Winning Chess Tactics, revised (Winning Chess - Everyman Chess)

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Customer Reviews:

I'm a better player now . [Posted on 2007-07-05]
I used to lose almost every game I played. I never took Chess serious until I played a thirteen year old and was thoroughly beaten. I knew I needed help and fast. This book broke tactics down to a level I never got from other chess books. It was not hard to follow and I learned a lot in just the first few chapters.

Excellent Title & Series [Posted on 2007-11-23]
If you are a beginner chess player, with a rating below say 1400, and you are bewildered by the array of chess material ... rest easy. This book and tactics and this entire series of chess titles are absolutely excellent, and the best presented and thought out thematic chess books aimed at lower rated players in a way people can easily digest. Seriwan and Silman have created a deceptively simple formula for articulating complex points, and present the material with succinctness and clarity.

Really this series is the defacto education plan and reference set for the beginner to U1400 player. Sadly i bought many titles before this series was publised .. you can spare yourself wasted time and money.

It's All Here... [Posted on 2008-01-10]
If you want a good book on tactics, this is the one for the Class A player on down. There are two kinds of books on tactics; ones that are a collection of tactical problems categorized by theme and this kind which is instructional and contains just the amount of problems needed to get the point made. This book also has a great exam at the end to rate your skill level at tactics and see how much of the book you have absorbed. Couple this book with Reinfeld's Winning Chess or Combinational Challenge by Hays(for the more advanced player) and you don't need any more on the subject!

Too complicated for beginners, poor teaching, no repetition, low explanations = bad book on tactics [Posted on 2008-05-19]
There are many problems with this book, and it's a shame because the book has many 4- and 5-star reviews that will most likely overshadow this one. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to write a review on this book.

1. The tests in this book have several major problems. Usually there are 4-6 tests for each tactic. The first two questions are usually on par with the examples, or slightly harder. Then the questions drastically get tougher. Like one reviewer pointed out... one question will require a simple 2-move combination, and the next requires you to figure out the 100% perfect move-list for a 10-move checkmate. Sorry, I'm not a grandmaster Yassir! The problem is that the tests don't progressively get tougher. There are usually more tougher tests than easy ones too, which I think only demoralizes the reader when they realize that they can't figure more than 30% of them out.

2. Sometimes the first question is actually one of the toughest! This is rare, and it happens! Great method of instruction! (sarcasm). Another problem is that none of the examples are challenging, but Yassir expects the reader to use the vague general principle taught and exercise it to master-level strength in the tests. It's like the questions were purposefully tougher than the examples, and I don't understand the reason.

3. There are not enough easy tests to cement the pattern of the tactic in the reader's mind. In fact, there is often only 1 test of each pattern for the tactic being demonstrated. As we know, pattern recognition only happens with constant repetition, so the book is more or less useless on this front. Maybe the problems in "Chess Tactics for Students" were simpler, but at least I can recognize those tactics rather quickly at a glance. This book hasn't helped me at all in my games.

4. Sometimes tests at the beginning also use tactics taught in later chapters. For example, there's a clearance sacrifice required to solve a problem in one of the first tests... but clearance sacrifice taught several chapters later.

5. Sometimes the answers to the tests are wrong. On test 23, you are put in check by the opponent's queen and you have to decide how to get out of check. You can block with your queen, block with a pawn or move the king (it's a pin problem... so the goal is to avoid a pin). After looking at the position however, I immediately saw that 'e5' (blocking with the pawn) was the best solution. It does pin the pawn to the King, but if you look at the position, it's not a negative at all.

However, Yassir says moving the King is the best answer... and doesn't even consider blocking with the pawn at all! He just ignored the possibility completely. After giving the position to Fritz and Rybka chess engines, both said 'e5' was the best solution. Moving the King was only second best.

There are several other tests (even those 8-10 move complex ones!) where the lines suggested by Yassir are incorrect, or where other solutions could easily fit the bill as the 'correct' answer. Test 50 is a good example of this. Honestly, myself, Fritz and Yassir only agreed on the first 2 moves. At that point, Yassir was dreaming of this 8-move checkmate that doesn't exist. When asking Fritz and Rybka the answer, it goes on for much longer with completely different moves.

As far as I can tell, this only serves to demoralize the reader like they are doing something wrong. The tests should have been worked out so that very few lines would work. As it stands, your answer is almost always going to be different than Yassir's answer for these long 10-move problems.

6. There are spelling and grammar mistakes throughout the book, even in the revised edition.

7. Explanations are usually very thin. Sometimes the author will say "and with these 4 moves, Black is in real big trouble!"

The problem is that Yassir doesn't explain how he's in trouble (it's usually some kind of tactic that is unrelated to the concept that is being taught). Yassir should have explained everything so that it was understood by new and expert players alike, but he doesn't! This happens quite frequently in the book, where the reader is left to their own devices to see what the author means. It just interrupts with the flow and understanding.

8. The example games at the back of the book are irrelevant. The games with Anderssen are completely pointless. Yes, the games feature tactics, but it's only because the opponent accepted gambits (because it's "the manly thing to do!") and accepted double-rook sacrifices (because "he wants his opponent to prove a point") without considering the compensation that the other player gets or actually formulating plans of his own.

In effect, Anderssen's opponents were idiots... and by modern standards, nobody in their right mind would play the way either player would. In fact, they would get crushed. What is the point of analyzing inferior openings and inferior moves when today's games will never see them? We learn by osmosis. These are not the type of games we should be studying!

9. Also, the examples are master-level games where 90% of the stuff is not explained. Honestly, much of it went over my head. I don't understand the point to learning from master-level games. Why not show some 1200-1500 level games instead? Like show really common tactics we will see on a regular basis... and common errors and how they can be exploited? Why not make this book practical? This approach would have made the game analysis useful.

10. There needs to be more diagrams in the book. Many times Yassir will throw out move lists or entire games with one or two diagrams. Unless you have a chess set with you, you are sitting at a computer, or you can see all the moves in your head... these examples won't be of much benefit to you. They are just hard to follow, and makes it impossible to read on... say... a bus. This is a problem with many chess books, and I don't know why they couldn't add another 40 pages to the book to make it easier to read. I would have gladly paid the extra .50 cents.

11. The book is also plagued with the problem where you have a diagram on one page, and it's explanation on another... causing the reader to flip back and forth. Was it really hard to paginate the examples properly, even if it meant having some white space?

Make no mistake, I did learn things from this book. I think because so many examples did use clearance sacrifices or piece sacrifices that I can see them a little better... perhaps because the "I'm going to lose on the exchange" mentality has been changed. Still, the book is just poor instruction and there has to be better books on tactics out there than this one.

Excellent Groundwork for Tactical Play [Posted on 2008-11-27]
The second installment of International Grand Master Yasser Seirawan and International Master Jeremy Silman's three part series for chess amateurs, "Winning Chess Tactics" was the easiest of the three to read. Having read "Play Winning Chess" and having a pretty solid grasp of chess fundamentals already, the learning curve for "Winning Chess Tactics" wasn't nearly as steep. All the old favorites are here: Forks, skewers, pins and discovered attacks; along with some more advanced tactics that amateurs don't usually see, like Zwischenzug. Each of them is presented, explained, dissected and incorporated into play in their own chapter with tests and puzzles liberally peppered throughout.

After all the tactics are out of the way, Seirawan and Silman present selected games from some of the greatest chess tacticians of the last 150 years. Each game is presented with annotations and commentary from Seirawan and Silman to help the reader understand the tactical mind of chess masters and grand masters. The games are very illustrative of the sort of tactical ideas the top chess players use.

Lastly the book finishes off with more tests and puzzles that can be used to increase the reader's understanding of the concepts detailed previously.

While I thoroughly enjoyed "Winning Chess Tactics", and it was probably my favorite of the series, I was a little unhappy with the layout and writing style. I'm convinced that Seirawan is writing for children, and that can be a little off putting. Having read some of Silman's other work, I don't think that his writing style is represented in "Winning Chess Tactics" nearly as much as in the other two books in the series.

Putting the solutions to the puzzles of part 1 in part 3 also threw me off a litte, because part 3 has its own series of puzzles also. I had to go back and forth between three different sections to find the solutions and see if I was right. It didn't detract from the overall book that much, it just made enjoying the book a little more difficult.

Overall, though, I think "Winning Chess Tactics" is an excellent addition to the serious chess amateur and enthusiast. Players from 1000 Elo to about 1400 Elo will probably get the most out of this book. Too far below that and you probably won't understand the concepts being presented. Too far above that and you probably won't need the information this book has.

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