Customer Reviews

The Complete Chess Workout: Train your brain with 1200 puzzles! (Everyman Chess)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Yes, there are other books on chess tactics. But I like this one. The problems are not too difficult, and they feel like the sorts of positions that one might not only come across in a game, but ones in which one would actually be looking for the kinds of combinations that work here. I like the fact that the reader is not warned what the theme is of the various combinations.

I recommend this book. Those who want to try other (and somewhat tougher) books as well might want to look at "Test Your Chess IQ" by Livshitz or "Perfect Your Chess" by Volokitin and Grabinsky.

With 1200 problems in its collection, this book looks like another quantity-over-quality compilation at first. Not so. From the first page on, I was immensely impressed by the author's careful selection and ordering of these puzzles. Not only are they challenging, but they are also all from actual competitive games, most of which occurred in tournaments of the last decade. Basically, the author condensed these tournaments to their most exciting moments and presented these highlights for the readers to enjoy, one after another. As a bonus, the year, the tournament and the players are all listed, so it is quite straightforward to look them up in a database and find out how any game ended up in the particular situation.

I think this book will be enjoyable to anyone between 1200 and 2000. I do not agree with the previous reviewer, however, on the claim that chess and family are mutually exclusive. In fact, I am reading this book so as to delay falling behind my son in chess. Oh, the joy of rearing a child!

Richard Pallisar has done a good job!! The good points and the book layout have been mentioned by another reviewer. I just want to make a few words that, to master tactics, one has to do them everyday so that those typical motifs are engraved in your memory, but the problem as mentioned in this book's editorial, is that is there enough puzzles for solving for a considerable period of time. I think this book, with Combinative motifs, Sharpen your tactics, Manual of combination 2 and 3, along with 1000 combination gems you should know, would keep you busy at least 2 - 3 years and one tactical vision as well as the rating would improve as well. I strongly recommend this book!!!

Two things make this book a bit unusual among books of this sort. 1) Most of the positions are from very recent tournaments and 2) Most of the players are not household names. Both of these features make it harder for me to just remember the games.
I don't think there's anything more instructive or entertaining in chess than working through books like this one.

As the other reviewers have noted this is a huge collection of tactical chess problems designed to help you strengthen your chess muscles. But just like joining a "24 Hour Fitness" center, that's just the BEGINNING! You have to use the book, work the problems, understand the ones you didn't get, go back and try them again, and then when you've done all that: DO IT SOME MORE! Find more tactical situations, analyze your games, your friend's games, get more books, buy a tactics disc and so on. Chess Fitness is just like physical fitness: It's not a mountain to scale and then you're done, it's a "health habit" you build into your life-style. The pay off comes when you play a game of chess you can be proud of. THAT is what all your hard work was aiming at. And this book is the ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER of tactical problem collections.

A skilled and prolific chess writer, Richard Palliser is also an International Master with numerous tournament successes and in 2006 became the Join British Rapidplay Champion. Clearly, he brings his many years of experience and expertise to bear in writing "The Complete Chess Workout", a comprehensive training manual for chess tactics that will prove invaluable for aspiring chess players from the novice to the expert. Special note should be made that all of the featured 1200 chess puzzles designed to built chess playing skills have been checked by computer engines. Thoroughly 'player friendly', "The Complete Chess Workout is nicely organized into eight distinct chapters: Warming Up!; Attack!; Opening Tricks and Traps; Skill in the Endgame; Loose Pieces and Overloading; Fiendish Calculation; Test Yourself; and Solutions. A comprehensive course of chess instruction under one cover, "The Complete Chess Workout" truly lives up to its title and will prove to be a welcome addition to personal, academic, and community library chess instruction reference collections.

The Complete Chess Workout is definitely a difficult workout. Im started doing puzzles on this as a 1200 USCF, and found the first "warm up" section which is supposed to be easy very difficult. But, I grudged on and notices how, slowly but surely, my tactical skills rapidly improved. I have noticed and won a few games simply because of tactics I would never have seen besides for this book. Now, I am a 1500 USCF but I dont know if that is because of this book or something else.

It is nice that this book does not give you a hint, like many other books. (Your opponent probably won't give you a hint either).

Advice: do as many puzzles as possible, check them and RE-DO the puzzles you missed.

starts off pretty basic with lots of problems that are pretty simple, and then it soon transitions into more difficult and realistic positions. has all kinds of stuff from tactics to drawing resources to endgames to combinations...totally worth the money. High quality binding and durable.

Palliser's collection of 1200 puzzles is a wonderful resource. It succeeds in its objective, which is a tool for keeping your mind trim and ready for tactical maneuvers.
Each puzzle gives a diagram taken from a real game at a potential turning point and asks you to make the best move. The gain could be minimal such as a pawn, up to a piece, or perhaps checkmate within a few moves. The puzzles are nicely sorted for different stages of the game, and vary in difficulty. Though not aimed at the grand master, people of varying capabilities will find this collection useful.
Though fairly compact, it's a good length. With 1200 puzzles, it will take roughly a year to work through doing a few per day. By then you will have forgotten the solutions and you could go through it all over again.
On an educational note, the main question concerning this book is whether such training will make you a better player. Spending 15 minutes per day throwing free throws at a basketball ring won't make you Michael Jordan. Having a thousand balls thrown at you in a practice net won't turn you into Sachin Tendulkar. But it surely won't hurt. And in my opinion, this book is a lot more fun and absorbing than any Sudoku puzzle book. At the very least, you will never again be bored while sitting on the train to work. At this level alone, it is worth the price of admission, yet I think doing these puzzles may genuinely offer something substantial in understanding tactical motifs.
Most of the puzzles are from recent years, with a few from the classic masters, and a few even from the 19th Century. For someone like me who is still an apprentice in the sport of chess, I wonder what is the significance that so many of the puzzles are taken from 2007. It makes you wonder whether chess tactics go out of date every few years, but I doubt this to be so.

I thought I was good after working my way through Pandolfini's 300 checkmates book. I got this book to work on other tactical aspects. I found out it makes a huge difference when the type of win or defense is not stated and I don't know how many moves deep it will be. My online 10 minute blitz rating is 1430, with my common losses coming from losing pieces to tactics, or doing a sacrifice to start an attack that later fails. My USCF long game tournament rating 10 years ago was somewhere around 1300.

I decided to get this book, in hopes of starting with the easier problems and working my way up. Well, the "easier" are doable, but require considering 2-4 branch variations each half move 2-3 full moves deep to find the forced win. They are doable by a class E player who has a pencil and paper and plenty of time. I then flipped through the book, sampling 12 problems. I solved 2 after two and 5 minutes each. I saw the necessary trees to solve 2 others, but chose not to grind out the right path. I felt a little lost on the other 8. This book confirms my suspicions that my tactics are my weak point, though I'm glad I bought it before going to any tournaments. If you can't solve these, then may you should first before going to a tournament.

I know I should do at least a few problems a day. Update: Out of the first 6 I finally solved 4. It is difficult making myself work though these when they take so long. I am familiar with forks, pins, discoveries, and several other tactics. I'm just not good at weeding through the many possibilities and being sure that a solution I found is forced. Checkmates are much easier that capturing material because the king must respond to check, and once checkmate is reached, I know there was not a better move. Even if I see a way to win a pawn, I don't know if the other side can retaliate later, or if I missed capturing a night. And since the king is not in check, my opponent can always choose from may responses I have to consider.