Back to Basics: Tactics

Back to Basics: Tactics by Dan Heisman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

This is more of a reference manual as opposed to the sort of book one would read from cover to cover. At issue is whether or not someone can benefit from the content. It is targeted at novice chess players. Experienced or even intermediate players probably won't get much out of it.

If one wants to learn chess, a good place to start is by figuring out what an optimal opening position looks like. This can be found on the internet. Obviously you're never going to get a perfect position in real life but as long as you know what one looks like you know what you're trying to accomplish.

The next step is to figure out what to do with whatever opening you finish up with. For that you need tactics and this book will provide an excellent overview as to what you should look for, how to exploit your opponent's weakness and cover your own.

Once you understand tactics, you can go back and study various openings, their strengths and weaknesses and decide how you want to proceed, but once the first ten or so moves are complete, this is the material you need to move forward. I think the author has done a good job of organizing his material and I certainly recommend it for the beginning player.



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