Yeah I agree that the moves are very hard to find, certainly for me.  But they also kind of inspired me in a way that some of my other books on tactics haven't done yet, whilst also prompting me to indeed look at forcing moves first - seems like common sense but easily overlooked.

@Gerry
I have the Hertan book, Forcing Chess Moves, but haven't had time to go through more than a few pages yet.  I bought a slew of books recently and am progressing more quickly with the Understanding Chess Tactics book by Martin Weteschnik(?) from Quality Chess, which seems pitched at more my level.  However, Hertan's book is inspiring from what I've seen of it and I think it will prove to be a very worthwhile buy for people who a) want to view the game in a slightly different way, and b) people who simply want to enjoy amazing combinations.  

I found in the (lengthy) intro and first few pages many examples of 'Oh yeah!' moments for myself where I was looking at positions differently to normal and starting to find things I wouldn't have believed were there.  I just hope the difficulty doesn't ramp up so much as to render it unsuitable for me in later chapters.  

It's one I will certainly return to eagerly when I've finished the aforementioned Quality Chess book.  

I think there is a long excerpt from Hertan's book on the NIC website if you haven't already seen it.

Hello All:

Well I have started work on Kotov's and Aagaard's books. Spending more time with the latter as he seems to have more explanations re finding candidate moves, etc.

At the moment calculating using the examples in the text where Aagaard has choices (IOW I have not got to the 100 exercises at the back yet). Very tough going. Not moaning or going to quit or anything like that. Just wondering about experiences of players in the 1800-1900 range with Kotov/Aagaard. Trying to get some perspective.

Thanks in advance,

Gerry

P.S. With my earlier posts I didn't mean to hijack Andrew's thread (he was looking for books in the 2200 range) but I didn't think I should start another thread on calculation books.

Thank you.

It may be the Summer of my Discontent but I have to do it. I have know for years this has been a weakness of mine. If i don't carry though with this I think I need to relax my expectations about getting stronger.

Take care,

Gerry

Hello All:

I am going to spend a lot of time with 2 calculation books this summer. Here are the ones I am considering:

1. Beim: How to Calculate Chess Tactics
2. Kotov: Think Like a Grandmaster
3. Aagard: Excelling at Chess Calculation
4. Jacobs: Analyze to Win 

Keeping in mind that my rating, after a return from a 10-year hiatus, is on the 1800-1900 border, which two of these are the easiest? I would like to not get too discouraged by picking the hardest as this is not an area I enjoy.

Obviously if there is another book that would be more appropriate that would be great to know also.

Thanks in advance,

Gerry

Hello:

I have a number of the books mentioned above.  For a player around 2200 ELO I would recommend the following books, in order of my personal preference:

1.  "Imagination In Chess" by Paata Gaprindashvili:  756 puzzles, many of them quite challenging but withing the realm of the possible for a player of 2200-2350.  (Lower rated players might also find this book interesting, and even more challenging.)  The value of this book is in its wonderful selection of positions and the pithy comments in the solutions.  Jacob Aagaard's finger note no. 2 on ICC states, in relevant part:  "Best book in 2004 is Gaprindashvili: Imagination in Chess. Hats off gentlemen." I tend to agree with him.

2.  "Chess Gems" by Igor Sukhin:  1043 diagrams, most (but not all) of which are presented as puzzles.  The book begins with a very brief but fascinating chapter on combinations in shatranj (9th to 15th centuries), followed by a history of chess tactics from Lucena and Greco all the way through Karpov and Kasparov.  The  range of difficulty of the puzzles ranges from medium to very high.  Perhaps this book does not have as much didactic value as the other two books I recommend, but it is wonderfully entertaining and contains many brilliant combinations that I hadn't seen before.  It also fits in nicely with the "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" theme that appears to be popular with some Russian trainers, where you first must study the classics in order to understand the moderns.

3.  "Perfect Your Chess" by Andrei Volokotin and Vladimir Grabinksy: Around 365 puzzles in three chapters.  Each chapter has 23 puzzles from Volokitin's games, then 100 additional puzzles, of which the first 40 are designed for the FM level, the next 40 are designed for the IM level, and the last 20 are designed for the GM level.  A nice selection of challenging puzzles and interesting comments in the solutions, targeted at stronger players.

I am sure there are other combination puzzles books which might be useful for a player of around 2200 ELO.  (For example, "Nunn's Puzzle Book" is very challenging.  However, John Nunn's statement in the Introduction that: "The average difficulty of these puzzles is relatively high" seems to me to be a classic example of British understatement.  I found many of these puzzles simply too difficult to be solvable as exercises. You need go no further than Puzzle #3 to find a solution with a main line 18 [!] moves long.  Rather disheartening, that.)  But the above three books strike me as among the best, with "Imagination In Chess" being really outstanding.

           - Geof

Good Stuff BlkSabb
I'd forgotten about Improve Your Chess Now as I read it so long ago.
Also Chris Wards books are underated as some of the challenges that look simple are often suprisingly difficult when different plans are presented. I was often right first time but after reading the options changed my mind and then got the question wrong (That's wierd).

The IQ Challenges suggested by Whitecraw are good as are Aargards books suggested by MilenPetrov although seem to be a little deeper and perhaps read after the prior mentioned books.

Muller's Chesscafe Puzzle book features interesting modern chess (with the occasional important classic). After going through half of it, I already have the nice feeling that I know how modern GMs think!

Volokitin Perfect Your Chess is a good, often entertaining read. I seem to remember Rowson say in NIC that he read this cover to cover. 

Emms' Ultimate book and Palliser's Complete Chess Workout also in my library, solid "workhorse" efforts, no regrets buying them, though somewhat lacking in the charm compared to the above two.