Chess puzzle books are undoubtedly popular – and with good reason. Solving chess puzzles helps to sharpen a player’s tactical and combinational skills. This ability is absolutely fundamental for chess development. You won’t get better at tennis until you can consistently hit the ball with accuracy and you won’t get better at chess until you improve your ability to calculate. It is that simple and there are no shortcuts. Many puzzle books take a far too simplistic approach and offer endless positions where the solution is nearly always along the lines of: queen takes something check, king takes queen, check, check and a pretty mate. Aesthetically pleasing perhaps but of minimal use for actual improvement as the patterns are so familiar. Practical Chess Puzzles avoids this pitfall. The positions chosen are far more like those that actually appear on the board during the vast majority of games. Furthermore, at all stages, the puzzles are ranked, enabling the student to gauge progress and identify and correct weaknesses.• 600 puzzles featuring instructive, typically “game-like” positions• Model games featuring important instructional points• A ranking system to assess progress.
Practical Chess Puzzles largely delivers what is promised. The authors say that they are writing for players from 1200-2200—quite a range!— and the puzzles in each section track from less to more complex... there is an overt effort to present lesser known, diverse examples, featuring North American players and a full range of position types. All this serves to keep solvers on their toes. 4 out of 5
In summary, the content lives up to the title and any tournament player from say 1200 Elo to perhaps 2200 will derive much benefit from working through the content. It is good to find a whole tranche of new material and ideas from real games played by mostly amateur players.
This is a high-end puzzle book which will offer a tough test, even to experienced players. I think it will be most useful as a book to dip into rather than running the risk of breaking your head over a torrent of tricky positions.
