Descripción

Magic Chess Moves is a book that will enthral you while also testing and improving your chess abilities. You will be invited to solve a collection of exercise positions, but the accompanying text contains far more than simply the solutions. The author offers his reflections on all manner of other fascinating topics, such as how tactics can be coached, and details of the composer’s life story.

Michal Konopka

Magic Chess Moves contains the condensed wisdom of an experienced chess trainer with an emphasis on practical improvement. The 317 positions in this book are of mixed difficulty levels, with examples from over-the-board play and from chess compositions. Each and every exercise has been carefully selected for its instructive value to the practical player.

Puzzles Powering Practical Performance

Michal Konopka is an International Master from the Czech Republic who is particularly renowned as a trainer. He has coached many of the top Czech players and has been captain of the Czech national team for many years. Due to his coaching prowess, Konopka was awarded the Tigran Petrosian prize by FIDE for special achievements in chess.

Magic Chess Moves

This book contains a large collection of examples aimed mainly at training your calculation and developing your combinative vision. As a rule, the examples incorporate surprising tactical
motifs that will command your attention. The author has gathered his material from games, chess literature and databases of endgame studies, but he has not been content with simply collecting positions. These days there is a large amount of material accessible, but by no means all of it is suited to the training process.

 Paperback

The author has taken great care to include only the most effective examples in his book, and I can assure you his efforts have not been in vain. As a trainer and a strong player, he has given attention not only to the dramatic impact of the solution, but above all to its efficacy as material for training. For this very reason the book avoids giving positions where, in addition to the pretty combination, there is an alternative simple solution.

Magic Chess Moves

Moreover, in several cases the author has found a combination to be unsound, and where necessary he has corrected many an error which less self-critical authors have permitted to migrate from book to book. Nor has Michal included in his collection any examples where the solution is so obvious as to come to mind straight away. To be suitable, the examples shouldn’t be too complicated, but must always require a distinct effort.

Puzzles Powering Practical Performance

You will not succeed in solving them just by applying familiar stereotypes. The endgame studies, like the positions from play, have been selected most expediently from the viewpoint of training. Of their soundness – the fact that there is only one solution – I think there is no need to write.

Magic Chess Moves

Sample pages