A course in chess tactics

Short, violent games of chess, organised by theme

Getting started with the Coaching stuff

You're going to find the coaching materials on this site a bit tricky if you don't know how to play chess or how to read chess moves. After that, you can find things suitable for different levels of player, about chess openings, the middlegame (both tactics and attacking

Vukovic's mates

Some time after writing the piece about checkmate patterns, I bought V. Vukovic's famous book The Art of Attack in Chess. In it he gives a chapter full of mates, shown below; the numbering and terminology are his.

UPDATE: PGN file attached [PGN]

A first opening repertoire

A First Chess Opening Repertoire: [DOWNLOAD PDF | PGN]

Some suggestions to get you through your first chess games.

You can play through all the examples below:

Mate with Two Bishops

Mate is possible with two Bishops against a bare King.

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Upon the pin

Pins are one of the first attacking ideas you learn about. Here's some colourful examples you might not have seen before. Try and find good examples of forks, skewers, discoveries and so on.

The pin

from Lombardy, 19??

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. f4 Qc7 7. Bd3 Nc6 8. Nf3 g6 9. O-O Bg7 10. Qe1 e6 11. Kh1 O-O 12. Qh4 b5 13. f5 Qe7 14. Bg5