Chess Discourses: Practice and Analysis, A Training Book for Advanced Players

by FM Claus Dieter Meyer and GM Karsten Mueller. 259pp. (Russell Enterprises 2002)

Chess is 99% tactics. So to be a good chess player, you have to spend a lot of your training time on tactics. Although basic tactics are explained in a number good books, complicated tactics – the kind that separate tournament winners from the pack – require intuition, imagination and precision. The Magic of Chess Tactics helps you develop these qualities.

Aimed primarily at aspiring chess players from club to master level who seriously want to improve their chess understanding, The Magic of Chess Tactics provides examples selected for both their entertainment and instructional value – as well as detailed explanations and exercises.

Claus Dieter Meyer, chess author and FIDE Master, is a well known analyst and professional chess trainer. Karsten Mueller is an International Grandmaster and co-author, along with Frank Lamprecht, of the highly acclaimed Secrets of Pawn Endings and Fundamental Chess Endings. His popular monthly column Endgame Corner appears at ChessCafe.com.

"I have come to realise that there are basically two types of chess tactics. First, simple kinds of combinations you need to know when you start to play chess. I still believe they are the basis of everything. Things that computers see in a half-second. But the book is not about them. For those simple tactics, old Koblentz books are more than enough. This book is about *complicated* chess tactics, the kind you sometimes need hours of analysis just to discover the truth of the position. It's hard to see and calculate perfectly on the board; one needs intuition, imagination and precision.

"It's not easy to develop these qualities but I believe that the present book, full of examples and high quality analyses, will help you achieve that objective.

"Welcome to the magical world of tactics!"
–From the Foreword by Alexei Shirov