Customer Reviews

Looking for Trouble: Recognizing and Meeting Threats in Chess

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Looking for Trouble" is a collection of 200+ chess positions that are mostly tactical in nature. What separates this book from other similar works are the extensive and helpful verbal annotations, and the fact that it's not "White to move and win", but instead: "Avoid the threat and find the best move". Working through this book feels more like playing a real game than playing through a normal collection of tactical problems, and is surprisingly fun.

One of the main benefits of this book is that it helps you to establish a better thinking process. After you worked through all the puzzles, your first thought while playing a game will be "What is his threat?", which is exactly how it should be.

The positions themselves are also very instructive: Taken from real games, sorted into openings, middle game and endgame sections and assigned an estimated difficulty (* to *****).

My only criticism is that the author recommends this book to players rated as low as 1200. I'm rated 1700 and found most of these puzzles to be quite challenging. I think a 1200 player would be overwhelmed by the difficulty of most positions, though he will likely still benefit from learning how to think better.

I almost passed this one up but I'm sure glad I didn't. As a player rated in the 1600 - 1800 range, I'm often frustrated to see a "crushing" win swept away in one careless move. I get so wrapped up in my own plans that I often ignore those of my opponent. Ugh! Although it is easy to say "always try to understand what your opponent's move was threatening before making your move", I tend to play fast and impatiently (even when not in any time trouble). Heisman's book is great because it forces you to solve the problems in 2 stages - identify the threat, then figure out the remedy.

By working on these, I found that I started to automatically look more carefully at my opponent's moves. Heisman's examples also include some very common themes so I suspect "imprinting" these "tactical images" into my brain will also do me good. Great stuff!

By the way, as an earlier reviewer pointed out, I found that even some of the so-called easy challenges were sometimes difficult.

I'll start off by stating that I am a novice-intermediate level player who has several chess books and a training CD to boot!. (Fred Reinfeld, Complete Chess player, Chess for Dummies, Burgess Mammoth book of chess). With the exception of Chess for Dummies, they all look nice on my shelf. Everytime I pick up Burgess or Reinfeld I lose interest quickly. This book by Heisman has me hooked ! To me, it's much more useful than "Find mate in 2 " problems. It teaches you to think about what your oppenent is up to (threat) and how to (and not to ) respond. In essence, play CHESS. My copy is already worn and battered up a bit..like all my other favorite paperbacks.

I did not think I could ever find a book to learn what chess is about, well at least one of the most important things in the game. Yes, chess is about making threats and stop them, and this book teaches how to do that in a very instructive way. If we ever want to become strong chess players, it is of essential nature learning to see our opponent's threats and meet them appropriately.

What you will find in this book is a very clear explanation about threats and how we can deal with them, and then a lot of excercises to train your mind and eye to find the threats on the chess board. This is the firs book I know that deviates from the traditional way of "White to play and win".

Stop loosing games because you did not see your opponent's threat, get this book and become stronger. I really liked it.

Few chess books address defensive play. Those that do are difficult to read. Books on offensive tactical play are available at all levels, but that has not been true for defensive play. Dan Heisman's book offers novices help in this important aspect of chess play. The book is divided into three main sections, each dealing with the three divisions of chess games: openings, middlegames, and endings. Problems - readable and solvable - are presented to train your thinking and help you recognize impending danger.
I have Dan Heisman's other books and like his writings. They are clear and understandable for someone at my level (USCF 1100). In response to the prior review I must say that this book is not recycled material. I do not know Heisman and have no idea what he is like as a person. However, ad hominem attacks are out of place. This is a book review. Are you going to avoid Alekhine's works because of his Nazi sympathies? Will you fail to read Fisher because of his personality?

I'm an unrated player estimated to be in the 1300-1400 range by folks at the club. I also help coach complete beginners at the middle school my daughter goes to. Now you know the relevant facts about the reviewer: here goes.

The book has over 200 puzzles (in the form of "White to move after someBlackMove) with two-part answers; threat and prevention. Sometimes finding the threat is the hard part and sometimes the prevention is the head-scratcher. The answers don't just have variations, but also explanation of how to handle the position.

Heisman's advice is wonderfully pragmatic. I'll quote an interesting sample; a 1-star problem where the puzzle is common sense, not tactical.
(The board has K+R+7 pawns against the same, with the b-file open.)
The answer is:
Threat: 2. Rb1, getting the only open file for his rook, which White can use to penetrate Black's position.
Prevention: 1...Rb8. Tit for tat. The first one to control the file has an advantage. This is a good example of a position where one does not have to look ahead in order to find the best move; general principles and a little experience will tell you that grabbing the open file first must be better than the alternatives. Therefore, it is just a waste of time in this position to see what will happen next. Just make sure the move is really safe and play it, and figure out later if you are winning or just on the better side of a draw.

What else?
The one to five stars rating of problem difficulty seems about right to me.
The puzzles are reasonably divided between opening, middle game, and endgame.
The only errors I've found seem to be the same one recurring because the proofreader is unfamiliar with the new concept. ;-) In several places, the player to move is stated wrongly, even though the move given always makes it clear who moves next.

I like this book so much I immediately started stealing explanations from it to coach the beginners.

Overall I liked this book but found it difficult at certain points. It is not a good book for a lower rated player like the advertizing makes it seem. Not all the patterns found in this book are logically placed. But there are some good positions for understanding.

I have only had a limited amount of time to review this book and study its teachings. I found an error in the diagram of the opening section of the book which bothered me. Chess is already a difficult game without having to sort out mistakes in the book itself. Let me also add that I recently contacted the author (Dan Heisman) about this, and not only did he respond almost immediately with the correction, he included all the errors and corrections for this book. He pointed out that most books have errors on the first printing and responsible authors will take the time to look for them and correct them.

Having said all of this, I must also state that it is a very well organized book. It is broken out into opening, middle and endgame threats and very easy to read in its format. I mention the format because while many chess books probably have useful information in them, when they are cluttered or present very few diagrams, they are not especially helpful to me. Mr. Heisman has taken the time to present the information in a way that the book can be taken on a trip or just read without a chess board and still learn a great deal. A chess board is always better when the problems are played out, but not always practical. As a struggling chess player I would highly recommend this book.

This is an exceptional book from an excellent chess trainer. Anyone that has met or corresponded with Dan knows that he may read USCF rules to you, but only because of his extensive knowledge of them, and only if they help you with your own game. He would never take undeserved money from a student, and in fact is very generous with his time and understanding of those who can't quite afford his lessons. His books and wisdom have made many beginners into competitive tournament players. I have not read all of this book yet, but from what I have seen, it is a must buy for any beginner player, and many intermediate players will find it useful as well.