Tactics Time!: 1001 Chess Tactics from the Games of Everyday Chess Players

I don't believe that Chess is 99% tactics,even though greats such as Richard Teichmann has said this himself,or so we were told. A good portion of Chess is also Positional play (ex: 1 e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 aka the "Ruy Lopez" or "Spanish game" opening),the very opening moves in a Chess game can be considered positional play and that alone is more then the other 1%,where the claim "Chess is 99% Tactics" would apply,oh and let's not forget about Chess strategy. I believe I've made my point,however tactics are very important to say the least!It has been said that solving Chess tactics for as little as 10 minutes a day,every day can really yield some noticable improvements to one's overall game. Tactics Time is a book that can really help you do just that. Now I know,you may be thinking that this is just another Chess Tactics book and in a sense well..........it is.However this book's claim to fame so to speak is that the Chess positions are taken from REAL games played by amatuers just like you and me,folks who would make these types of mistakes in our Chess games. I must say though this has so far been true,now mind you I ordered the book from amazon a few weeks back and I recieved it just 3 days ago,so I am no where near completing the book,so again maybe I'll do an update to this review after I complete the book.The book is composed of 1,001 tactics,again,taken from positions from real games by amatuers. In the preface/foreword of the book,it explains that the reason why "grand master" tactics are not included in this book is because "amatuers" won't come across these types of positions and opportunities. The Authors, Tim Brennan and Anthea Carson,respectively, are basically saying that too many "Chess tactics" books have too many examples that involve "Queen sacs" ("sacs" is short for sacrifice) and "smothered mates", which is a mate involving a Queen sac where the knight ultimately mates the king in the corner (usually),and it's called "smothered" because the King is surrounded by his own pieces.I couldn't agree more with the author and I almost quit solving tactics (which I admit would have been a huge mistake!) because alot of the tactics that I was solving in other books weren't showing up in my games and this can be frustrating at times and can make any player ask themselves "what's the point" or "why am I doing this".As I have said though I just got the book and I solved about 50 problems on the first day and I was very impressed and thinking to myself,well this looks like something I might actually see in one of my games. The book format is simply 1001 problems, 12 to a page with the "winning" side or the side to move on the bottom. This is another thing I wanted to touch on,too many books put black on top but it's black to go,it's like,why not have it like you were playing back?? and I never really understood that. My only reasoning is that you want to also be able to solve or see tactics that can be played against you,however if that's the case,then why not have it white to move,with white on top,you never see that right? I personally never have!I know that there are ways around this,like setting it up on your board and on a computer,but that takes alot of work and alot of time. Most people don't have enough time to do that and we need something quick and fast lol. I know there are no short cuts to getting "good" at Chess and I'm not looking for one either but some would say that solving Chess tactics is the quickest way to improve your Chess,I guess I'd have to agree. I have been solving Chess tactics on and off for years,from various sources such as books and servers online,tactics have won me alot of games and I'm starting to see them more and more in my games and remember that's important,that you SEE THEM.I'm going to say that again,it's IMPORTANT THAT YOU SEE THE TACTIC,now I know,it's not as satisfying as being able to pull it off but so long as you see it, is it possible? yes,but you can't do it right because that stupid pawn is in the way,if only that pawn wasn't there,then you can pull off that 3 move knight fork,or you can skewer that Queen and Rook. This is where I'm at in my Chess career and I think that this is budding. If you're where I'm at then you're beginning to see more and that's a very good thing because eventually or at least some times you'll be able to pull some of these things off,with the more you see and understand etc.As far as the rating these problems were made for,I'd say maybe 800-1800? I'm really not sure to be honest with you, I'd say most of the problems here are easy so long as you have a tactical background,if you have NO background,my suggestion to you is to buy either Susan Polgar's "A World Champion's Guide to Chess: Step-by-step instructions for winning chess the Polgar way",a very misleading title (you'll need alot more then this book to be a world champion!),however it is a start and it has very basic patterns, aka clusters or formations of pieces that will lead you to some kind of advantage if not be checkmate themselves. Another good book is John Bain's "Chess Tactics for students" ,again,same thing,basic basic tactical patterns,after you complete 1, if not both of these books,you should be ready for this book here, Tactics Time.If you need help understanding the tactics themselves,then I'd recommend:"Understanding Chess Tactics Paperback – July 30, 2006by Martin Weteschnik",which you can order right here on Amazon. I haven't read the book myself, but I heard it was a good book and has some thorough explanations on each Chess Tactic,indivdually.Tactics Time is a good puzzle book and I don't have any doubts that it will improve my game and it should improve yours as well,it's not that expensive and you get alot of bang for your buck so to speak. I mean you're getting 1001 tactics and not just any tactics,tactics that you will actually SEE in YOUR games for under 20 bucks,so it's a pretty good deal if you ask me!. So yeah I'd definitely recommend this book,even so much so to the point of recommending it over other such "tactics" books,for reasons that I have already stated in this review.Thank you for reading and I hope you have a good day and remember it's not so much what you can play. Don't get discouraged with that but focus instead on what you can see!,.....when you start seeing these tactical patterns in your games,that's how you know you're making improvement,good luck!.Update: 11-23-16I wanted to come back to this review to say that while I think this is an overall tactics book, (I'm about a little over half way through the book after a long hiatus),keep in mind something and that is in a real game,you MUST check to see if the tactic is safe or not. Many of the tactics in this book have solutions where the opposing side (the side you're doing the tactic to) has a way out.Problem 569 for example: The solution is 14. Nb6!!,the explanation given is: "Clearance sacrifice,threatening the rook on a8 and the mate threat of Qf7#.Hmm,let's think about this for a second,I don't think that Nb6 is the best move and this is coming from a patzer but I know a few things about this game and counterattacking is one thing I know about! So if Black is smart after 14 Nb6,he'll play ...Rf8,thus stopping the White Queen's mate threat on f7 and attacking her at the same time,white then should play 15. Qh5+ and after either Ke7 or Rf7,the knight has to move and that gives up the initative does it not?This is just one solution where the opposing side has a way out,now I understand that Mr. Tim Brennan got these tactics off real games and the goal here is pattern recognition but tactics should be safe and double checked to see that they can't be countered and quite a few of the tactics in this book can be countered.Also and I'll leave it at this,whoever is reading this,if you think that tactics will be your saving grace you are gravely mistakened,....Chess is NOT 99% tactics like for some unknown reason everyone keeps telling and wants us to believe,you get this even from experienced players to coaches to masters even maybe some grandmasters will tell us this,it's simply not true.Chess IS a STRATEGY/POSITIONAL game BEFORE it's ever a tactical game,now,if you're strong tactically,that's good but if you are positionally weak,you'll never be able to pull most tactics off and what's worse is you'll be on the recieving end of tactics from your opponent.My friends I say that to say this, and take this from a struggling class E player,if you want to seriously get better at Chess,you MUST study the game as a whole, and not just tactics because tactics don't cover positional aspects and strategical aspects such as tempo,passed pawns,open lines,weak squares etc. All of these "strategical elements" come into play when it comes to what we call tactics/combinations,a short move sequence to gain an advantage of some sort.

This is THE best tactics book for anyone who's stuck in class player hell.I am one of those very class players, and have done TONS and TONS of tactics over several years, in many formats. Literally 5000+ problems on ChessTempo rated to my ability, most of the Reinfeld books, Polgar, etc. I've known from when I started chess that for class players, tactics dominate performance, so I've worked hard on it.Still, I hit a plateau pretty quickly in my playing that I couldn't break thru, and it was a fairly low plateau, like a 1400 UCSF player. While I could solve some master-level problems with 7-10 moves, I'd fall more than uncommonly to simple 2 movers that I'd just missed. Furthermore, I would just get annihilated in 5 minute blitz. It was as if none of those hard-earned tactics skills I'd practiced came into play, despite the fact I was losing on blunders and missing key tactics in nearly every game.This book is the cure. I really think the key is that these are from CLASS PLAYER games, so these tactics are extremely, extremely common in blitz and class tournament play. I am not even exaggerating when I say that I bought this on a whim because I just wanted something on my Kindle to read without an internet connection, and was horrified (in a good way) when I revisited chess.com after solving 400 of these problems over 3 days, and seeing my rating rise by a full 75 points. To put it in perspective, I only gained 50 points in the entire last 2 years while studying for hours consistently on chesstempo and other resources. It's now been 2 weeks with this book and I'm still improving, and am now 150points higher than where I was 2 weeks ago, a level I thought was impossible because I was studying tactics so hard even before this book. And the crazy part is that I'm not even working super hard mentally - it's doesn't take that much brainpower to solve and resolve 2-3 movers, unlike 8-movers which requires painful concentration every time so much so that you get fatigued and want to stop.Most of these problems don't seem particularly hard either - I got 80% of them right on my first try, and thought this book would be too easy. Turns out that the rapidity of seeing even the ones you know, plus mastering that last 20%, yields huge dividends for class level. Because they're straightforward, you can really burn the patterns into your brain so you don't even need to think - they are just recognized. Still, it won't be a waste of money for the typical class player - there are 'fair' number of more complex problems, even 6-10 movers in sublines that will require tons of concentration if you want to really get the whole problem.I know this sounds too good to be true, and you're thinking 'tactics are tactics, the harder the better', but I'm now convinced that it's crucially important to not only master tactics, but master BASIC tactics. It doesn't matter if you can solve 80% of 8-movers if you're still missing 10% of 2-3 movers - you'll lose every time to an opponent who only misses 5% of 2 movers even if they can't solve anything harder. This almost certainly explains why I didn't get any better for years despite doing 'everything right by studying tactics' - turns out I was studying tactics that were probably too hard for my playing level, and I wasn't burning in the basic patterns so it doesn't even require any thought.If you're going to spend time studying chess and you're one of those like me stuck in class player hell and not improving, you really, really have to get this book. Stop wasting your time on grandmaster-game problems that you'll never encounter, or falling to cheap shots that you can't defend against in blitz because they're so cheap that no other books have problems like that.

Firstly this book is a dream to read on kindle for iPad. I have mine set to scroll continuously and it works great for this format.I like that the aim of the puzzle isn’t stated and that the situations are all from real games. Most of the puzzles are reasonably easy to resolve but there are some tricky ones in there. I like that a lot are simply grabbing hanging pieces which occurs so often in real games, especially short ones.Looking forward to vol2 and I hope Tim brings out more. We need these more straightforward tactic puzzles rather than those that take ages to work out. Thank you Tim and Anthea.

Do you read tons of books with detailed analysis but still lose games by missing relatively simple tactics? If so, you are one of the 99 percent who will never make master level but still want to improve. This book is for you and will help you recognise patterns which come up in everyday games - those situations where you just know that there has to be a good move but you can't quite work it out. The book is well laid out with puzzle/solution format rather than solutions at the back and black-to-move puzzles are shown from black's perspective (why do some show them from white's perspective?). A minor criticism is that some of the positions are so clearly won that there is more than one winning move but only one is given. Works excellently in kindle format and an absolute bargain. I intend to reread in the near future.

I have been a fan of Tim's 'Tactics Time' newsletter for years now, and always enjoy receiving it and digesting the contents. I've only just bought a Kindle though, and it was a while before I realised 'Hey all of Tim's tactics can go on here'. Slow brain you see, my rating only hovers around 1450-1500. No exaggeration though, I did the first seventeen exercises and then wiped the floor with a 1675 on Chessbase. Might not be the book, but you never know. I give four stars because although it's billed as error free I found in mistake in tactic #17 (should read Ne3). Statistically this means there are probably quite a few other errors too. But it's amazing to have all these tactics in your pocket and try one when you have a spare thirty seconds. Also, can't believe that at the time of writing there are only 14 reviews!

A great set of puzzles ranging from very easy to pretty difficult to solve but all exhibiting valuable chess tactics, some too readily missed. A worthwhile addition to any collection. The links to replay the games and try out new ideas are also invaluable.

I like this book. It has been well planned to take maximum advantage of the Kindle format. I have played through it myself and learned from it. Many of the problems are easy but they are from real game situations and needed to be seen and sometimes weren't. I run a junior chess club and I have seen these sorts of mistakes ie missing simple opportunities for gaining advantage, numerous times. I am also a member of a league club and these same omissions crop up from time to time in mine and other members games. I think they wil be less frequent in mine now because I have learned to recognise the conditions for the tactical opportunities to occur. No doubt the book will get described as being too easy but I know alot of players who would benefit from reading it. Very good value for money.