Bros"  ... you *have* to master all patterns inside it before even considering tackling more complicated tactical problems.   All strong players can see basic shots (such as those in this book) INSTANTLY.  

Also =>  if you're software savvy, you could always create PGNs of these positions and drill them on both desktop (CPT, Chessbase) or mobile software (iChess Tactics)

Instead of buying books etc, I'd consider getting a paid membership here. But I just love the tactics trainer

The best  software is fritz and for database is chessbase... but is paid.

You could use chessmaster because it have good tutorials 

This is exactly the approach Tal's Winning Chess Combinations takes. One of the most underrated books ever. Unfortunately, you'll probably have to search around for a used copy, and put up with descriptive notation.

Mikhael Tal and Victor Khenkin ISBN 0-671-24262-8

Dan Heisman's "Seeds of Tactical Destruction" article may be of some help to you, too. An extended version of the article is also included as a chapter in his book Back to Basics: Tactics. That's another very good tactics book, btw.

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman05.pdf