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Chess related: Need a puzzles book . . .

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steverand67
14-Feb-09, 19:25

Need a puzzles book . . .

Hello All,

I'm looking for a chess puzzles book that will improve my ability to calculate, pattern recognition, and overall tactical vision. I'm not particularly interested in tactics books, as I already have what I consider to be a very good one (Chess Tactics for the Tournament Player by Alburt and Palatnik). Just a large compilation of challenging, but rating-appropriate puzzles, is all I need. Your suggestions regarding which one to order would be very much appreciated.

Many thanks,

-SJR

kingdawar
15-Feb-09, 02:54

Have you tried the online resources:

Chess Tactics Server: chess.emrald.net
Chess Tempo: chesstempo.com
Dejascacchi: dejascacchi.altervista.org

A few books I believe are quite good:

Stappenmethode (method in steps) is a chess course by Brunia & Van Wijgerden, containing a lot of exercise material: www.stappenmethode.nl (translations available)

Martin Weteschnik's "Understanding Chess Tactics" is an OK book too, I believe.

There must be more, but it's a start.

algol
15-Feb-09, 08:04

I like "The Art of Combination" by Maxim Blokh, 1994. It has some 1200 positions organized by theme and they are graded - so you can skip the harder ones in a first pass. The positions in this book are used in the chess tactics training program CT-ART 3.0. Unfortunately the book does not seem so easy to find at a reasonable price currently.

Richard Palliser's "The Complete Chess Workout: Train your brain with 1200 puzzles! (Everyman Chess)". I do not have this one myself but it has good reviews on amazon and seems to be what you are looking for.

Have you considered the oldie: 1001 Winning chess sacrifices and combinations by Fred Reinfeld? Readily available, cheap and not a bad collection for regular training.

If you do not mind positions with tactical shots being mixed with ones where a strategic solution is required (akin to a real game) then consider Ray Cheng's "Practical Chess Exercises: 600 Lessons from Tactics to Strategy".

steverand67
16-Feb-09, 13:02

Thanks . . .

I've bought Cheng's book, and might move on to the others mentioned when I finish going through it. HK, I have made frequent use of chess.emrald.net, and it's somewhat useful. I'd like to have a book though, simply because I can carry it with me. Thank you both for the suggestions.

-SJR

shamash
28-Jul-11, 11:35

Top ten puzzle books: the Best of the best

Steve,

I recommend these top ten "puzzles" books for building positional understanding, pattern recognition, and board vision:

1: JOHN NUNN'S CHESS PUZZLE BOOK (2009 edition). The BEST of the Best of the best.

2: TEST YOUR POSITIONAL PLAY by Robert Bellin & Pietro Ponzetto

3: The classic THE BEST MOVE by Vlastimil Hort & Vlastimil Jansa

4: YOUR MOVE! by Yakov Neishtadt (Also excellent in Neishtadt's recent IMPROVE YOUR CHESS TACTICS, going way beyond tactics)

5: CHESS CASE PUZZLE BOOK 2: Test and Improve Your Positional Intuition by Karsten Muller

6: Alone in its class by showing the puzzle positon early in the combinational fray, starting the action a little earlier, before the big punch with which most puzzle books begin their puzzles, is:
John Shaw's QUALITY CHESS PUZZLE BOOK.

7: Jacob Aagaard's EXCELLING AT CHESS CALCULATION

plus these insightful 3 which transcend the category of puzzle books, and get into the meat of the games:

8: Zenon Franco's CHESS SELF-IMPROVEMENT

9: Alfonso Romero's ULTIMATE CHESS STRATEGY BOOK: volume 1

10: MODERN MIDDLEGAME LESSONS by Larry Evans & Jeremy Silman & Ken Smith. A treasure.

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