Author Description

This Queens Gambit Tactics book gives you 500 positions from actual games that use combinations and checkmates. All games in this popular opening follow after the moves 1.d4 d5 2.c4. Queen’s Gambit includes such variations as the Baltic (2…Bf5) and the Marshall (2…Nf6), the Chigorin Defence (2…Nc6), the Albin Counter-Gambit (2…e5), Slav Defence (2...c6), Queen’s Gambit Accepted (2…dxc4), the Queen’s Gambit Declined (2…e6) with several options, or Semi-Slav (…e6 and …c6). The Queens Gambit teaches you to fight for a win in a classical pawn structure. When you run toward tactics, you run toward success. Tactics help you to attack and defend accurately. This book shows winning positions played by masters for hundreds of years. In fact, 70 games included were played in the year 2020. If you’re good at tactics, you’re good at chess. Opening theory may help you start well. Endgame knowledge may help you finish well. Tactical skill helps you win games and avoid losses. Tactics include pins, forks, removing the defender, attacking two pieces at the same time, and threatening to mate your opponent. The easiest path to tactical success is to recognize patterns that occur frequently in your favorite chess openings. Grandmasters know tactics and can easily slide from one opening to another. Everyone knows a few positions. Here’s 500 in Queen’s Gambit. Tactical knowledge helps you to improve your winning chances. Take your opponent’s pieces. Pick off the pawns. Mate the king! Don’t rely on dumb luck. How can “dumb luck” allow you to win? You can win a few games when your opponent makes dumb moves. That’s when your opponent gives up a piece for nothing. You’re lucky when your opponent fails to defend a mate in one. To advance, you need more than dumb luck. You need tactics. Author Tim Sawyer has played the Queen’s Gambit for 50 years. He intentionally omitted the apostrophe in the word “Queens” in the title of this book for stylistic preference. The purpose of this book is to ill