Description

Sharpen your tactical vision.

200 chess puzzles taken from real games, chosen for players who see the obvious tactic quickly and want something more challenging.

Many of these positions require a few moves of calculation. The solution might begin with a quiet move, a sacrifice, or an idea that is not obvious at first. The puzzles are mixed together, so you have to work out the position without knowing what kind of tactic you are looking for.

Each puzzle has its own page, with ruled space underneath to write out your move and your opponent’s reply in pencil. Writing out the whole line makes you look beyond your own move and think about how your opponent can reply.

After each solution, labelled tags show the tactical motifs involved, with all the terminology explained in the glossary. The aim is not only to solve the position in front of you, but to build a stock of recurring ideas that you can recognise when they appear in your own games.

Answers come after every nine puzzles, so they are never far away. The difficulty is revealed with the answer rather than the puzzle, leaving you to assess the position without any clue about what you are facing. This extra challenge will help train your evaluation skills alongside your tactics. Every solution has been checked with Stockfish, a powerful chess engine.

Compact enough to carry around, but difficult enough to deserve some time at the board.