I am fairly good at tactics. At least for my level. Of all the various ratings I have, my tactics rating is the highest by far. It has been well over 2000 for longer than I can remember, whereas my OTB rating is at a meek 1500 level. Now, why is that? Well, the problem is that my tactical skills are one-sided. I usually spot tactical opportunities for myself, but I often miss tactics that are available to my opponents. This is something that Dan Heisman has identified as a very common problem among amateur players. Therefore, he has written two books on the topics, Looking for trouble and Is your move safe? . Both books focus on the same topic, i.e. defensive tactics, but they have slighly different flavors. Anyway, I thought I'd take on both books in the same review. What can you expect from these books? Both of these books address the problem that I mention in the introduction of this post. Although both of them are tactics books, they differ rather much from other tactics ...
I am one of many. I am an amateur chess player trying to improve, but I have limited time because of, well, life and stuff. If you can identify with this description, then this site is for you. On the site I post book reviews, game analyses and tips for chess improvement and training. I am also proud to be a founding member of the #chesspunks community.