Couture - progressive tactics 250 progressively challenging chess tactics

By Dave Couture Last Updated: July 4, 2014 email address: davidjcouture@gmail.com Copyright Notice The contents of this book are protected bythe Berne Convention. No portion of this book may be used,reproduced, or transmitted in any manner or form whatsoever by anymeans without the express, written, prior permission from theauthor except for clear instances of fair use, brief quotationsembodied in critical articles or reviews. To Larissa, Mariah, Kasey, and Jean. Also, to George Mirijanian, whose 40+ yearsof tireless dedication to chess in Massachusetts deserves far morethan this dedication. Tableof Contents Chess is 99% tactics Richard Teichmann (1908) Tactics are it. Peopleunder 2000 shouldnt study anything else.

Mig Greengard(2002) The purpose of this book is simple it isintended to raise your rating. Rather than go into a lengthyexplanation of why practicing tactics is so critical to raisingyour rating, Ill just show you. The diagram below is my USCF rating graph. Ispent about 10 years in the 1500-1650 range while I studied openingbooks, endgame books, and strategy books to no avail. Over theyears I had read occasional comments about the importance offocusing on tactics above all else, but it never really sank in.Sometime in 2007, I read a column by the outstanding instructor DanHeisman about the importance of tactics, that was so well writtenand persuasive, that it finally sunk in that I needed to tryfocusing on tactics. Well, suffice it to say that it worked.

Istarted working on tactics in the excellent book Sharpen YourTactics by Anatoly Lein (almost) every day and my rating rose to apeak of 1845. Then sometime in 2009 I gradually got away fromworking on tactics for various reasons and you can see the results.In 2012 I started studying tactics once more and again you can seethe results!

I recommend doing these tactics problems for10-15 minutes every day for a couple of months. Your improvementshould then just start to happen without your making any specialeffort during your games. This is important. It has been myexperience, that after I had been doing tactics problems for awhile, I felt pressure when playing a game that I had tofind tactics. I had to show that my work had been worthwhile! Thisfeeling became counter-productive.

When I stopped pressuring myselfand just played, I started winning more games, including gamesagainst stronger players and my rating started going up seeminglyeffortlessly. The key is: the effort takes place away from theboard, doing tactics problems every day.

I am working on a book of 1,000 problems andwant to get feedback on what Ive done so far. Id like to offerthis e-book for free, but Amazon requires that I charge a minimumof $1.99. So, if you purchase this book, email me at and when I finally publish the finished book of 1,000 tactics(probably summer 2015), I will notify you when I make use ofAmazons Free Book Promotion where authors are allowed to offertheir books for free for a limited time. I would greatly appreciate any and allfeedback from you.

If you find any typos, diagram errors, orformatting errors, I want to know about it. If the explanationswith the answers are inadequate or incorrect, or the problems aretoo easy/difficult, I want to know. If you have any generalcomments, I want to hear those too. My email address isand Id like to say thank you in advance for helping me to makethis a better book.

The problems are roughly in order ofincreasing difficulty so that if the early problems are too easyfor you, you can jump ahead. The easiest way to jump ahead is thelinks in the Table of Contents.

All positions are shown from the perspectiveof the side to move. So if the text below the diagram reads Blackto move, then black is moving from the bottom of the diagram tothe top. Also, there are a few tactics that aredefensive, meaning the answer is the one move that eitherprevents the loss of material or stops mate. Note that one feature of this book which isunique among all chess tactics e-books is that the answer diagramshows the position with the move already made and an arrow showingwhere the piece was moved from. The answer diagram is thesame size as the problem diagram so when you flip to the answerpage you see a one move "animation", which is especially effectiveif you are using a standard Kindle reader. 1985 Massachusetts Open, WorcesterMA, 1985.04.21, DC, Mitchell MacFarlane, 1-0, WhiteElo 1559,BlackElo 1450 (2 ) White to move 182-12-W 182-12-W Answer : 12Qd8#. 1985 Massachusetts Open, WorcesterMA, 1985.04.21, DC, Mitchell MacFarlane, 1-0, WhiteElo 1559,BlackElo 1450 (2 ) White to move 182-12-W 182-12-W Answer : 12Qd8#.

Wachusett Chess Club Winter Swiss2000, Leominster MA, 2000.01.26, Wayne Steadman, DC, 1-0, WhiteElo1449, BlackElo 1552 (3 ) Black to move (NOTE: Black is moving up theboard) 595-46-B 595-46-B Answer : 46Qg5+ wins by forcing queens offthe board ( 47. Qxg5+ Kxg5 )after which black queens the c-pawn. Evert Siiskonen Memorial,Fitchburg MA, 2014.04.16, DC, Jackson Parker, 0-1, WhiteElo 1756,BlackElo 1393, G/100(5) (4 ) Black to move 005-37-B 005-37-B Answer : 37... Re8 skewering the queen. Ifwhite tries counterattacking with Bc1 , then Rxe5+ leads to mate in shortorder. St. St.

Joseph CC 1985 Championship,Fitchburg MA, 1985.06.26, DC, Eugene Bedard, 1-0, WhiteElo 1583,BlackElo 1862 (6 ) Black to move 438-27-B