I finished NM Dan Heisman’s Back To Basics: Tactics about a week ago. The book aims to teach tactical concepts to “beginning players who have never played tournament chess or who possess a U.S. Chess Federation rating lower than 1500″ or online players with a rating below 1700. I believe the book is well-suited for this purpose and audience. I also think players rated 100-200 points higher might use this book for a quick “tactical tune-up” if they are a bit rusty. That’s what I did.
Regular readers of Heisman’s Novice Nook column know that he often talks about counting as one of the most underappreciated tactical elements, especially for players in the target audience for this book. The book opens with a chapter called “Safety and Counting.” The chapter starts off with some basic exercises in evaluating a sequence of captures, like these:
White to move: is the black pawn safe?
White to move: is the black pawn safe?
He proceeds to show more complex examples that trip up even intermediate players, and then takes the readers through most of a game that featured counting errors on both sides. The chapter finishes with 24 counting problems, such as this one:
Black to play; is …Ng4 good?
The next and longest chapter presents the major tactical motifs. Each motif is explained with examples and accompanied by tactical problems (246 in all). Chapter sections include:
- Trapped Pieces
- Pins
- Skewers
- Double Threats
- Double Attacks
- Knight and Pawn Forks
- Removal of the Guard
- Discovered Attack and Discovered Check
- Promotion and Underpromotion
Subsequent chapters include checkmates, common opening tactics, and defensive tactics. Then there is a set of 78 problems covering a variety of motifs and levels of difficulty.
Chapter 7 gathers together Heisman’s writings about the “Seeds of Tactical Destruction.” The seeds are elements of a position (such as loose pieces, inadequately guarded pieces, weak back rank, local domination of forces, etc.) that indicate it’s worth the time to try to find a tactic.
The final chapter presents 15 “Is there a win?” problems. These positions have one or several “seeds of tactical destruction,” but the reader doesn’t know for sure whether each position has a tactical win or not.
I enjoyed this book and I recommend it for Heisman’s target audience (USCF 1500 and below).
2 Comments
Thanks for the review. I’ll have to pick it up just for the counting problems. He is one of the few authors to really acknowledge how tricky they can be for those of us in the 1400 and under set. I’ve been playing chess for over two years now, and still make those bloody counting errors. I should compile 1000 such problems and go around to the different chess software companies marketing them.
The final chapter sounds very interesting, too.
A helpful review. Thankx