Customer Reviews

How to Become a Deadly Chess Tactician

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

 

 

This book is, quite simply, one of the best-value I have ever seen: a tactics book you will delight in reading for the next six months. LeMoir has selected hundreds of positions, from all eras in chess history, showing amazing combinations, sacrifices and tactical themes. Anyone who reads this material will be better placed to bewilder and defeat their opponents. As well as the impressive depth and breadth of the examples used, there is plenty of explanation in the form of words. With two or three diagrams on nearly every page, and the crisp production quality invariably associated with publisher Gambit, what one is there to ask? The book finishes with 35 pages of tests and solutions. This is a stimulating and meaty read - don't miss it.

In one of my other reviews I got my LeMoir books mixed up. I meant to refer to ESSENTIAL CHESS SACRIFICES, his awesome collection of modern sacrificial themes which I would urge any attacking player to read. But his earlier work HOW TO BECOME A DEADLY CHESS TACTICIAN is also a book I enjoyed and benefited from. So many positions from the master games were not familiar to me (and I own a lot of books), and his practical advice on finding combinations (or cunning swindles) is superb.
This is so much material crammed into these LeMoir books - months of reading material rather than weeks or days. A LeMoir trait is to give several similar examples of the same sacrificial or tactical concept, but in slightly varied settings, which is so helpful. Don't let some other ignorant reviewers put you off - this is a book of real quality, which will give you a competitive edge in games. The five stars are fully deserved.

I loved this book. For several months I have been studying it, and have found it to be an inspiring and stimulating guide that has improved my tactics. I have seen several reviews in chess magazines that have all indicated it will help you become become a more dangerous opponent, and that is certainly my experience.
HOW TO BECOME A DEADLY CHESS TACTICIAN is crammed full of well-chosen tactical positions. The commentary is engaging (this is LeMoir's second book for Gambit, after HOW TO BE LUCKY IN CHESS), and the material is well-classified. Presentation is excellent, and most pages have two or three diagrams.
The publisher has a good record of discovering authors who really understand how to communicate with the ordinary club player. $19.95 for all the above represents good value for money - highly recommended.

LeMoir's book and Charles Hertan's book "Forcing Chess Moves" appear different, but I feel they share an underlying partial similarity. Hertan's focus is odd or surprising forcing moves, and LeMoir's focus is odd or surprising sacrifices. Sacs are usually forcing, but LeMoir focuses a lot on "silent" sacrifices that can often be left unaccepted by the opponent. (A silent sac is defined as "The sacrifice without a capture and without check", often "surprising".)

Each book has more strengths than weaknesses. Both are exceptionally fun books to read. Another common strength is that each attempts an advanced categorization scheme: What Hertan does for odd forcing moves, LeMoir does for silent sacs.

Hertan more explicitly and repetitively talks about improving your Elo rating; whereas LeMoir mentions Elo improvement in his Introduction, but rarely repeats it among his puzzles. There is much more general text interspersed throughout LeMoir's book.

I am surprised that these rather similar books have been received so differently by the chess book buying public (I have no stake, know neither author etc). Hertan's book recently won 2008 Book-of-the-Year on ChessCafe .com and has big Amazon sales, while I rarely saw/see mention of LeMoir's book.

Perhaps descriptive of the differences between these two books is their choice of games to cite from GM Nick de Firmian. The key/shot moves are of different styles.

[] LeMoir: de Firmian-Miles, 1988, 16. Nf3.g5! unblocking 16.. bg4::Qd1 in a "Silent Sacrifice".
rn3r1k/ppBnN1pp/2p1p3/8/q2bP1b1/3B1N2/PPP3PP/R2Q1R1K w - - 0 16

[] Hertan: De Firmian-Bronstein, 1993 (analysis variation), rg3::Rg2! as a "Zwischenzugs" (intermediate move) motif.
7r/p7/1p3pk1/3p2p1/2pP1p1q/P1P2Pr1/1P3QRB/R4K2 b - - 0 1

LeMoir's Table-of-Contents is (minus its most nested layer):
PART ONE: MOTIVATION
1. The Old Romantics
2. The Birth of Dynamism
3. The New Romantics
4. The Dynamic Romantics
5. The Deadly Tactician's Make-Up
6. Material Matters
7. You and Me

PART TWO: IMAGINATION
8. Simple Silent Sacrifices
9. Complex Silent Sacrifices
10. Brilliant Blunders
11. Tail-Lights
12. Pawns Passed and Present
13. Multiplication

PART THREE: CALCULATION
14. Preparing to Sacrifice
15. How Not to Calculate Combinations
16. Have You Been Paying Attention?
17. Solutions

Index of Games

This book talks intelligently about the ways a player can improve combinational ability, in many different types of position.
My home library contains 350-400 books, most of which I have read, and yet few of those books have so many original examples as this one. LeMoir has done a great deal of research from sources both old and new.
Gambit is a dedicated chess publisher (the owners are all strong chessplayers and they only publish books on chess), and the company has published several books on tactics.
However this one contains the best advice on how to swindle an opponent!

This is a great book that lives up to its recommendations

that said reading through the reviews you get the feeling it is advanced,cryptic, and maybe more of a puzzle book than an instruction manual. yet, reading through the book I find it challenging and inspiring, but accessable and full of information.

whats important to realize that this book very narrowly focused on nonforcing, tactical sacrifices. The kind of moves that setup brilliant checkmates. In the old days these were called "combinations"

The author all but admits that the desire to create combinations adds risk and intensity to a chess game. In other words you play this way, because you find that kind of chess fun. This is tal's home turf and if you those kinds of games fun there is plenty of instruction in how to do it.
as a book , I find this book superbly focused on its narrow subject. for all the talk about endless calcuation- at heart these tactics aren't bizarre. Deflection, decoy, and clearance are brought up in nearly every tactics book.

Although the "non forcing" sacrifice isn't required study in chess, pychologically this book offers invaluable advice- don't reflexively dismiss moves that lose material,Keep in mind there's more than one way to checkmate a king, and sometimes sac a peice for a brutal attack on the king is a beautiful and unexpected way to win in chess.

All this talk about what elo strength you need to be to understand or be enlightened by this book is a little silly. Any beginner that understands how to move (and read chess notation) can follow the chessgame. Knowing the checkmate patterns are important. There's positions where these moves make sense and positions where they are suicidal. Perhaps the author could have covered more about when and where to consider a non-forcing sacrifice. but this would come at the expense of his focused train of thought.

This book contains a nice collection of combinations and tactical motifs. In addition to being a great learning book, it is also a lot of fun to read. I really like this author, and look forward to reading How to Be Lucky in Chess.
Before starting in on this book, you might consider first reading Seirawan and Silman's superb Winning Chess Tactics, just to nail down the basic tactical elements. Another tactical book that is very enjoyable to read and that could benefit almost any player is The Inner Game of Chess (focusing on calculation) by Soltis. Since Lemoir does not spend a lot of time in this book on calculation, The Inner Game complements it nicely.
Bottom line: An enjoyable and effective book.

I didn't like this book, but that's because I didn't understand it. This book is written on a VERY high level (1800+ USCF). It's been sitting on my shelf for six months and i still can't understand a word. Don't buy this book unless you're an expert at the game.

Sorry this book dont teach nothing, is full of examples but the method for calculation is absolutely not present, there is even a chapter called "How not to calculate..." ! thank you! I bought this book to learn how to calculate tactics!
But paradoxically the only advice on how to calculate is given in this 3 pages (suggestion borrowed from Kotov, Tisdal and Dvoretsky) but without any example, method or exercice.

If you want some nice commented examples and few exercises here and there go for this book, if you want to improve how to calculate and become good at it, look somewhere else.

Maybe Practical Chess by Nunn is a good starting point.

Being a good player dont mean being a good teacher.

Hi, I think this book is surtenly not what I had expected. I am a 2000 rated player, and for me this book wasn't exactly what I had in mind. That games in the books I already knew, so as the diagrams that is, however it is a good book for beginners. It is explained in a simple manner, and the drawings make it look like it's a book for little children to fill in the drawings with their own colourpencils.
So the conclusion is simple: are you 1300-1800 you can try this book, are you 1800+ then don't.