Master the grand art of Chess Calculation: Improve your chess now by Accurate visualisation & analysis

Being able to visualize is a key aspect of chess training. In fact, if you want to be able to break the 1800 barrier, you are going to need to see at minium 5 moves ahead. Being able to see ahead accuratly not only is helpful from a strategic stand point, also from a tactical one. If you cannot see very far ahead, visualizing strategic piece excanges and possible tactical shots becomes impossible and you are doomed to be a weak player.I have never had a chess coach, and my rating is between 2000 to 2100, all my chess is self taught through books like this. I can sometimes see accurately between 5-7 moves ahead,depending on how many pieces there are on the board. If the combination is a pattern I'm familiar with, I can see much further ahead, so I know a thing or two about calculating, and wanted to practice and improve my skills, so I bought this book.To make a long story short, this book SUCKS. The author is a creationist, who wastes no time preaching his belief in a divine creator (fairy tales for today's adults), and infuses his teaching with creationist myth and hippy "save the earth" banter.The biggest offense this book makes,specially to the beginner trying to get a hold of the subject matter, is that all traditional chess terms have been replaced synonyms referring to the animal kingdom, as the author wishes the reader think about the majesty of creation and nature while reading about chess. Does the following sentence sound idiotic to you? : "white bishop buffalo stares the black rook"? if your answer is yes, you are correct. It is inane and I don't know what hardcore drugs where going through the author's mind when he decided to rename "pin" with "buffalo stare".All chess tactics (pins, forks, skewers, weak back rank, etc) have been renamed with some idiotic name referring to the animal kingdom. Checkmate is referred to as "Elephant trumpet", pin is "buffalo stare", etc. This makes the classic chess reader such as myself confused with the terminology,forcing the serious student to re-learn all of the terms he memorized years ago. And don't even get me started on a beginner, I can just imagine some patzer reading this book,then going to chess club night and talking about "Lion's prides attack" and getting laughed at. In short, the renaming of classic chess terms make the book a pain in the ass to read.The first chapter states that the reader does not need to re-learn all the terms, and that the book is readable with out learning the new names, that of course is impossible. You have to know the terms,as they are given their original meaning only the first time they are introduced, and never again after that. Solving the puzzles become quite difficult when you are asked to focus on a specific motif, such as "look for a gazelle run"! ,then if you don't remember what the hell that term refers to,you have to go back and re-read the book, looking for the meaning of the synonym. Image reading a basic arithmatic book where all of the stablished math symbols have been renamed, imagine a problem reading like this "what is 7 golden sun 8"? does that sound idiotic? that is because it is, and that is exactly what this book does.Some people may think I'm being too harsh, after all, any chess player worth his salt has read Ludek Pachman's " Modern Chess Strategy" another book where the author renamed well known motifs. The difference is that Pachman's book only gives new names to very specific isolated examples, to help the reader remember the theme.Also, at no point in any chess book,should there be pictures of buffalos, lions, giraffes, and other wild African savanna animals complete with their descriptions. If I cared for those animals (I don't), I'd be reading about them in a book about animals, I don't expect that in a chess book.The puzzles themselves become too annoying to solve when you constantly have to refer back to the odd terminology. The book tries to guide the reader along the games of Capablanca, Fischer, Morphy etc. During the game, a key diagram will pop up,where you'd be asked to guess the next move by the legendary player, the problem comes from the hints themselves. Imagine reading this" And now, Morphy played a great move, can you find the elephant in 3 moves"? I wish I was joking,and sadly I am not.This book is horrible garbage,and a waste of time. I think I may have lost brain cells reading this. The sheer amount of stupidity, creationism mythology, and hippy "save the green earth" banter was enough to almost kill me and give me cancer. For next time, I suggest the author keeps his personal beliefs to himself, and stick to teaching the subject matter at hand in clear, concise terms,and not try to re-invent the wheel.Oh, and on another note, the book tries to give beginners a quick crash course on chess, explaining the rules, how the pieces moves, etc. The problem is that it does so way too quickly, and it should have been left out. Anyone reading this book should be expected to be able to read algebraic notation and know the rules of the games, chess is too complex of a game to be explained in 3 pages. Case in point, the book tries to teach how to mate with a "queen and king vs king" but only gives you the final position of the mate, not showing you the pattern. I know the pattern of course, but a beginner looking at a diagram would be left wondering how the end was achieved. OMG I am so angry I can feel a part of me died inside.To add final insult to injury, it is quite clear the author is a pacifist. He explains that through out the book, the pieces will not be captured, instead, they have a change of heart and abandon the chess war for peace. Not only is this unnecessary, it goes against the very spirit of the game. Chess is a war game, always has been, and always will be. Fischer, Tal, Capa,and many other masters have always preached that when you play chess, you are at war with your opponent, and that you are trying to crush him or kill him. This is why many chess books constantly mention pieces killing one another. The fact that he mentions that you instead think of them as having a change of heart is contrary to the spirit of the game,not to mention confusing. A beginner reading this book might get the wrong idea. You don't see vegetarians giving advice on how much meat to eat, a chess coach should never ever even hint that your pieces wanna give up war and go home. This pacifist attitude killed my entire mood while reading the book,and as such, cannot in good conscious recommend it.

Worst book I have in my collection. Waste of perfectly good paper in an oversized book with no useable content. When I received the book, I knew I had been scammed right away.

If you want improve your calculation abilitiy; this book is really useful as a method which Anrew Soltis adviced...After having studied it, I am more confident than earlier, which permits to me to try some tactical variations.

Libro interessante che parte per i principianti e poi si estende ai giocatori più esperti. Presenta numerosi esercizi tratti da partite vere dove si deve visualizzare le posizioni intermedie fra una mossa e le successive, partendo da 1 poi 2, 3 ecc. Ciò è bene per apprendere questa capacità, essenziale per calcolare bene. Le tecniche però delle mosse candidate e di come scoprire le mosse più forti, lascia a desiderare. Per queste ultime consiglio i libri eccellenti di Aagard