Can You Be a Positional Chess Genius

Rating:
Summary: Good examples but cluttered layout
Review: The idea of this book is excellent, but the annoying scoring system is distracting. The blue cover version of Chris Ward's "Its Your Move" (Everyman, 2000) is a better puzzle book for positional play.

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Book!
Review: This is without a doubt my favorite chess book! The heart of this book is ten tests of fifteen puzzles each. Each test is divided into 5 easy, 5 intermediate, and 5 difficult problems. This helps you to guage how much effort you should put into each problem.

I find that puzzle books are the most effective, practical, way to improve my playing strength.

The solution to each problem is crisp and clear. After pondering one of his problems, when I finally see the answer, it's like a light-bulb is turned on. "Aha! Yes, clearly that's the best move!" When this happens, I feel I've truly learned something that will stay with me, and benefit me later when I'm actually playing a game.

The book is nicely printed, with large diagrams so that you have the choice to either set up the position on a board, or to solve them directly from the book-- very convenient when travelling or otherwise away from home.

The author has obviously picked the problems very carefully, and scored the possible solutions diligently; so that the learning experience for the reader is greatly enhanced.

After I worked through this book, I felt that my playing strength improved about 100 rating points. I think the level of this book is useful for players in the 1700-2300 range (for reference, I fall into the middle of this range).

I loved this book!! Kudos to Angus Dunnington for a fine work.