Patzer's review

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 did something different. I bought a chess book without doing any research. I decided to reward myself with a new book after having written ten reviews. So I asked my friends on Twitter for suggestions, and someone suggested that I take a look at the book Under the surface by Jan Markos. Since the book is quite new, I couldn't find much information about it, so I decided to blindly trust the recommendation. Luckily, I was not let down. What can you expect from this book? I am not the only one who has done something different. Jan Markos did the same when he wrote Under the surface . He takes a quite philosophical approach to chess, which should probably be expected from a former student of philosophy. This comes across quite clearly in his choice of chapter titles. The names "Magnetic Skin", "Anatoly Karpov's Billiard Balls" and "On the Breaking Ice" are not the most transparent chapter titles in the world. But once you get under the surfa...

Have you ever missed a tactic in your games? Of course you have. We all have. Wouldn't it be good if someone wrote a book that could help you get better at spotting tactics? Well, there is such a book. Actually, there are many such books. And one example is Tune your chess tactics antenna by Emmanuel Neiman. I'd like to warn sensitive readers, as this review may contain sarcasm. You have been warned. What can you expect from this book? As you probably know, there are hundreds and hundreds of tactics books out there, and most of them are pretty similar. Usually, a tactics book is divided into themes (pins, forks, skewers etc.), and the author explains each theme and then there are a bunch of puzzles for you to solve. Sound familiar? In Tune your chess tactics antenna , you will find a similar component, but that is not all. In the first part of the book, the author presents seven signals  that a tactic might be present. Weak king position Unprotected piece(s) Alig...

In this round, I was paired up against a quite strong player, so I didn't have high expectations. I had even forgot about the game until about two hours before, and had very little time to prepare. Between feeding the children and getting them to bed, I took a brief look at a few of my opponent's games. I found that he liked to play the French, so 1. e4 was out the window. Against 1. d4, he seems to like the English defense - an opening against which I have some experience. I refreshed my memory about the opening, and especially the variation in which black keeps his knight on g8 and plays Be7-f6. And what do you know? My opponent played this very line. The first 9 moves were pure preparation from my side. After that, I was on my own. The game was quite even up to the point where I decided to push my e-pawn and realized that I had missed one of my opponent's resources, and he won the pawn by removing a defender. However, it cost him the bishop pair, so it wasn't all...

Round 4, and I am paired up against an opponent I know next to nothing about. I checked his Lichess profile, and found just a few games. I saw that he had played the London system a few times, so that was my best guess as to what I could expect. The game was a bit dry. Both players made a few mistakes and failed to fully utilize each other's mistakes. After a few positional inaccuracies from my opponent, I had a chance to play for a win, but didn't manage to find the right continuation. The game ended in a draw. I gave the resulting position to an FM at my club, and asked his opinion about it. He said the pushing b4 was not necessarily the right plan. Rather, he suggested playing g5 and opening up the kingside. In his opinion, doubling on the g-file would be a good try for black. My opponent arrived at a similar conclusion after having fed the position toan engine and having it play the game out. The computer closed up the queenside and went for a kingside attack. Black w...

One of the greates classics of chess literature. That's at least what it says on the cover. But let's not judge a book by the cover. Instead, we could listen to what others have said about this book. In his review of My system , John Watson writes: "We no longer consider many classics to be essential to a chess education, not since the Internet; but if there’s an exception, Nimzowitch’s work is it". These are big words from a big man. Watson is an authority of chess theory, so his evaluation should not be taken too lightly. Although My system has frequently been mentioned among the greatest books of all time, and has been recommended by many players , it has also been the subject of controversy. Of course, when the book was first published (almost 100 years ago), many ideas in the book challenged many of the established principles of chess theory at the time, and other authorities dismissed the ideas. But also to this day, many people are unimpressed with the b...

Would you like to gain 400 rating points in 400 days? That is what Michael de la Maza did. And he wrote a book about his progress and the methods that got him there. Quite an appealing idea, and many players at the beginner and intermediate level will be enticed. I was. Are you? In 2001, Michael de la Maza wrote an article in Chess horizons called "400 points in 400 days" . In the article, he outlines the main components of his training program and gives a short account of his own progress. He managed to to get from about 1300 to 2000 in just two years, which is quite an accomplishment. His ideas were later elaborated upon and presented in the book  Rapid chess improvement. This book was published quite a few years ago, and can be difficult to find. But it has been republished in a new form, together with two other books in A chess course: from beginner to winner . If you decide you want to buy Rapid chess improvement , this three-in-one volume may be a good option. ...