Reply #7: The best book on TACTICS, IMHO is the first link below.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671211145/qid=1135473572/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-6973925-3471131?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

"Winning Chess" by Irving Chernev. Basically takes all of the major tactical weapons in chess (pin, fork, discovered check, etc.) and has examples of each with the positions, you find the solution.

What you can do is this: Xerox the pages, cut out the board pics and put them on index cards with the solutions on the reverse side. That way when you shuffle them randomly and review the position, you are evaluating the position, and have to spot the tactical move available, instead of knowing that you have to find a pin or a discovered check within the position.

It's a whole bunch of excellent examples.

I think "Winning Chess" is about the most valuable book you could have starting out, because you really have to know the tactics before anything else. Studying opening theory etc. is useless unless you have a sense of what possibilities those opening variations lead to.


The second best book I've read is also Chernev: "Logical Chess: Move by Move (linked below)." Basically takes several master games (some are not so great but some are by old timey masters like Capablanca), but explains the purpose behind EVERY SINGLE MOVE. This is really good for players starting out trying to figure out a foundation for their play.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0713484640/qid=1135473572/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/104-6973925-3471131?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

I really, really think these two books alone will give you a seriously good foundation for learning.

If you start out trying to read Fischer's or Kasparov's games, I really think there's too much "foundation of knowledge" missing to really get a lot out of reading those books.

Start with Chernev.