Customer Reviews
Amazing book!!! 
2008-04-28
This is an incredible chess book!!! You want to improve your chess?? Read this book and solve the puzzles, but solve them seriously! Dont look for the answer at the end of the chapter, some of them are not easy, but keep practicing, every day solve some puzzles, you will not notice your improvement while you are reading but after some chapters if you play against your friends again, you will see it and they too!! In less than two months practicing you will see results!!
This book start from easy problems, you will solve them easily, next chapter you will think "Oh c'mon give something better than this!!", but after a few chapters you will be playing much better and solving puzzles that never before you could solve... in just seconds!!.
I play against my computer and also online in yahoo chess, my rating usually is around 1400 to 1500, and never more than that. This night I just beat a 1600 guy!. He couldnt see what I could!! Even I offer him a queen sacrifice!! (unfortunally he didnt take it because it was mate, but he lost a knight instead!:)
Amazing book!! Thanks Susan!! I will buy all the Polgar family books!!!
Here are some of them:
A World Champion's Guide to Chess: Step-by-step instructions for winning chess the Polgar way (Chess) and
Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games
Some Advices from just a (still) regular player:
1. When you find a puzzle that you cant solve after 15/20 minutes thinking, just leave it and go to the next one, dont look for the answer!. Later, next day or next week try again and you will find the right move for sure!
2. May be I shouldnt say this, but just in case... dont be tricky with yourself! Make the moves in your mind, do NOT touch the pieces until you find the moves just thinking. If you dont do this, the excercise will be useless for you and a waste of time because you will not improve your game doing this.
A great next level book by Polgar 2008-04-15
This is another excellent book by Susan Polgar. Her first book is similar to this one, but with the major difference being the difficulty of the chess puzzles. The first book was elementary compared to this one. This book really tested my skills and eyes for the correct move. It basically deals with developing the art of seeing the tactic or creating the winning move with little instruction. The chess puzzles help the speed player. This book is great practice in using the art of tactics. It has helped my play by supporting wins over a high 1400, 1500, 1600 this week. An excellent book for the intermediate player.
Great tactics book. 2008-03-25
This book has a perfect combination of variety and quantity. Problems are broken down by type. Each type is introduced and explained step by step, then 50 or 100 practice problems of that type are provided for drill. The solutions are at the back of each section. There are separate sections for Mates in 1, 2, 3, and even 4 moves, as well as pins, discoveries, double attacks, etc... I have her father's massive collection of mate problems. This book is less overwhelming and will be approachable to a wider audience.
Review of Chess Tactics for Champions 2008-03-10
Susan Polgar's book intrigued me from the start as it focused rather like her father's book on prolems and working to figure out what your first move. The only drawback is that it is heavily influenced towards the White pieces. Overall, though, Polgar's book really helps you develop an idea of playing 'for the future and not just for the now' (i.e. you need to play smarter and not just better).
The idea is also to develop the ideas about looking 2-3-4 moves ahead and that will benefit all players enormously!
An Excellent book of its kind 2008-01-18
This book is perfect, with lots of excercises and lots of important tactics discussed and overviewed. An exceptional piece of work!!!
Great book. 2008-01-12
Susan Polgar became the first female Grandmaster at age 15—and it wasn't luck that got her there. Her use of tactics, combinations, and strategy during her games gave her the critical advantage she needed against her opponents. In
Chess Tactics for Champions, Polgar gives insight into the kind of thinking that chess champions rely on while playing the game, specifically the ability to recognize patterns and combinations. With coauthor Paul Truong, Susan Polgar teaches the tactics she learned from her father, Laszlo Polgar, one of the world's best chess coaches.
• Teaches players how to calculate the effect of a move in order to gain an edge over an opponent
• For intermediate to advanced chess players of all ages
Awesome book 2008-01-03
After taking a few years off from the game, I started teaching the kids and playing on weekends. I tried pointing out that tactics were vitally important to make that next step up the skill ladder. This book was the perfect tool to illustrate my layman's instructions.... The situations range from easy to moderately difficult. I got a lot of "DOH!!... I should have seen that!" The level of all our play has improved and it is fun to see where a fork or trap is similar to what was in the book. I highly recommend!
All the best,
Jay
exactly what i was looking for to work on bettering my tactics foundations 2007-12-31
I concider myself an intermediate player. My rating on Turn based chess ( similar more modern type of postal chess ) is around 1850, my live games might be close to 1900. But my blitz games is more around 1700 and this is due (in my mind ) to the fact that i started very old ( around 19 or 20 years old) to play and learned chess ( seriously ) so i lack the tactical patterns many wizz kids show in such a natural and effortless way. I usually outplayed this guys on long games since i can analyse and use more an strategic approach while i take care of not falling on tactical traps. This is of course not enough if you wanna reach the 2000 points and over.
So i concluded i needed a book or a series of training materials that would work on creating those patterns. I read some material where it stated that is not necesarily the complex patterns that do the most fundamental job but the simple ones.
So this book from that point of view seems to hit the spot. I've been doing it for 3 days now and i'm done about 3/4 of the books. I planned to work on the excersices at the very least 3 times each. I went to play yesterday and i still have some way to go but i see the game in a diferent way and some things just pop up naturally.
I still need to remember to keep my style going and growing wich is more strategically but is nice to be more prepared to hand to hand combat.
I think in cases similar to mine this book is very good ( people trying to re do their tactics fundamentals from the begining) or for beginners to intermediate.
Hope this helps
A fine resource 
2007-12-27
This books is a very well written introduction to tactical themes. The included exercises start with the simple and progress up to entry/middle intermediate levels. I found the section on "Sibling Positions" to be quite instructional as well. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that feels they need to work on their tactical vision.
wonderful book 2007-11-15
My 10 year old son enjoys reading the book. At first I thought it would be hard to understand since it is more for intermediate players and he is just a beginner.
