Back in the early 1980s, British publisher Pergamon Press did the English speaking chess world an incredible favor by creating a series of books that were translated from Russian. Just about every one of these books was worthwhile, and brought to us a nice assortment of some of the best tools that were used by the famous Soviet chess school.
Two of the books that helped me become a lot stronger (300 rating points) were the Test Your Chess IQ books by A. Livshitz, copyrighted in 1981. Volume I was the first book I saw that gave the reader a series of tests that then would “predict” his rating.
Looking back, I think that was a somewhat goofy idea, but it’s a gimmick that ensures better sales. The real value of it – that I did not appreciate until later – is that it encourages a systematic study of tactical combinations the correct way. What is the correct way? Well – his tests are timed, each position is to be set up on a board and solved there, and the solution written down before proceeding to the next problem. The correct answers are only checked at the end.
It helped me because I was lazy up until that point; and struggling with the problems in a tournament–like environment made the lessons more ‘real’ and longer lasting.
Since the early 1980s, the books have been re–organized. There are now three volumes: Test Your Chess IQ: First Challenge, Test Your Chess IQ: Master Challenge, and Test Your Chess IQ: Grandmaster Challenge. My old volume I was geared toward ELO 1500 – 1900 which was about USCF 1600 – 2000.
I recommend those books highly … and for those that would like to try it out, I put the first test from my old Volume I on the bear website: http://bear.delawarechess.org/studies/Livshitz01.pdf
One of my other favorite tactics books is The Art of Combination, by M. V. Blokh. It was published by Inside Chess (or actually International Chess Enterprises). It is a delightful collection of problems that is organized well, and each problem has a level of difficulty associated with it.
Unfortunately the systematic approach has to be imposed on the book by you – but the problems are well chosen, and this was one of the books that Jennifer Shahade singled out in her lecture at the Bear library.
The book is long out of print, I think, but it is still available on the computer. This book is the basis for the highly acclaimed program CT–ART 3.0 by Convekta Enterprises. For those that don’t know Convekta, they are best known for Chess Assistant, but they’ve also published a whole series of programs based on works by Russian chess authors. The interface is a little un–polished in some of the programs, but CT–ART is top notch, and also highly recommended. I’ve shown it to Dr. Fleetwood who has already written a review about Intensive Chess Tactics by Renko – which is the competitive offering from ChessBase. Hopefully over the summer he will be able to compare the two programs for us (hint hint!).
For those of you who wish a feel for the Blokh problems, I’ve put together my own quiz based on his book at: http://bear.delawarechess.org/studies/Blokh01.pdf
Enjoy … and let me know of any feedback or questions!
Bob Wilder
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