1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners: The Tactics Workbook that Explains the Basic Concepts, Too

This book has a lot of different chess puzzles, and it’s been really helpful for improving my skills. The exercises cover many important tactics like pins, forks, checkmates, promotions, and more.

I am a class B player who used this book to broaden my knowledge of short, simple tactical motifs, and to improve my ability to quickly recognize these simple motifs through repetition in practice. Most of the exercises in the first half of the book were much too simple for a class B player, but the exercises in the latter half of the book required a little thought, on the order of 5 to 15 seconds to solve. None of the exercises in this book were overly challenging to me, but I saw some new (to me) and somewhat tricky tactical patterns. One thing I particularly liked about the book was the wide variety of tactical motifs presented and the amount of repetition of these motifs (enough repetition to make the concept stick, but not too much so as to bore the reader). This book is probably too basic for a class B player, but I did get the practice I wanted and it took very little time to complete the book. I generally agree with the points made by Mr. Falter, who does a good job of accurately describing the contents of the book and its virtues. I give this book 5 stars because (1) it contains 1001 accurate tactical exercises, appropriately arranged by category and order of difficulty; and (2) a wide range of tactical motifs are presented with an appropriate amount of repetition. This book would be very useful tactics practice for beginning to low-intermediate chessplayers.

Excellent study workbook for beginners and amateurs to learn chess tactics and understand basic techniques, I really enjoy studying this book

Fantastic book that really does a good job of explaining tactics, and it's enjoyable to think through all the different exercises. However, I STRONGLY recommend you buy the paperback version and NOT the Kindle. The Kindle version I have did not include any of the tactic explanation sections; it just has the exercises, so you don't really know what you're supposed to learn. Plus, the chess move notation they use is very confusing when in Kindle format. But, all of that is much better in the paperback, which explains all the tactics and has an easier-to-understand way of showing the move notations. I would also say that, while this is for beginners, it's not for people just beginning chess. It seems like it's for people who have played quite a few games and are looking to hone their tactics to progress to intermediate, rather than someone who is just learning the fundamentals of the game. If you have not actually played much chess already, or don't have a firm grasp of the rules and piece movement basics, this isn't for you.

I picked this up for my son who is 8 years old. He joined chess club at school and the teacher recommended this book to help him progress. My son has been reading through it and been practicing some of the strategies and moves and seems to understand it and like it.

Great book that progressively gives you harder chess problems as you advance in the book. Helps you stop and study positions to learn tacics and interactions between pieces

This book was recommended by a US grand master on one of his Youtube videos. It's 1001 different pictures of chess boards at the end game; you have to figure out how to "win in one move", "win in two moves", etc. The answers are at the end. My wife and I are new to chess and this fun book of exercises has done a lot to help us begin to understand chess strategy. Many of the exercises are very difficult for real beginners like us, but the more we get into the book, the more we understand what we are looking at. It's a really fun way to learn chess strategy. The book suggests laying out the pieces for each exercise on a real chess board. We absolutely agree that this is a must; there's no way we could spot the answers just looking at the pictures.

1001 Chess Exercises - a nice paperback, but a not so nice kindle vision I’m a casual online chess player (U1000) with a tactic range from 1400 to 1500 (on chesstempo.com). I wanted a tactics book for over-the-board and visualization practice. I bought this book, because it seemed well organized and for beginners. I have only completed 324 (of 1001) tactic puzzles - with a completion of 30% of the total book. ======================================================================================= Pro’s and Con’s :) Pro’s • The book has several tactical motifs/themes and the book explains each type of tactical themes (And not all tactical books provide an explanation). • The puzzles are separated and nicely organized. • The diagrams are clearly illustrated (bold print w/12 illustration per page max). Pretty stander with newer tactics books. • The diagrams have hits underneath the illustration. In case you still want to find the solutions yourself without looking up the answer (by giving up). Con’s • The diagram size is pretty stander size (compared with my other tactic books), but could be hard to see if you have any vision issues. • The book is difficult for beginner players. ====================================================================================== Kindle Version impression :/ I would say pass on the kindle version of this book. The illustrations are remade for the kindle/table/PC version. And they look awful on each platform. You can click on the sample page on Amazon for the paperback and for the kindle versions and you can decide for yourself. ======================================================================================= My issue with this book is difficulty/puzzle range 1100 to 2200 :( This book does not seem/feel beginner friendly, as the rating cap seems to high. I believe you need a tactical range of 1900 to 2200 to complete this book (w/all correct answers). This book feels more like a teaching tool than a book for beginners. I think a beginner books should only peak around 1300. Anything higher is not helpful to a beginner (to high concept/calculation). .

Great book, its helped me a lot in my chess. Its nice to practice not using a screen.

Must have for beginners, club players. It makes huge difference in the way we see the board before making a move and helps recognizing so many patterns.

Tout simplement un des meilleurs livres d'exercices de ma bibliothèque échiquenne. Tous les principaux thèmes tactiques sont abordés. Chacun de ces thèmes est expliqué et décortiqué en détails pour en comprendre l'esprit, quelques exemples à l'appui, puis plusieurs pages d'exercices sont proposées, de difficulté croissante Ils ne sont pas simples, donc pas pour débutants, mais à partir de 1500 ELO. Très riches d'enseignement. Plusieurs variantes très pertinentes pour presque chaque diagramme, donc très bien pour s'entraîner à calculer ! Je recommande absolument cet excellent livre !

Before reading this book, my ELO rating would be around 800, I am only on page 26 of this book and my ELO rating is 1043. Before you start to read the book, you should know all the chess rules/moves and chess notation. Great Book!

Ci sono molti esercizi per principianti ma anche per livello intermedio.