Winning Chess Tactics [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

by Yasser Seirawan (Author), Jeremy Silman (Author) "I know, definitions are boring..." (more)
Key Phrases: Black's King, Black's Queen, Black King (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
This is the second in Seirawan's four volumes, taking the reader from the very basics of chess through appreciation of advanced play. He does a remarkable job of discussing tactics that usually appear only in books for advanced players and communicating them to anyone with a grasp of playing fundamentals. The first part of the book deals with basic tactics and how they can be used individually and in combination. In the second part, Seirawan introduces some of the great chess tacticians and their games, further illustrating tactics as they work out in real-life play. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

"An excellent book to improve your tactical play."--Chesscorner.com

"Seirawan does a remarkable job of discussing tactics that usually appear only in books for advanced players and communicating them to anyone with a grasp of playing fundamentals."
--Alude.com

"This book is the most thorough treatment of tactics that I have ever seen."
--Evan Kreider, ChessPraxis

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Pr; Revised edition (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735606056
• ISBN-13: 978-0735606050
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (93 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,485,782 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

233 of 235 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Chess Tactics/Combinations: FOR THE ADANCED BEGINNINER & INTERMEDIATE PLAYER, September 29, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Winning Chess Tactics, revised (Winning Chess - Everyman Chess) (Paperback)

Not overly basic and not too difficult would be the way to size up the tactics in "Winning Chess Tactics" by Yasser Seirawan. It will be honestly admitted by 90 of all chess players that they win or lose most of their games due to the use of a tactic: May be a pin, or a fork, discovered attack or due to a backrank mate idea?

* Tactics are well organized by "theme". The idea of the tactic and limited examples are provided for each.

** The writing style is usually made clear and understandable. I found only a couple of places where I thought different wording could have improved the definition or understanding of a theme.

*** The quality of analysis is there - couldn't find any mistakes in analysis, but there were some silly typos.

**** Most of the important tactical themes are covered but I would also recommend getting a book on chess traps (i.e. Winning Chess Traps: Tactics in the Opening", or "101 Chess Opening Traps") to fill in the gaps and supplement this material.

This is one of the better books on general chess tactics and I can recommend it.

219 of 222 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good overview of the most important tactics, September 13, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Winning Chess Tactics, revised (Winning Chess - Everyman Chess) (Paperback)

There are three types of books that you should learn tactics from, 1. a general book on tactics that tells you what they are and explains the mechanics of them by name (THIS BOOK!!!), 2. a workbook that has hundreds of tactical puzzles to solve, and 3. chess traps book that covers tactics in openings showing how you get their from the start.

Seirawan's book is very clear and undstandable. A good starting place!

64 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a decent intro to tactics, March 18, 2002

By	Luis Carlos Alvarez (Santo Domingo, D.R.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Winning Chess Tactics (Paperback)

I usually write reviews for books with little customer feedback; in this case, however, I make an exception. This book is intended for beginners, and being one, I feel it appropriate to share some what I hope will be valuable feedback.
First, some personal chess background, which when reviewing a chess book is essential. I'm currently rated from 1300 to 1400 by the Chessmaster program, Yahoo, and Chess.net, which makes me an advanced beginner, I guess.
I've just read and studied through the entire book, and the answer is YES you will improve. My rating increased by ~ 200 points.
I did some research when I decided I wanted to start learning chess seriously, and found that after learning basic chess: piece value, movement, concepts on space, time, some basic openings, basic rook and queen endings, etc .. the next step was working on improving my tactics.
This is the only book on tactics I've studied so far, but I've looked over a couple more. Seirawan's compares nicely. It has thorough explanations on tactical concepts such as pins, forks, skewers, decoys, windmills, and such. However, as any chess player with some experience will say, tactics is all about practice. This is where this book falls short. It has 92 problems that serve to strengthen tactical concepts, and 45 end book puzzles, with no clues. Though good for starters, this is nowhere near what a player needs to really strengthen his skills. I suggest buying either or both "The Ultimate Chess Puzzle Book" and "1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations." Both have 1001 tactical chess puzzles, and by the time I work through one of these I hope to have improved a great deal.
WCT has two main strengths. I find that Seirawan's explanations on the different tactical situations is extensive, the prose clear, though childish at times. However, few examples illustrate each point. Another point is the book's print quality, as another reviewer mentioned, very good binding, wide margins and quality paper.
Seirawan's very high ego is manifested throughout the book, with lots of examples from his own games, in which, OBVIOUSLY, he always has the winning combination. I might be intolerant with such prideful individuals, but I find this showing off very distracting. In his book, Emms has examples where he loses to a brilliant combination. Chess masters are not gods, and should not portray themselves as such.
The book has a final section on great tacticians and some of their most famous games. This makes for an interesting read, but the tactical combinations in these games are of such depth and cunning as to be completely useless to the reader. The space could have been better used with more examples and puzzles to work on.
The book is good, it served its purpose - introduce me to chess tactics.
Nevertheless, my final recommendation - use a chess software program or go online to learn the basic tactical ideas, then work out the hundreds of examples in any of several good puzzle books.