hardcore pawnography

before i begin the book review,  

some guy named gary kasparov, who apparently used to play chess or something, got arrested for trying to overthrow the russian government.  apparently,  vlad “the imapler” putin, russia’s president, was safely ensconced in a corner of the kremlin playing tetris and listening to Esteban playing an electric balilika, when kasparov, riding a horse, positioned himself in such a way as to allow one of the bishops from the russian orthodox church to launch a diagonal missile through the window of the fortification, and putin had nowhere to hide and tipped over.   or something like that, i’m a bit hazy on the details.  if you don’t already know about it, HERE is a link to the whole story.

 the point of that is, that makes kasparov the current “bad boy” of chess.   damnit, *I* wanted to be the “bad boy” of chess.  chess needs a “bad boy.”   more on that tomorrow though, for now, i wanna write all about this cool book i have called…. 

Chess Tactics for Champions by GM susan Polgar.

the format is as follows:  each chapter has an introduction of a principle, (e.g. double attack) followed by an example or two to fully explain the idea, followed by an example from one of GM Pogar’s games illustrating the idea in an actual game, and then 25 or so practise problems.  there are all the basic tactics;  fork, skewer, etc, buy the book also discusses destroying the castled king, perpetual check, and then there is mixed mate in 2 moves, 3 moves, and 4 moves. then there are the chapters of sibling positions, traps and counter traps, and famous combinations.

 this book might be more for beginers and lower rated people, perhaps it’s mostly basic stuff, not too advanced, but i like it.  the puzzles are simple enough to grasp concepts and burn images into my feeble brain, but just hard enough to mot be “too easy” or a waste of my time. 

i really really like this book, and i would reccomend it to anyone who isn’t playing at about the 1700 level or so.