Chess Tactics for Students [Paperback]

John A. Bain (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: Learning Plus Inc (January 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963961411
• ISBN-13: 978-0963961419
• ASIN: 0963961403
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #457,168 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

156 of 159 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Tactics Problems for Beginners but lots of mistakes, August 4, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Chess Tactics for Students (Paperback)

If it wasn't for the mistakes in both solutions and some obvous typos this would be a very good first tactics book for any age. It needs to be corrected and a couple of problems removed that do not work and replaced by some that do. A better quality control was needed!
Now I feel tactics are one of the most important things for students who are new to improve their game. Getting some tactics workbooks and opening chess traps books are a good way to accomplish improving over all tactics.
This book will still help you get started, but there are a lot of choices of simular books without so many mistakes.

110 of 111 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tactics Workbook - Nice and Big Format, September 21, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Chess Tactics for Students (Paperback)

I really like the "large" (about 8" x 11") workbooks that I have gotten on both very basic tactics ("Chess Tactics for Students) and on chess opening traps ("Winning Chess Traps for Juniors").
The print is big and easy to see with big diagrams. I don't like books with tiny little print and diagrams so small you need a magnifying glass (should be included with the book!). I don't have s seeing problem, but I just like my tactics and trap workbooks in the large print format.
"Chess Tactics for Students" was my starting tactics book. It is good for beginners. My only small grips are I found some printing mistakes and wish it had more puzzels to work on (but maybe that is a plus!).
This is a good book for a beginner after they learn how the pieces move.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Workbook format guides tactical thinking step by step, August 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Chess Tactics for Students (Paperback)

Although it was field-tested with elementary, middle school, and high school students, this book is not just for younger students. I'm an adult just beginning to study tactics and I found this workbook format engaging. There are two problems per page, and each problem has a couple of kinds of hints -- a direction line and fill-in-the blank move listings that indicate checks and variants. You can cover up these hints if you want more of a challenge.

The sequencing of this book is well thought out. Each chapter focuses on a different kind of tactic (such as discovered check, double attacks, zugzwang, removing the defender, and so on), and the problems often are paired so that once you've solved one problem in 2 moves, the next one is a related problem in 3 moves that might have seemed insoluble before. A final chapter combines all the tactics and asks students to figure out what approach is the best for a given position.

It only took me about a week to pass through this book, but I enjoyed filling it in. The enclosed Answer Key was easy to use, as it reproduces the move sequences in their entirety, rather than just providing the answers to the blanks. Worth the money for beginners of any age.

After finishing this book, I immediately played a game where I was able to move a knight into a royal fork that was simultaneously a discovered check. I don't think I would have "seen" this possibility before reading this book.