Patzer's review

Which is the best chess book ever? As a chess community, we repeatedly ask this kind of question, for various categories. And one of those categories is, of course, tactics. So which is the best tactics book ever? The answer to this question depends on the playing strength of the reader. But if we consider the fact that the majority of chess players are in the middle of the bell curve, the best books should logically be among the ones written for an intermediate audience. With that said, this might be the best tactics book ever written. A bold statement, perhaps. Read on to find out why I recommend this book. If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details. Become a Patron! What can you expect from this book? Chess tactics from scratch was originally published as Understanding Chess Tactics  – as indicated by the book's subtitle. This book is actually what inspired the now famous "woodpecker method". In his book Pu...

Modern Chess is too much concerned with things like Pawn structure. Forget it, Checkmate ends the game. This statement by Nigel Short may trigger different reactions in the chess experts of the world. Some may argue that it oversimplifies the game, since it is not possible to play for checkmate in all positions. On the other hand, it quite correctly pinpoints a major problem for beginning players in that they simply don't know how to end the game. I've seen this in our kids classes at my local club. The kids can be up a ton of material, but they don't know how to checkmate their opponent. A common piece of advice served to beginners is "do a lot of tactics". And I agree that this is a good idea. But I think we should expand on that advice and suggest that beginners (and stronger players) "do a lot of checkmates". And what better way to do this than go through a checkmate puzzle book? If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visi...