Symbols
Introduction

10 Idea 1 Back-Rank Mates
12 Idea 2 Smothered Mate
13 Idea 3 Lethal Knight Checks
14 Idea 4 A Deadly Set-Up
15 Idea 5 Anastasia, Boden and Marco
16 Idea 6 Some Standard Mates on the h-file
17 Idea 7 The Greek Gift
19 Idea 8 Some Lxf7 Sacrifices
20 Idea 9 Rook and Knight Tandem
21 Idea 10 Sd5 can Embarass a Queen on a5
22 Idea 11 The Fishbone Pawn
23 Idea 12 Lxh6!
24 Idea 13 More Mates on the Dark Squares
25 Idea 14 The See-saw and Friends
26 Idea 15 Point Your Bishops in the Right Direction
27 Idea 16 Txf7!
28 Idea 17 Exploiting Pins
29 Idea 18 Legall and Friends
30 Idea 19 h7 (h2) Still Under Fire
31 Idea 20 f5: A Dangerous Square
32 Idea 21 Standard Rook Sacrifices
33 Idea 22 Inviting Everyone to the Party
34 Idea 23 The King's Gambit
36 Idea 24 The King's Gambit (2)
38 Idea 25 Typical Exchange Sacrifices
39 Idea 26 Attack at the Weakest Point
40 Idea 27 Rooks' Pawns can also be Used in a Positional Manner
42 Idea 28 More about a4
43 Idea 29 Preventive Sacrifices
44 Idea 30 Pawn-Grabbing
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87 Idea 70 A Rook Can Defeat Minor Pieces
88 Idea 71 Get Them Bishops Working
89 Idea 72 Swinging Rooks
90 Idea 73 Zwischenzug
91 Idea 74 Pawn Play: More Line-Opening
92 Idea 75 Don't Wait to be Squashed
93 Idea 76 Draw? Never!
94 Idea 77 Under-Promotion
95 Idea 78 Tie Them Down
96 Idea 79 The Exchange Sacrifice: Sicilian Style
98 Idea 80 More About Rooks
99 Idea 81 Irritating the Dragon
100 Idea 82 Develop Your Sense of Danger
101 Idea 83 Queenside Attacks - The Prophylactic Te1 (...Te8)
102 Idea 84 More About Opposite-Coloured Bishops
103 Idea 85 Queen Sacrifices in the KID
104 Idea 86 Fun Against the Winawer
106 Idea 87 More about 5 dxc5
108 Idea 88 Necessity is the Mother of Invention
109 Idea 89 The Sting in the Tail
110 Idea 90 More about the Bishops
111 Idea 91 A Trip to Planet Shirov
112 Idea 92 The Game That Had it All
113 Idea 93 Stalemates
114 Idea 94 Transformation of Advantages
115 Idea 95 "Take My Rooks!"
116 Idea 96 The Surprising g2-g4!?
117 Idea 97 Attacking Empty Squares
118 Idea 98 Lc4!? Against the Sicilian
119 Idea 99 Use Modern Technology
120 Idea 100 Don't Get Dejected
121 Idea 101 Knight Time

122 Additional Information
126 Index of Themes, Players and Openings

Content and Layout

What constitutes an Attacking Idea? Well, I believe that most people would associate the word 'attack' in chess with combinations and direct attacks on the king; consequently a large part of the book is devoted to these topics. Of course one can also attack on the queenside or conduct positional attacks, so some material is devoted to these but it would be fair to say that they are in a distinct minority. An Attacking Idea entitled, for example, 'Carving out an outpost on d5' would have been perfectly legitimate but also taken us too far afield into the positional elements. This is not a large book and with limited space I had to make my choice.
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So, the only really structured material in this book is Ideas 1-21. If there were chapter headings, then this section would have been called 'The Arsenal'. It contains standard attacking ideas, combinations and ploys that all strong players have in their tactical armoury. These ideas should become second nature to you, or simply 'routine' as Tal called a lot of his sacrifices. Of course, what might have been routine for Tal was not necessarily routine for anyone else, but the more ideas one has in one's arsenal then the stronger one is becoming. By the end of the book you will also, hopefully, be able to add some of Ideas 22-101 into your armoury, thereby freeing up your imagination to tackle more complex situations. Of course strong players also have a positional arsenal, but that is another story.

The fact that a theme is highlighted by an Idea does not necessarily mean that it is not discussed again elsewhere in the book. Conversely, just because you can think of a theme that does not have an Idea, it doesn't mean there is no metion of it within the notes. These Ideas do not live in an ivory tower but interact vigorously amongst each other. For example, a game that includes a pawn-storm followed by a sacrifice on h6 and mate on h7 already incorporates at least three of our Ideas.
You will have to put up with quite a few Gallagher games but this is a price you have to pay if you insist on reading one of my books. At least I am not a boring, positional player, so most of the examples qualify on merit.
I have never been a great fan of starting a game in the middle so I wanted the book to include not just snippets of play but also a collection of complete, and on the whole, recent attacking games. In order to achieve this, I have included a section at the back entitled Additional Information. There you can find the moves that lead to many of the diagrams in the main body of text. I have also been selective here; I have favoured, in my choice, games where the opening is relevant to the Idea under discussion (or perhaps to other Ideas in the book) and simply outstanding games.