1001 Chess Exercises for Club Players by FM Frank Erwich, New in Chess 2019 192pp
As many of you know, I enjoy tactics books. Solving books in general are what I enjoy the most. I am firmly from the school that books based on solving are the closest a book can get to practical play and that’s why they are the most valuable.
Unfortunately for the past year or so I’ve been so busy that I’ve rarely had time to work deeply from books like this, and the results have shown in my games.
Lately it seems like many books of varying topics have been focused on club players. This makes a lot of sense to me as the largest potential audience for books is club players. So the idea of this book – a book revolving around solving and directed towards club players – was one I wholeheartedly embraced.
As I started glancing through the book I was struck by a couple of things.
First, I noticed that many of the diagrams have hints printed below them in the form of listing the themes. For instance, you will see “chasing” or “blocking” or “interference” below the diagrams.
For some of you those themes may sound familiar. That’s because they’re based on the Steps Method pioneered by Dutch trainers Cor van Wijgerden and Rob Brunia.
As I read the introduction it quickly became evident that was the intention of FM Erwich. It’s clear that he considers himself a product of the Steps Method, and that he wants to further their efforts.
The book consists of 12 chapters. They are:
- Elimination of the Defence
- Double Attack
- Discovered Attack
- Skewer
- Pin
- Trapping a Piece
- Promotion
- Draw
- Mate
- Defending
- Mix
- Solutions
The exercises are laid out in each chapter to become increasingly more difficult as the chapter progresses. While this is to a large degree subjective, the idea is that exercises towards the end of a chapter are noticeably harder than those near the beginning.
Here is an exercise at the beginning of the Pins chapter:
The hint here is “luring+pin”
Here is one at the end:
The hint here is simply “mix.”
In both cases the solutions are at the bottom.
For books of this nature I always recommend writing down your answers as you solve. This will force you to be both honest and accurate in your review of the puzzles as you can’t pretend that “Oh yeah, I saw that.” If you didn’t write it down, then you can’t fool yourself into believing that you’ve succeeded.
Once you have solved a series of problems you can turn to the back of the book to review. There you will find a lot of additional information such as which game a puzzle was from or alternative tries that you may be curious about.
So who benefits from this book? I’d say in this case the target audience is exactly as described in the book. Club players. Yes, many of the exercises would also be well served for many players who are 2000+. but there are books that are more targeted to those players than this one is.
Using this book for players in the 1000-2000 range should show results. Using this book as the material for the “seven circles” method would turn anyone who seriously works on that into a much stronger tactician than they are now.
If you’ve been looking for a tactics book, or are looking for a new one, then this book is for you.
Buy the book at a very affordable price here.
Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott
If you like this blog, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. Any money I raise will go towards lessons and stronger tournaments.
If you can spare it, please click here and become a supporter. Even $1 a month can help me achieve my dream.
Solution to Exercise One:
Solution to Exercise Two: