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Book's Description
Susan Polgar became the first female Grandmaster at age 15—and it wasn't luck that got her there. Her use of tactics, combinations, and strategy during her games gave her the critical advantage she needed against her opponents. In Chess Tactics for Champions, Polgar gives insight into the kind of thinking that chess champions rely on while playing the game, specifically the ability to recognize patterns and combinations. With coauthor Paul Truong, Susan Polgar teaches the tactics she learned from her father, Laszlo Polgar, one of the world's best chess coaches.
• Teaches players how to calculate the effect of a move in order to gain an edge over an opponent
• For intermediate to advanced chess players of all ages
Customer Reviews
Perfect follow up to WC's Guide to Chess ,31/08/2006
The first book I read was World Champion's Guide to Chess. I learned a lot from it. This is an excellent follow up to that one. The format is very similar. There're plenty of excellent examples. Just about any tactical motif is in the book. I think this book is good for anyone from about 700-1400.
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A great next level book by Polgar ,15/04/2008
This is another excellent book by Susan Polgar. Her first book is similar to this one, but with the major difference being the difficulty of the chess puzzles. The first book was elementary compared to this one. This book really tested my skills and eyes for the correct move. It basically deals with developing the art of seeing the tactic or creating the winning move with little instruction. The chess puzzles help the speed player. This book is great practice in using the art of tactics. It has helped my play by supporting wins over a high 1400, 1500, 1600 this week. An excellent book for the intermediate player.
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Amazing book!!! ,28/04/2008
This is an incredible chess book!!! You want to improve your chess?? Read this book and solve the puzzles, but solve them seriously! Dont look for the answer at the end of the chapter, some of them are not easy, but keep practicing, every day solve some puzzles, you will not notice your improvement while you are reading but after some chapters if you play against your friends again, you will see it and they too!! In less than two months practicing you will see results!!
This book start from easy problems, you will solve them easily, next chapter you will think "Oh c'mon give something better than this!!", but after a few chapters you will be playing much better and solving puzzles that never before you could solve... in just seconds!!.
I play against my computer and also online in yahoo chess, my rating usually is around 1400 to 1500, and never more than that. This night I just beat a 1600 guy!. He couldnt see what I could!! Even I offer him a queen sacrifice!! (unfortunally he didnt take it because it was mate, but he lost a knight instead!:)
Amazing book!! Thanks Susan!! I will buy all the Polgar family books!!!
Here are some of them:
A World Champion's Guide to Chess: Step-by-step instructions for winning chess the Polgar way (Chess) and
Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games
Some Advices from just a (still) regular player:
1. When you find a puzzle that you cant solve after 15/20 minutes thinking, just leave it and go to the next one, dont look for the answer!. Later, next day or next week try again and you will find the right move for sure!
2. May be I shouldnt say this, but just in case... dont be tricky with yourself! Make the moves in your mind, do NOT touch the pieces until you find the moves just thinking. If you dont do this, the excercise will be useless for you and a waste of time because you will not improve your game doing this.
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Review of Chess Tactics for Champions ,10/03/2008
Susan Polgar's book intrigued me from the start as it focused rather like her father's book on prolems and working to figure out what your first move. The only drawback is that it is heavily influenced towards the White pieces. Overall, though, Polgar's book really helps you develop an idea of playing 'for the future and not just for the now' (i.e. you need to play smarter and not just better).
The idea is also to develop the ideas about looking 2-3-4 moves ahead and that will benefit all players enormously!
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wonderful book ,15/11/2007
My 10 year old son enjoys reading the book. At first I thought it would be hard to understand since it is more for intermediate players and he is just a beginner.
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Is This More Than Just Another Tactics Puzzle Book? ,01/03/2007
This book doesn't offer much more than your typical tactics puzzle book; but if you have you buy a puzzle book, you will not go wrong with this one. Besides the usual organization into chapters such as Forks and Double Attacks, Deflection, Discovery, Double Check, Skewers, Trapping, Decoys, Intermediate Moves, Pawn Promotion, Back-Rank Problems, Attacking the King, Mate in 2, Mate in 3, Mate in 4, etc., Polgar and Truong offer some extra chapters such as Sibling Positions, Traps and Counter Traps, and Famous Combinations that make this book unique to the tactics puzzle genre. In the Siblings chapter, we are introduced to postions that have very small differences, but differences that are big enough to make a huge difference in the evaluation and move selection. This is good practice for the beginning student (it also forces you to appreciate positional subtleties). The Traps and Counter Traps chapter also forces the appreciation of subtleties, because one transposition of moves could mean losing a won ballgame. The Famous Combos chapter rounds out the book with a set of classic combos every aspiring chess student should study at least once.
Each chapter has about twenty-five puzzles, ranging in difficulty. The positions are not as difficult as Reinfeld's 1001 books, but they are hard enough for training purposes, and work well for the student. I went through this book when I was rated in the low 1800s, and the positions kept me alert. I didn't get bored.
The typos and mistakes are minimul. I noticed one or two positions that didn't correspond with their intended solutions, but it was only one or two. they didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the book.
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Great tactics book. ,25/03/2008
This book has a perfect combination of variety and quantity. Problems are broken down by type. Each type is introduced and explained step by step, then 50 or 100 practice problems of that type are provided for drill. The solutions are at the back of each section. There are separate sections for Mates in 1, 2, 3, and even 4 moves, as well as pins, discoveries, double attacks, etc... I have her father's massive collection of mate problems. This book is less overwhelming and will be approachable to a wider audience.
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One of the best written books on tactics for beginner or more advanced beginner. ,18/05/2007
I like this book because it show many types of tactical themes which we usually meet over the chessboard. Even more important is that this books give hundreds of exercise for you to practice. Some book on tactics or similar features books called " how to attact, how to sacrifice etc ", they just choosed games from grandmasters for illustration and neglecting to give exercises. ( or even have, just a few ). This is not helpful. To improve one' standard, you have to work hard. After finishing reading this book, I would recommnend to read John Nunn's " Learn chess tactics" which the presentations are similat, but the exercises are more difficult.
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Excellent Tactics Book: Not to hard, not to soft. Just right. ,02/01/2007
This is an excellent book to improve your chess. I am a chess novice, I know how to move the pieces, but I can use all the help I can get. I find most tactical books are either too hard or too easy. This one finds the right balance with the problems progressively harder as each section progresses. It is one of the few chess books I was able to read from cover to cover without scratching my head trying to follow endless variations.
The best part occurred not while reading the book, but over the board. I was playing a match online, and I spotted a forced mate in 3 in the middle game when my opponent blundered!! Woo! Hoo! Let me tell you, I was stoked.
After studying this book, I went from about 1000 against ChessMaster 10 to about 1400 in about 4 months. This brings me to a key point I studied the book. I worked through each problem in the book. Then I worked through it again and again. I worked though the book 6 times. The book became progressively easier to work though, so do not get discouraged. This book will improve your game.
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Awesome book ,04/01/2008
After taking a few years off from the game, I started teaching the kids and playing on weekends. I tried pointing out that tactics were vitally important to make that next step up the skill ladder. This book was the perfect tool to illustrate my layman's instructions.... The situations range from easy to moderately difficult. I got a lot of "DOH!!... I should have seen that!" The level of all our play has improved and it is fun to see where a fork or trap is similar to what was in the book. I highly recommend!
All the best,
Jay
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exactly what i was looking for to work on bettering my tactics foundations ,01/01/2008
I concider myself an intermediate player. My rating on Turn based chess ( similar more modern type of postal chess ) is around 1850, my live games might be close to 1900. But my blitz games is more around 1700 and this is due (in my mind ) to the fact that i started very old ( around 19 or 20 years old) to play and learned chess ( seriously ) so i lack the tactical patterns many wizz kids show in such a natural and effortless way. I usually outplayed this guys on long games since i can analyse and use more an strategic approach while i take care of not falling on tactical traps. This is of course not enough if you wanna reach the 2000 points and over.
So i concluded i needed a book or a series of training materials that would work on creating those patterns. I read some material where it stated that is not necesarily the complex patterns that do the most fundamental job but the simple ones.
So this book from that point of view seems to hit the spot. I've been doing it for 3 days now and i'm done about 3/4 of the books. I planned to work on the excersices at the very least 3 times each. I went to play yesterday and i still have some way to go but i see the game in a diferent way and some things just pop up naturally.
I still need to remember to keep my style going and growing wich is more strategically but is nice to be more prepared to hand to hand combat.
I think in cases similar to mine this book is very good ( people trying to re do their tactics fundamentals from the begining) or for beginners to intermediate.
Hope this helps
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Great book. ,12/01/2008
This book will definitely help an intermediate chess player greatly improve their tactical thinkly and, consequently, improve their overall game. I really enjoyed it. Easy to follow. Very logical. I've read the book several times and I still make silly mistakes in my games, but it's not the books fault. I just tend to play really fast without in-depth thinking. When I take my time, the tactics taught in this book come to mind and I'm able to stun my opponents. I wish I had read this book first before any others.
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An Excellent book of its kind ,18/01/2008
This book is perfect, with lots of excercises and lots of important tactics discussed and overviewed. An exceptional piece of work!!!
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"Best" General Book ,16/05/2008
This book was such an impressive general book (most useful for a broad range of novices...say, ELO 500-1200) that now many kids I know are using it successfully. Its the best basic textbook I've ever seen with its superb clarity, organization and coverage. Susan's step-by-step method of teaching elementary tactics is also great.
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A fine resource ,27/12/2007
This books is a very well written introduction to tactical themes. The included exercises start with the simple and progress up to entry/middle intermediate levels. I found the section on "Sibling Positions" to be quite instructional as well. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that feels they need to work on their tactical vision.
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