This book teaches basic tactical ideas such as the fork, pin, and discovered attack, and introduces general ideas such as elimination, immobilization and compulsion. A basic knowledge of simple tactics will enable a novice to start winning games, by giving checkmate or capturing material. As the player progresses, his tactical arsenal will broaden, and he will start to play sacrifices and combinations, and develop a deeper understanding of the game. Players who fail to study tactics systematically tend to suffer from tactical blind-spots that plague them throughout their playing career, and thus they fail to realise their full potential.

Once a chess-player has learnt the basic rules of the game, the next step is to study tactics. A knowledge of tactics will enable a novice to start winning games by giving checkmate or taking his opponent's pieces. As the player progresses, his tactical arsenal will broaden and he will start to play sacrifices and combinations. Improving your tactical ability is the most efficient way to win more games and gain confidence at the chessboard.

Given the fundamental importance of chess tactics, there are surprisingly few books that teach the subject in a systematic way. Consequently, many players suffer from tactical blind-spots that plague them throughout their career. The step-by-step approach used in this book ensures that each concept is explained and tested before the next one is introduced.

John Nunn is a renowned grandmaster noted for his devastating tactical ability. In this book, he guides the reader to an understanding of key tactical ideas such as the fork, pin, and discovered attack, and discusses general ideas such as elimination and compulsion. No prior knowledge is assumed apart from the basic rules of chess.

Throughout the book there are carefully graded exercises to test the reader's understanding.

John Nunn is a grandmaster from England. He has won four individual gold medals and three team silver medals at Chess Olympiads. In the Chess World Cup of 1988/9, he finished sixth overall, ahead of several former World Champions. He is arguably the most highly acclaimed chess writer in the world, with two of his books receiving the prestigious British Chess Federation Book of the Year Award.

This book aims to provide a basic course in chess tactics. We will define a tactic to be a short-term operation, using forcing moves, which aims for an immediate concrete gain (such as win­ning material or mate). Most chess games are decided by tactics. At higher levels, long-term strategic thinking is also important, but even amongst grandmasters tactics predominate. Those who enjoy rapid or blitz chess will already be aware that the faster the time-limit, the more the balance shifts towards tactics. At lower levels, tactics are especially prevalent and the quickest way for most players to achieve better results is to improve their tactical ability.

Learn Chess Tactics is essentially practical in nature, with little in the way of theoretical dis­cussion. The first five chapters deal with the most important and fundamental game-winning tactics: fork, discovered attack, pin, skewer and deflection. The following seven chapters cover slightly more advanced topics. Chapter 13 deals specifically with the way in which the basic tactical elements can be linked together to form more elaborate 'combinations'.

Readers should note that this is not a book about attacking play; the basic ideas presented are those that win material, which is the key to scoring the maximum number of points. Thus you will not find standard attacking combinations (e.g., the bishop sacrifice on h7 or the dou­ble bishop sacrifice) in this book. There is in any case little point in covering attacking combi­nations without a lengthy discussion of attacking play in general; you are unlikely to arrive at a position in which a double bishop sacrifice is possible unless you have aimed for it from an earlier stage. In real life, some games are decided by a direct attack on the enemy king, but far more are won by gaining material.

The structure of each chapter is the same; there is a discussion of the key ideas, with exam­ples, and then there is a set of exercises for the reader to solve. Within each chapter, the exer­cises are of graduated difficulty, starting with very simple examples and working on to more complex cases. The reader is strongly advised to start at Chapter 1 and work steadily through the book, tackling the exercises at the end of each chapter before moving on to the next one. The reason for this is that later chapters use concepts developed in earlier ones; moreover, the exercises themselves contain important ideas and are not there just for testing whether the reader has been paying attention. There is also a gradual increase in difficulty throughout the book and in later chapters some points are presumed rather than being spelt out in detail as in the earlier chapters. The final chapter consists of a set of exercises in which no hint is given as to theme or difficulty. These present the reader with a situation similar to that of an over-the-board game; the main difference, which can hardly be avoided, is that in a game you don't know whether there really is something to be found.

The positions are all from real games and all except one are from recent (since 1990) play. There are good reasons for this. Positions in books on tactics tend to be heavily recycled, with the result that a slightly more sophisticated reader may well find that he has seen a good pro­portion of the positions before. I hope to have avoided this by deliberately steering clear of well-known examples and focusing on positions which are recent enough not to have appeared frequently in print. 1 have also avoided esoteric examples featuring themes of little practical importance; this book focuses on ideas which occur time and time again and which are bound to arise in readers' games sooner or later.

Readers may be surprised by the fact that in many of the examples, one player resigns after losing a relatively modest amount of material. This is a reflection of the fact that most of the examples are taken from games by international players; at this level, losing two pawns (or the equivalent) without compensation is usually a cause for resignation. Even the loss of one pawn, if it is accompanied by a positional disadvantage, may be enough for a player to throw in the towel. Of course, at lower levels the game would normally continue after the loss of mate­rial, but being a pawn or two up is bound to give you a head start! This leads on to another point. It would have been easy to include only tactics leading to a large gain of material, but this would create a deceptive impression. Many games are decided by tactics that win a mere pawn (or its equivalent). Having secured a material advantage, the player resolutely swaps all the pieces off, promotes a pawn and finally delivers mate with the extra queen (if the opponent doesn't resign first). I have therefore included some examples in which the gain of material is quite modest.

Some chess knowledge is assumed, but I have provided a quick revision course in the fol­lowing chapter. Readers may like to have a quick look at this to see if there is any unfamiliar material before proceeding to the main part of the book. Those who have read my earlier book Learn Chess will be able to skip this preliminary chapter.

Introduction

List of Content

004 Introduction

006 Prerequisites and Symbols

010 1 Fork

025 2 Discovered Attack

034 3 Pin

043 4 Skewer

046 5 Deflection

056 6 Trapped Piece

062 7 Removing the Guard

065 8 Opening and Closing Lines

070 9 Back-Rank Mate

075 10 Pawn Promotion

080 11 In-Between Moves

083 12 Defensive Tactics

089 13 Combinations

099 14 Miscellaneous Exercises

111 Solutions

158 Index of PIayers