"Informant’s Collection of Instructive Tactics and Studies"
Dear readers, the book you’re holding in your hands is a logical continuation of our efforts to provide you with the most topical and instructive material for self-study, or for preparation of chess lectures. Last year we published two extremely successful tomes on tactics (Puzzle Quest) and endgames (Endgame Maze). Those two books combined offered current training material covering middlegame and endgame positions of greatest practical importance.
However, we decided to make some changes in this Workbook, offering the most instructive exercises in one single volume, while covering all the phases of the game. Additionally, we added an appendix which contains 42 most entertaining and beautiful studies composed in 2021. We are convinced that solving chess studies enriches every player’s understanding of piece coordination and game as a whole.
Of course, the book is aimed at motivated amateur and club players, all the way up to the grandmaster level, since the main objective is to teach diligent evaluation of any given position, meticulous calculating, and overall decision making. We kept the organization of the exercises according to their relative level of difficulty (one * indicating the simplest exercises, ***** indicating the most difficult positions), since is proved to allow smooth browsing through the material. However, exercises are not organized in sections according to any particular type of tactical motif or combination, since our intention is to create puzzles which are able to mimic a real game of chess. Therefore, in some examples the solution consists of a devastating sacrifice that leads to swift mate, while some other examples may require finding the correct strategic plan and most efficient way of execution.
To summarize, “Tactic Workbook” consists of 500 most instructive middlegame and endgame examples (puzzles) from the games played during 2021 and 42 prizewinning studies which complement the puzzle section thus making this manual truly comprehensive and indispensable.
We hope that you will find the material of great practical value and useful for your chess progress. Last but not least, we wish you many pleasant hours while solving the exercises and also many happy returns to this book!
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