Forcing Chess Moves: The Key to Better Calculation (Paperback)

by Charles Hertan (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"By organizing and explaining the nature of great chess moves Hertan has brought us all closer to being able to find them" --Former US Champion Joel Benjamin

"I love this book" --Elisabeth Vicary, US Chess Federation Online

Review
"Hertan develops the reader's skills methodically, thus enabling each tactical lesson to be learned and absorbed properly"

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: New In Chess (April 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9056912437
• ISBN-13: 978-9056912437
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #70,157 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book humbled me., July 15, 2008

By	ChessFire (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

I used to think I was pretty good at tactics and calculating variations..until I got this book. I've come to see that I have a biased "play it safe" mode that keeps me from seeing the dynamic potential in alot of positions. And I am terrible at calculating with precision. As the author says, close enough is not good enough...you must strive for precision. This book is helping me in each of those areas. The examples are HARD. Usually when you get a book on tactics the first few chapters are a breeze. Not so here. These are advanced, difficult problems, that have FORCED me to go where I haven't gone before: 1) looking for and analyzing moves I wouldn't even have considered before 2) calculating with precision. It's like having a personal chess coach in alot of ways. I also like that there are typically a number of examples of one theme (ie. corridor mate..back rank..etc) grouped together to help you in pattern matching for your own games.

Overall a terrific book! Whenever you find a book that helps identify and remedy a serious area of chess weakness it is well worth the money!

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Tactics Calculation Workbook, July 13, 2008

By	Bede (New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This is an interim review as I'm less than half way through the book but really loving it. The aim of the book is to overcome human bias in ruling out outrageous 'computer' moves that might lead to an instant win or gain of material. I suppose I am as guilty as the next person of playing automatic recaptures and rejecting sacrificial continuations that appear to peter out. However in my case, the main reason is that I am a lazy analyser.
The reason I like this book so much is the clarity and helpfulness of the analysis. Each of the over 600 positions in the book is shown with a white or black square next to it indicating who is to move. Hertan then gives the main line of the solution. He also explains why plausible options don't work and gives all the reasonable alternative lines. And he does this all in a very concise way.
The way I am using the book is as to improve my analysis skills. I study each diagram with the solution that follows it covered up. Then I compare my analysis with Hertan's to see what important lines I missed, or where I gave up on a line too soon.
This is definitely not a beginner's book on tactics. It assumes you know basic tactics likes pins, forks and back rank mate combinations. As a puzzle book, the positions are more difficult than Reinfeld's 1001 books but not too much harder. The real differentiator for me is the quality of the explanations.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should Be Converted to Software, September 13, 2008

By	C. Amari (WashingtonDC) - See all my reviews

Charles Hertan and New In Chess publishers are missing a great opportunity to convert this book to training software. A case can be made that Hertan's book is more pedagogically focussed than CT - Art 3.0, which dominates that field.

Relative to most other tactics books, this one actually advocates a straightforward thinking method involving forcing moves and, to a better degree than many similar efforts, does not focus on mating combinations almost to the complete exclusion of tactical opportunities for material gain, which are likely more commonplace in practice. "Stock" tactical motifs are covered in the first two chapters. I dare say that 98% of chess tactic books merely provide the information in those two chapters with varying degrees of examples. In this 400-page effort, Hertan moves well beyond that to more broadly consider and categorize forcing moves generally, many of which do not easily fit into traditional typologies.

I'm not necessarily convinced that Hertan's advocated postition of always addressing oneself first to hard calculation of forcing lines, rather than relying initially on more judgmental assessments to identify candidate moves, would survive a cost (in time) benefit analysis in many situations. Accordingly, I am in turn not necessarily convinced of his assertion that "A deep study of forcing moves is probably the single most important task toward achieving chess mastery." Some positions present a bewildering array of forcing moves and, in Hertan's explanations, this fact can sometimes be conveniently ignored, with solutions presented as if the winning move was necessarily the most forcing, which is not really the case. In these cases finding the winning move likley is the product of some process other than raw calculation of a large number of equally forcing moves. Likewise, the separate concept of "computer eyes" is gimmicky and unnecessary to his thesis -- the term is used in connection with the unremarkable concept that identifying the most forcing moves may include moves that are counterintuitive to humans, and that the human bias against considering such moves is not a tendency shared by chess engines. (While I really have no clue, I gather that chess computers in fact do not consider forcing moves first, and thus the computer allusion has no particular relevance to Hertan's thesis.)

This is not to say that Hertan's unique perspective, argument regarding thinking methods, and wealth of fresh examples from practical play, is not appreciated, or that adding increased consideration to forcing sequences will not contribute something of real practical value to those who need to sharpen their alertness to tactics. Hertan suggests at the end of the book that he wished it could be one's first book on tactics. Very few of Hertan's readers are likely to be blank slates, but I suspect that the greater value of his book will be to add new and useful dimensions to the play of those of us whose tactical approach runs somewhat in a rut.

Not insignificantly, the layout and production values of this book are above average. Returning to my initial point, the only way to materially improve the presentation would be to convert the book to training software.