For all chess-players, from beginners to world champions, from kids to seniors, delivering checkmate is the greatest thrill the game has to offer. The ability to spot checkmates is a vital skill - and this easy-to-use book shows you how it is done. With the help of Grandmaster John Nunn, you will be ready to shock your next opponent with a deadly checkmate, whether in a school match, a club tournament - or even a championship game! By focusing exclusively on positions from real games, ranging from junior events to grandmaster encounters, Nunn ensures that the mates featured are those which arise most often in real life. He also highlights themes and ideas that are often missed in practice. While solving these puzzles, your all-important 'mental library' of patterns will grow, leading to an immediate increase in your playing strength. All 1001 puzzle positions have been carefully checked, and are graded by theme and difficulty. Points are awarded for finding the checkmate, so you can measure your skill. Most of the puzzles are suitable for novice and junior players. The last chapter challenges you with 'extreme checkmates', but don't worry: you'll be ready for them!

A 21st-Century Edition of a Great Checkmate Collection! Ask most chessplayers from the “baby boomer” generation how they acquired and sharpened their tactical skills, and chances are a Fred Reinfeld tactics collection will be part of their answer. And now, for the first time, 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate is available in modern algebraic notation. This may be the all-time great checkmate collection, with forced checkmate positions culled mainly from actual play. And Reinfeld's selection is simply marvelous, touching on all the important tactical themes. In short, this is an outstanding book to hone your tactical abilities. It will help you recognize mating patterns, develop visualization skills, enhance imagination, and improve tactical sharpness. And now, with a modern 21st-century edition of this great checkmate collection finally available, there is no excuse for not only improving your tactical skills, but also enjoying yourself along the way.

This truly outstanding book, first published in Russian in the 1970s and regarded as a classic, contains everything you need to know about how to deliver checkmate. 1000 Checkmate Combinations contains a wealth of elegant and sophisticated chess tactics as well as systematic and effective instruction. Each chapter covers a different piece or combination of pieces that is able to deliver checkmate, and provides illustrative templates for just about every mating formation. By working through the book, readers will develop their ability to recognise the potential for checkmate, as well as the know-how to execute one. Clearly written and beautifully organised, it will appeal to all chess players but particularly club players.

Most chess puzzle books put you in an artificial situation: you are told a combination exists, what the theme is and what you are required to achieve. This one is different. In a real game, a player may sometimes need to find a combination. On the other hand he may have to reject a tactical idea and simply find a good positional move. His task is to find the right move, whatever it may be. The 300 puzzles in this book put you precisely in that situation. Spectacular ideas abound in these positions, but it is for you to decide whether to go in for them, or whether you would be falling into a trap. If you need them, there are hints to help you on your way. The book ends with a series of tests to measure your skills against those of other players. For this new edition, John Nunn, a top-class grandmaster and a solving world champion, has added 50 new puzzles (with hints and detailed solutions) to test your skills to the full. For ease of following, extra diagrams have been added to the solutions throughout. Overall the book is 60 per cent bigger than the first edition.

Approach every endgame with a winning strategy! Good books about endgames for beginners are few and far between. WINNING CHESS ENDINGS is a great one a gripping introduction to what you need to know to win chess endings, taught by American Grandmaster Yasser Seirawan. His entertaining, easy-to-understand style, incisive stories and insiders advice will help you develop a solid grasp of proven principles that you can apply with confidence whenever a game goes the distance. You'll learn to prevail time and again in endgames with common and uncommon combinations and pieces. WINNING CHESS ENDINGS teaches endgame strategies in an exciting new way: by putting you in the middle of the action with firsthand stories taken directly from famous matches. Pull up a chair and watch the world's most exciting chess endings. Then become an endgame master!

A complete course for club and tournament players Chess is 99% tactics. This celebrated observation is not only true for beginners, but also for club players (Elo 1500 – 2000). If you want to win more games, nothing works better than training your combination skills. There are two types of books on tactics: those that introduce the concepts followed by some examples, and workbooks that contain lots of exercises. FIDE Master Frank Erwich has done both: he explains all the key tactical ideas AND provides an enormous amount of exercises for each different theme. Erwich has created a complete tactics book for ambitious club and tournament players. He takes you to the next level of identifying weak spots in the position of your opponent, recognizing patterns of combinations, visualizing tricks and calculating effectively. Erwich has also included a new and important element: tests that will improve your defensive skills. 1001 Chess Exercises for Club Players is not a freewheeling collection of puzzles. It serves as a course text book, because only the most didactically productive exercises are featured. Every chapter starts with easy examples, but don’t worry: the level of difficulty will steadily increase.

The Tactician’s Handbook In the late 1990s, American publisher Pickard & Son released five books, each dedicated to a unique tactical theme, and each with approximately 100 pages. Written by the late Russian correspondence master Victor Charushin, the books were Alekhine’s Block, Combination Cross, Lasker’s Combination, Mitrofanov’s Deflection, and The Steeplechase. They were very well-received by chessplayers everywhere. And, in fact, Charushin had written two more books in the series, Domination, and Less Common Combinations, but these were not released. For this edition of The Tactician’s Handbook, German grandmaster Karsten Müller has carefully reviewed and then selected the material he thought most enlightening. Then instructive exercises were added. All the analysis has been checked by the silicon monster, while Charushin’s notes and comments were revised where necessary. All seven titles were then combined into one comprehensive volume. Add to that a foreword by one of the great tacticians of our time, Hungarian grandmaster Judit Polgar, and the result is an excellent, instructive handbook covering some of the most exciting tactics in chess. The Tactician’s Handbook is sure to provide you with many hours of enjoyment and instruction!