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Eleni Papachristou

Review: The Quality Chess Puzzle Book by Shaw

Title: The Quality Chess Puzzle Book.
Author: John Shaw.
Publisher: Quality Chess.
Year: 2010.
Pages: 354.
Price: 23,99€.

I have never been a fan of books on tactical puzzles. I do not know the reason, it could be that I find tactics beneath me (I like to win games on solid positional ground, not on the seemingly random tactical skirmish), or maybe it is that puzzle books force you to really study them, you cannot read the book without effort. It could also be that as tactics is not my strong suit, I try to avoid it as to not threaten my self-steem.

Anyway only recently I took a liking on solving tactical puzzles. Two years ago I read Weteschnik's book on tactics and found it a very positive experience, but other than that, the other books I took interest in were not about tactics.

John Shaw's Quality Chess Puzzle Book is, as you may deduce by its tittle, a book of tactical exercises. It has been a collaborative effort of the publisher (I seem to recall that Aagaard provided the exercises for Shaw to choose from, and Shaw chose them and wrote the prose of the book).

As a disclaimer, I must admit that I have not studied the whole book, but studied the first 512 exercises (around 70% of it).

Unlike traditional puzzle books, this one is not organized by theme, nor it is organized by difficulty. It contains 15 chapters on random themes. For example there is a chapter with some of Ivanchuk games, two other called Missed opportunities, etc. The point is that the themes make no sense from a purely chess perspective, so you will not be thinking about pins in this chapter and forks in the next one, because you will have no idea what to expect. Inside a chapter, the level of the exercises increases, but it lacks any scale to guide you on how difficult an exercise is.


The book contains 735 exercises (I remind you that I can only truly talk about the first 512 of them) plus at the beginning of each chapter there is a short introduction with some more games (which I did not care enough to study and do not think you would miss anything by ignoring it either).

The edition I own is the paperback one and I am quite happy with it (usual Quality Chess). As this book will expend a lot of time in your hands, expect to wear it off fast. In my case, the cover is starting to suffer, but nothing plasticizing it would not solve.

I have developed a liking of hardcover books (which in this case is 6€ more expensive) and now I regret not having that edition instead. That is because it seems to me now that this book can be enjoyed in many years to come, and having a better edition makes sense, as 20 years from now would be good as new. But do not let my snobism affect you.

At 735 exercises the book is huge. Each exercise costs you less than 3 cents of an €.


I have a little guide to make these reviews, and one concept I review is the prose. As this is a puzzle book, talking about how it is written makes little sense, but habits are good, and guides are good too. So the little prose the book has is good, sometimes Shaw makes jokes, and sometimes he tells you stories. I like it. But of course it is totally irrelevant for this type of book.

The analysis, as far as I have dared to oppose Shaw, is spot on. I do not think I have found any invalid problem. My only problem would be that sometimes my solution is not considered by the author, but who could blame him when it is clearly inferior to the proposed solution?

The book is a good book, no doubt about that. The first thing to check is that solutions are spot on, and that is the case. It could be better if it had more failed attempts, but nevertheless Shaw's failed attempts quite often agrees with me (and many times, with the player's choice in the game). The fact that the theme is random makes it more difficult. I do not know if it is good or bad, but I prefer it like that. In a real game you do not know the theme either.

One point I dislike of the book is that it has no indication of the level of the exercises. Normally this indications are just very rough approximations, but they are very useful.  Each chapter is increasing in difficulty but that is not something you may realize. At least for me it was not. There is a point that you would do better jumping to the next chapter than banging your head against unsolvable problems, and if you realized the exercises to come in the chapter were still harder, you would, but as it stands, you may not do it.

So, do I recommend the book?

I always find it tricky when the answer is not wholeheartedly. There is always many sides in the issue. So let me tell you a story first.

I own this book since 2015. I bought it at the same time as The secret life of bad bishops and Positional decision making. I solved 150 exercises relatively fast, and then put the book down, and only recently (in the last month) I surged through it, solving 350 more.

Why is that? Well, the exercises are difficult! I left the book when it was a pain to go through it, plain and simple.

Of course this is not Shaw's fault, but brings me to a very important point. It is my opinion that any kind of exercise book has to be the right level for you. If it is too easy, you most likely will not think hard enough to improve your chess (and when the exercises are difficult enough, you may be tempted to dismiss them with shallow solutions instead of delving into the subtleties of the problem). If the exercises are too much for you on the other hand, you most likely will put down the book as you will get demoralized.

It is getting repetitive by now, but I'm at 2200 elo points. I have been working hard on tactical puzzle this three months (with Aagaard's GM Preparation - Calculation and Dvoretsky's Recognizing Your Opponent's Resources -do not expect a review on those books soon, though, it will be a long time since I manage to finish enough of them to feel comfortable reviewing them). So my hope is that my tactical awareness has grown and I am now rated higher, but most probably this is only a wet dream of mine, because this things take longer to settle.

Anyway, as a 2200 player, spending unlimited time (between 5 and 10 minutes, but I do not time myself with this book) on the exercises makes me solve around 50% of them. The first on a chapter I solve faster and with no mistakes, while the last ones provoke me nightmares (I failed 9.5 out of the last 11 problems in chapter 8, 8 out of the last 11 problems in chapter 9, and 3.5 out of 5 in chapter 10). All in all, that is the right level for me, and seeing that the starts are easier and the endings are harder, it may be a good book for players rated 2000 elo points or above.

The endings of the chapters is what made me put down the book. I did not know that each chapter starts easy and then goes into mad levels of difficulty. On the contrary I thought that what was to come was even more difficult than what I have already studied, so what was the point in continuing with the book? Now that you are aware of this, please jump into the next chapter when you cannot solve any more exercises of the present one.

My last point before the conclusion is a monetary point. At five minutes per exercise (being on the cautious side, but you will not be solving all the exercises after all, so it is a good approximation), you will spend more than 60 hours with the book. At 24€, you are paying 1€ for each 2.5h of entertainment. I do not think anyone can make you a better deal than that.

So I recommend this book to players above 2000 elo points with some caveats. Do not try to solve all the exercises. Stop and go to the next chapter when you get stuck. You may find that you are comfortable with only half of the problems in the book. Well, more than 300 exercises are plenty!

If you have less than 2000 elo points, go with Weteschnik!

PS: I am reviewing the book while having not finishing it because I am suffering in chapter 12 already, chapter 13 seems to be easy (according to its introduction), but chapters 14 and 15 (starting with problem 558) seem to be hell. I do not look forward to the pain of solving them. So I have decided to move to another book on tactics :)

PS2: I started to make this reviews because it seemed to me that there was a lack of good reviews out there. I bought books based on good reviews that greatly disappointed me. I think that is because the reviews were based on a very quick reading of the book. If I had reviewed this book in 2015 when I put it down, I would have said that it is a great book but with a very high level, while now I think it is just a little bit more difficult that what I'm comfortable with. So yes, I was right, quick reviews do not cut it.

Review: The Attacking Manual 1 2nd edition by Aagaard

Title: The Attacking Manual 1 2nd edition.
Author: Jacob Aagaard.
Publisher: Quality Chess.
Year: 2010.
Pages: 320.
Price: 29.99€ (paperback).

The attacking Manual 1 is a book in which, according to the introduction, Jacob Aagaard has spent a lot of years of his life. The book tries to explain how attacks are conceived more than executed, which is kind of different from other books on attack (see for example Gormally's Mating the Castled King).

From this perspective, the book delves into seven concepts of attacking play (the Contents page is confusing, hence I translate it):

• Bring all your Toys to the Nursery Party: You should attack with all your pieces
• Don’t lose your Breath: Attack as fast as possible.
• Add some Colour to your Play: Weakness in a colour complex.
• Size Matters!: The quantity of the units attacking is also important, not only the quality.
• Hit ’em where it hurts: Attack the weak points.
• Chewing on Granite: Attack the strong points so you gain access to the weak points.
• Evolution/Revolution: While attacking, be mindful that you may stop, gather strength (evolution) and then go at it again (revolution).

Apart from that, there are 15 attacking games commented and a last chapter with 50 exercises to solve.

Normally I am quite pleased with the quality of QualityChess products, but I must admit that this one is subpar, there are some mistakes in the text and in the diagrams, certainly more than usual. This point is even worse when you think it is a second edition, where this things should have been already solved. Other than that, this is a lengthy book at 320 pages.

The book is very well written (if you disregard the problems with the edition) and very appealing, typical of Aagaard's style, similar to those books he wrote for Everyman. The ideas exposed are often very well known, only adding to the known themes new examples. However, it has a chapter on Evolution/Revolution which really made an impact on me. The concept is that when you are attacking, you evolve your position until the point where you cannot evolve it any longer by normal means, and you start sacrificing (revolution). Afterwards, however, you do not need to continue the attack like a mad man, you may stop it to bring reinforcements (evolution). I had never seen this concept anywhere else and found it very interesting.

Aagaard tried in this book not to suffocate you with variations, striving to offer only the key variations of the position. I think he has not succeed at all. A lot of times I found myself having to start the engine to show me why the position was in fact winning and not only complex, while other times I was following 10 moves long variations which made no sense to me (surely proposed by the computer) for no apparent reason. In those moments, even if there was a reason, the fact that I did not get it is a flaw.

All in all the book is interesting. Its reading is easy and interesting, and you may very well read it quite fast. The analysis may not be the most on point I have ever seen, but it is not bad, just not great.

The main problem I find with this book is how easy is to read it and do not assimilate anything. Normally you would be reading quite an interesting paragraph just to be distracted by some game. You would want to finish it as fast as possible to be able to continue with the reasoning. When you realize it, you have finished the book and have learned nothing. I must admit that it is wrong to transfer my personal flaws to the rest of the chess aficionados,  but if you are like me, you know you need to make a lot of effort to stop and think instead of read and nod.

Personally I liked Gormally's book better, it is cheaper (this book is very expensive, costing 5€ more than its peers at the same publisher) at the same length, it requires more or less the same level from you, it has better analysis (this is: deep when it needs to be, shallow elsewhere), and it has a lot more exercises, which is what gets me going. So I would only recommend this book to you if you have already Gormally's book, and with the strong caveat that to really profit from this book you should have to put the extra effort.

PS: I solved the 50 exercises with 10 minutes for each position, working an hour straight in a batch of 6 exercises. With that conditions I was solving a little bit more than half of them (at 2200 fide strength), while with 5 minutes for position I was getting destroyed.

Review: Build up your Chess by Yusupov

Title: Build up your chess.
Author: Artur Yusupov.
Publisher: Quality Chess.
Year: 2008.
Pages: 264.
Price: 23.99€ paperback.


In this review I want to talk about Yusupov's series in Quality Chess. I have chosen to portrait the first book on the series but it would generally be applicable to every book, not just this one.

Another important caveat I want to make is that I have read the first two books and the last exercises from the last book.

This series of books is an acclaimed collection of exercise books. It has come to my attention that Yusupov has made another book to complement the series which I'm reviewing and Quality Chess is going to publish it in english (if you speak german, you are lucky, because I think it has already been published there). So now that Yusupov's books are again on the spotlight it seems only natural to fill this horrible gap in my blog :)

There are nine books in the series, grouped in three colors (orange, blue and green), named 'build up`your chess', 'boost your chess',  and 'chess evolution'. You are supposed to read each color in this order.

Each of the books is divided into 24 chapters and a final test. Each chapter has an introduction of the chapter, which spans around four pages, and twelve exercises. The exercises have points of difficulty which are rewarded if you have seen some key moves of the solution. You can add up all the points to score your final evaluation of the unit. It may be that you have done excellently down to you have to repeat the unit.

The final test has only exercises which encompass everything studied in the book, and there are 24 of them.

The books aim to give you a solid base in every aspect of the game, so you are going to study some openings (really it is almost only exercises, so not heavy theory there), tactics, strategy and endings. As each chapter delves in a particular subject, you are not going to get bored easily, which is great for someone like me that likes to read various books at once just to change the pace.

All in all you are getting 312 exercises in every aspect of the game. At a standard lenght of 264 pages, you can hardly ask for more, but GM Preparation series are thicker, hence pack more exercises. Maybe compared to them or some other books 312 does not seem much, but I never felt that there were few problems, it just felt right, so no complains there.

The level of the exercises is high enough so that me (at 2200) went through the first two books fast and steady, but always felt I was challenged. As I see it, anyone starting from 1700 can enjoy the books.  Players lower than that should however download the excerpt of the first one and see for themselves, because it includes a complete chapter.

I like exercise books a lot, so I do not care much that the prose is sparse. What do you expect after all? For me the prelude of every chapter before the exercise was something to go through as fast as possible, but the official stand is to study it carefully and spend at least an hour on it. I cannot say it worked much for me as I already knew the subjects discussed, but it is there, so maybe it is profitable for you.

The quality of the solutions for me it is the worst part of the series. It happened to me a lot (a lot maybe is twice per chapter maximum) that exercises that I failed to solve had a flawed solution. Those normally (maybe exclusively) would come from positional exercises.  In those exercises a solution was put forward, but the machine would regard other moves as equal or better than the one recommended.

Positional exercises are the most difficult ones, I know, and the machine likes some lines which may be ok but Yusupov tries to show you the easiest path. But in this kind of case, I need from the author the statement that other moves are possible (and list them) but the one in the solution is the one he likes and reason it, otherwise, I would rather believe the machine at 3300 elo than Yusupov at 2700.

All in all, however, I think this series of books is pretty good. Maybe some solutions are not on the spot, but I have not seen anything so comprehensive in the market in any other place. Hence I recommend the series to anyone from 1700 to 2200. Those below 1700, I would recommend to try their hand at the excerpt. If they feel that hitting a brick wall while doing it, then go for something more elementary,. Those with more than 2200 will certainly pick some things here and there. There are challenging exercises and you will have to put a lot of work. But 9 books is a lot of money invested, so maybe you can go directly to the blue series.

As a testament of the difficulty of the books, I have some anecdotal evidence. A friend of mine and me, both at 2200, got a hold on the last book, and made the final test. We allowed us 2h for the whole thing (so 5 minutes per exercise). We both failed to pass the test narrowly.

Review: Tactimania - Flear

Title: Tactimania
Author: Glenn Flear.
Publisher: Quality Chess.
Year: 2011.
Pages: 264.
Price: 21.99€.

Here I have another oldie for you. This book, as the name suggests, is a book about tactics. It contains around 450 tactical exercises from the praxis of Glenn Flear and his wife. It is a family work, as the illustrations come from their son.

The book contains 13 chapters, eleven of them dealing with some theme (from mates to trying to save lost positions), while the last two are tests of around 20 positions each. Those two last chapters have  their solution in the next page too, as the whole book, but they are called test because you get to score points and see at what level you are at.

This book is quite hard to make sense of. It is littered with drawings one would assume target a kids' audience, but the exercises can get quite difficult. When I picked up this book I thought I would use it as Weteschnik Tactics from scratch, as a way to warm up, but that is not so, I was unable to solve some problems with one star (it has only three levels of difficulty).

The length of the book at 264 pages is ok, but some of the pages have drawings, so you actually get less chess than that. To compare, while this book contains 450 exercises, Weteschnik packs 300  (easier) and Quality Chess Puzzle Book (I hope to review it sometime, when I manage to finish it) packs more than 700 (harder).

The solutions are normally correct, sometimes mirroring the computer line exactly even if it does not make sense from a human point of view. In those cases I would have loved to have more depth, because I was left wondering where all those moves came to be and had to put the position in the computer to understand them. On the other hand, some problems have duals solutions which are not contemplated, or even wrong solutions according to my computer. They are not many, but they exists.

You should know by now that wrong solutions annoy me a lot, because I get the feeling that each time I fail an exercise I need to check it against the computer to ensure my solution is not flawed. But that is not what defined this work for me.

For me the drawings are terrible, but I think it is a taste thing, and you can do like I did and just ignore them. So that is not what defined this work either.

The most striking feature of this book is the choosing of the exercises. Flear put into himself the task of finding tactical exercises in his and his wifes' games, and came up with a very strange collection.

While I was reading the book, I never got the hang of it. In normal books you start looking at sacrifices and such, normally that is what works in those. But here, as the number of games was so low, some very untypical examples managed to make it to the book.

That is a good thing in the sense that you have to shift your way of thinking, but if you are anything like me, you will get annoyed at some exercises.

All in all I cannot recommend this book. I do not like the drawings, nor I feel the exercises are well selected (although I told you already that is a good thing!, but I do not like it). It does not have that many exercises, so that is not a point for it either. At the end of the day, there are better books to choose from.

 Lastly, if you decide to go for the book, I can tell you about chapter 12, which has the first test. I went to solve the 19 exercises in it in two hours with a friend of mine rated approximately like me (2200). We had to photocopy the problems as the solutions were intermixed with them, and we wrote down our solutions. The final result was that we classified both as tournament players (with a very similar score), which is lower than international players, IM and GM. I felt that two hours was very little time to solve all the exercises.