The only book I've found that gives a really good list of common mating positions with names is:
Renaud, Georges, and Victor Kahn. 1953. The Art of Checkmate. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.
It's not a well-structured book, though, for my taste: they don't actually show you the patterns unless you have your own board and play through entire games to get to those patterns at the end of the game!
You're discovering what I've discovered years ago: names help tremendously in organizing own's own personal knowledge. I give names to many openings that don't have names, to mating positions, to common piece maneuvers, to diagonals, and more.
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/want-names-for-these-situations
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/which-diagonals-have-names
As for recommended tactical training, everybody wants to know the same thing. I'm working on a very new approach of computer instruction for tactics (for myself, initially), but most people will just say you should practice solving chess puzzles.
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(p. 44)
CHAPTER 4: "The Gueridon Mate and
the "Epaulettes" Mate
Certain mates have been given picturesque names, such as
"Gueridon" and "Epaulettes." Gueridon in French means an
occasional table, and it is thus called because, as will be seen in
the next diagram, the Black and White Pieces for a rough
sketch of a small table. They are typical positions, although they
happen accidentally, not as a consequence of a weakening of
the castled position or a central attack on the King.
A Typical Aspect of the Guer-
idon Mate
When the two corner
squares behind the King are
obstructed by its own Pieces
and when the hostile Queen
controls the six others adjacent
to the King, the position is
called the "Gueridon" mate
on account of the resemblance
of the position to a small ta-
ble, as we have already men-
tioned. This mate, which may
come as a result of many posi-
tions, may be forced at the
very early stages of the game if
one of the players makes a bad
blunder.
(p. 46)
The Epaulettes Mate
When the mated King is obstructed to the right and to the
left by its own Pieces, on a rank or on a file, we get the "Epau-
lettes" mate.
Renaud, Georges, and Victor Kahn. 1953. The Art of Checkmate. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.
Hello, I'm a beginner on chess, I classify myself as an educated fool. :P I have read and understood a few beginner books, do tactics everyday etc.
Right now I'm curious to find a book or another resource how to train tactical and mating pattern recognizion.
I find myself calculating the same positions over and over again, what I found is that when I give combos and patterns names, it's a lot easier to recall them afterwards. However in actual games these same patterns dont come up often enough to remember them, and the whole process is hard to do on my own.
For instance, I learnt of the fried liver attack in chessmaster GE, and I was fascinated by the name, and begun playing an opening that went for fried liver ASAP. Now, whenever I'm planning on the board, I can run the calculations for a possible fried liver in a second.
I realized afterwards, it was actually the name that has played a major role in building a slot in my brain for the combo.
So I was wondering, if any of you know any resource I can use to study with using this trait I have. Tactic books that go from topic to topic, mating patterns where patterns have been named and broken down, anything..?