Monday, September 23, 2002

 
Today, I started studying Chess Tactics for Students. It's basically a workbook covering 13 common tactical motifs. Each chapter consists of 5 instructional diagrams to introduce the motif, followed by 26 problems for the student to solve. Following author John Bain's suggestion, I worked through the first 5 diagrams in each chapter to get an overview of all 13 tactics. It was fairly easy.

I can see how this workbook format would appeal to educators who want to introduce chess in the classroom. It reminds me a lot of the vocabulary texts that I used when I was in middle school.

Now that I've completed the overview, I'm supposed to work through all chapters in order. The chapters are:

1. Pins
2. Back Rank Combinations
3. Knight Forks
4. Other Forks/Double Attacks
5. Discovered Checks
6. Double Checks
7. Discovered Attacks
8. Skewers
9. Double Threats
10. Promoting Pawns
11. Removing the Guard
12. Perpetual Check
13. Zugzwang

To prevent burnout, my goal is to complete one chapter per day.
posted by brother7 3:28 PM