Product Description
Jon Speelman is one of the most successful British chess-players of all time, and is renowned for the creativity of his play and his remarkable calculating ability. He is also an extremely experienced writer and chess coach. His personal selection of chess puzzles will infuriate, entertain, test and instruct chess-players of all levels.
Themed sections include:
* Finger Exercises
* Stalemate
* The Skewer
* The Pin
* Pawn Promotion
* Line Opening and Closing
* Loose Pieces
* Mating Attacks
* The Back Rank
* Knight Forks
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WHY BUY? In a crowded field of tactics puzzle books, this book is distinguished by the author’s sparkling and occasionally witty chatter, especially in the solutions section. Several of the puzzles feature spectacular combinations to which the author fell victim, which demonstrates a refreshing humility.
AUDIENCE: The themed puzzles (forks, back-rank mates, etc.) are mostly aimed at the ELO 1000-1500 crowd, but a significant portion are more challenging. The last half features 3 progressively more difficult chapters. The first (“Finger Exercises”) is again a 100-1500 affair, but the final chapter (“Tougher Examples”) is definitely challenging up to about ELO 2000.
OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER: The book is nicely printed with sturdy binding. As usual, Gambit has not scrimped on production quality. The puzzles are mostly from recent GM games (including the author’s), so there’s little danger of seeing the same old puzzles that you solved in Reinfeld’s or Lein’s books. The only caveat to mention is that a couple of the puzzles in the Tougher Examples section appear to be cooked.
SUMMARY: With 300 puzzles, I consider the book to be a worthwhile purchase. If it had had another 300 puzzles, it would have rated 5 stars.
Amazon User Rating: 4 / 5
Jon Speelman’s Chess Puzzle book has a total of 300 puzzles divided into the following chapters (with the amount of puzzles in parentheses):
Part 1: The Elements
Knight Forks (18)
Loose Pieces (15)
Opening and Closing Lines (15)
Pins (15)
Skewers (12)
Overloaded Pieces and Deflections (18)
Mating Attacks (30)
The Back Rank (12)
Stalemate (12)
Pawn Promotion (15)
Part 2: Tactics in Practice
Finger Exercises (48) [i.e. combinations]
Mixed Bag (48)
Tougher Examples (42)
Each chapter basically starts off with a couple easy warm-up puzzles and then increases in difficulty throughout the chapter. The puzzles do get quite challenging.
Some people do not like when puzzle books give you a ‘hint’ as to what to look for (like a knight fork for instance), and prefer to do puzzles “cold” (with nothing more than “White to play”). I like Jon Speelman’s Chess Puzzle Book because it has both kinds of puzzles. In Part 1, you do know what sort of tactic will be involved, but in Part 2, which is nearly half of all the puzzles in the book, you get no clue. I like this because it’s kind of like the entire Part 1 is “teaching” you the patterns and Part 2 is “testing” you.
On many puzzles throughout the book (including part 2), Speelman sets up the puzzle with a bit of prose, so even Part 2 is not entirely “cold” in that sense. He’ll say something like, “Under massive pressure, Black tried 40…Qxf4. What was the response?” So, he really doesn’t give away anything there. But if you’re the type of person who wants absolutely nothing more than “White to play,” Jon Speelman’s Chess Puzzle Book probably is not the puzzle book for you.
The book is in Figurine Algebraic notation with solutions at the end of the book. Overall, I like it and recommend Jon Speelman’s Chess Puzzle Book for intermediate and club players.
Amazon User Rating: 4 / 5