Introduction
The author of the book Murray Chandler is a grandmaster from New Zealand that gained British citizenship in the 80s and has represented England at Chess Olympiad six times. He wrote several chess books for kids. This time he decided to introduce kids to chess tactics so as to win opponents’ pieces more easily and have a bigger chance at winning the game.
More Children Books by Murray Chandler
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- Chess for Children: How to Play the World’s Most Popular Board Game
- Murray Chandler, Helen Milligan
Book Structure
The book is almost solely focused on presenting the tactics. The author firstly explains notation used in the book, then he writes about the three stages of mastering the tactics and, without any stalling, brings out 50 tricky tactics for kids to learn.
After the tactics presentation, there is a chapter called Test Your Motif Recognition followed by the chapterTest Your Tactics. All the tests are solved at the end of the book while every test has hints on which tactic to use to solve the puzzle.
This is a game Stjepan Tomić played in a league game against an 1800 rated opponent. Black resigned after white’s next move. Why is white winning?
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Usefulness
As a beginner, although a grown up one, I found it hard to visualize both explanations and solutions without the board. When I got the board out, it was easier to follow the moves and the tactics used in the book. While the tactics are concisely explained, I had some trouble understanding them immediately as I lack the basic chess knowledge. I did manage to solve the puzzles given here but I wouldn’t make the best use of it as I wouldn’t know how to win the game after I made moves learned here.
I suppose the book is for kids because the notation is a bit simplified, it has fun sketches and tactics are reduced to a few moves each.The explanations are not too simplified though so a child should be an already skilled notation reader to follow them.
Conclusion
Chess tactics for kids is a book useful only for kids who already understand the game and are playing it well but are already in search of ways to improve their game. I wouldn’t recommend it for complete beginners. It can also serve as a practice tool for players of any age who recently started to play.
My kids found it too complicated (aged 8 and 5) as they are still getting to know the basic rules of chess.
