Customer Reviews

Can You Be a Tactical Chess Genius?

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have a mixed feelings about this book. Unfortunately, the negatives slightly outweigh positive. GM Plaskett put together a series of 12 tests, each with 15 diagrams. You get points based on accuracy and depth of your analysis. There is a "hint" feature which will cost you points.

Suggested readers level -
In my opinion players rated under 2000 should look for other books as majority of testing positions will be a frustrating experience. Don't get me wrong, even 1600 rated would benefit from working through author's answers to many "15 point" problems, however, the value of such a lesson is not that great.

Quality of Positions and Annotations -
VERY GOOD. Mainly, the positions were unfamiliar to me. Many from GM Plaskett's own games. Been a player or a witness, he has some additional angle to the annotations. This increases value of notes and also brings some fun.

Scoring system -
POOR - my biggest complain with this book - scoring is way too simplistic. In many cases I believe scores don't correspond to relative difficulties of positions. "Price" for hint is outrages, comparing to the actual help you get. For example for 15 point problem (T#3, P#15) - rook endgame - question ask how Black can use his pass pawn. Hint will cost you 6 points and you will find out that you should consider
"advancing the pawn at all costs". I would expect this to be initial thought of anyone who read the question and studied the problem. So hint doesn't bring anything new to the table, yet takes away 40% of maximum points. Finally, when you do finish the test, study the solutions and get your overall score, what are you suppose to do with it? There is no relative strength table or anything else that would help you to measure your result.

Accuracy of presentation -
AVERAGE - I have only been through one test so far, but already I saw a diagram (T#1, P#9) with a "ghost" knight. I also run into the position (T#1, P#11) that specifically claimed to have only one solution - mate in 5 and asked you to find it. However, even without PC help, I found another solution (in his solution -play 3.Rf7+ and 4.Be5# or 4.Bc7#)

Overall, good testing book for higher rated player 2000+. Especially, if he has several friends with similar ratings to compare results with. Lower rated players and beginners, consider something else, for example Emms' Ultimate Puzzle book or Hall's Combination Challenge.

Good luck,
Copyrighted by me!

I bought this book specifically to improve my middle-game play.
I wanted to improve my tactical vision and better calculate tactics. My rating is USCF 2180.

This book is excellent because
1) there aren't any long unncessary write-ups like , "Here I played White ,etc,etc". Pure mental training
2) Exercizes are gradual : simple at first, then not so simple and then really hard to see it all
3) you can progress throught the book, divided in 12 chapters. see how you rate on chapter 1 ( scoring system provided ), and on chapter 7, and compare.

Also, I like the fact that if there is a wrong move, or alternate variation, the author will explain why such move fails. Each exercize is reviewed by a strong GM with several variations detailed if needed.

I did find some isolated cases where I went to the computer to check additional defensive moves not covered , or typo in diagram/solution. This covers less than 10% of the examples though.
Finally, there are a lot of Plaskett own games which I didn't know about, or positions taken from interesting games played in opens. The selection is original but covers most tactical themes.
This is a book for someone who knows about themes ( forks,double attack, Pawn destruction, quiet moves ) but wants to get closer to International master level.

All in all, a book I recommend highly for anyone -with Elo/Rating > 1900- eager to improve in chess tactics.

how does th book works?
This kind of book is just to keep in shape trying to resolve the problem. this helps for lines calculation.. If you want to improve skill, resolved chess puzzles

About the puzzle there are all level, Every Text has 15 puzzle, increasing the dificult. Accourding your analysis its gave points.

There are nice diagram and nice quality paper.

About th author?
Not famous, but is a strong player, in the book are few games against Miles and Short that he won with tactical hit.

Beginer player try to find the moves, even if your scored not too many points, try to remenber the moves accourding the approach, not memorized. And you could enjoy this item.

Intermediate player or higther... Just Go for it. Try to resolve puzzles how many you can and enjoy it.

"Can you be a Tactical Chess Genius" by British Grandmaster James Plaskett is an intersting selection of tactical puzzles arranged in a test format complete with a scoring system. In all, there are 12 tests of 15 puzzles each for a total of 180 puzzles. Each test is arranged from easy to difficult, with themore difficult puzzles being worth the most points. After the puzzles, there's a section called "Ask a Grandmaster", which will give the reader hints as to the solution of the puzzle at the cost of some points. Then there's solutions, and that's it.

The book is almost absurdly thin. When I first got it, I couldn't help but think, "That's it?" There's a lot crammed into this concise work, though, and Plaskett doesn't waste time with flowery text or overly long descriptions of tactical theory. It's puzzle after puzzle after puzzle, then hints, then solutions.

For this reason, I consider the book to be more of an assessment than an actual instruction. It is best used to determine where you stand in your understanding of tactics and where to go from there. I would have liked more content and description, but all in all it was an acceptable book to study.

The book is full of puzzles, some very good ones at that. Yet this is pretty much the entirety of the book. Each puzzle includes scoring that helps you to determine how you rate as a chess tactician. Each puzzles also contain a hint if necessary, the use of which is factored into scoring. James Plaskett is an international Grandmaster thus its safe to say he is qualified to assess how any of us rate.

I can say firsthand that the value of doing puzzle after puzzle eventually shows up in your rating as you end up recognizing key patterns in games. But surely tactical improvement is not solely limited to puzzles and answers. What this book is missing is any insight offered that might help one be more inclined to answer these puzzles correctly.

As one last bit of annoyance that doesn't speak to the material but definitely affects the experience with this book is its presentation. The puzzles are presented in groups, and then the clues and answers are spread about the back of the book. The result is a significant amount of back and forth among the pages to determine if you are on the right track, if you are correct, and what your scores are. Surely Plaskett could have had a little faith that the reader could resist cheating if the answers were put a little closer to the puzzles eliminating the need to relentlessly go back and forth in the book, something that quickly gets annoying.

To reiterate, the value of the puzzles alone are high quality. When you can aptly handle puzzles of this quality (they flow from relatively easy to extremely difficult) you are likely at a level where you can start contending in open tournaments. But there are many books that offer great puzzles, many of which also offer more insight and analysis leaving me to conclude that this book is at best average among tactical chess books.

The latest in the "Everyman Chess Puzzles" series, Can You Be A Tactical Chess Genius? by chess expert James Plaskett is an engaging book of chess puzzles written to twist the minds and imaginations of even the most experienced chess wizards. Here is a compelling quiz book that stretches tactical ability to earn points and gain a final score to compare against that of family and friends. There is even an "ask a grandmaster" option, but using it will cost points! A most enjoyable book for avid chess buffs, Can You Be A Tactical Chess Genius? would make a wonderful addition to any chess enthusiast's collection.