Chess is 99% tactics is an old saying. This may be an exaggeration, but even the remaining "1%" still depends on tactics.

When FM Martin Weteschnik started working as a trainer in his local chess club he quickly realised that even the stronger club players had great weaknesses in their tactical play. He also discovered that simply asking them to solve a huge number of puzzles did not fix the problem.

These players clearly needed a good book on elementary chess tactics, but when Weteschnik looked for it he found nothing suitable. So he decided to write it himself. To his surprise the book quickly became very successful in his native Germany, where one reviewer called it an "instant ciassic".

But Weteschnik was not completely satisfied with the book and decided to restructure and rewrite it completely. This is the book you now hold in your hands. If this book cannot improve your understanding of chess tactics, perhaps nothing can.

004 List of Symbols

005 Preface

007 What is this book about?

013 Introduction

017 1 Becoming familiar with the pieces!

023 2 The pin

051 3 The discovered attack

077 4 The Reloader

087 5 The double attack

107 6 Mate

143 7 Gain of tempo/intermediate move

159 8 The x-ray attack

165 9 Opening and closing lines

177 10 Status examination

219 Solutions to exercises

232 Indexes