Beginning Chess Tactics

Studying and practicing tactics is the single best thing that a beginner or novice player can do to improve their game. In this series of articles, we'll consider three levels of tactics:

• Piece Safety - Capturing unprotected (en prise / in take) pieces.
• Counting - Trades that win material.
• Tactical Motifs - Common tactical maneuvers like forks, pins, etc.

And to round things out, we'll take a look at:

• Back Rank Checkmates - A critical mating pattern for beginners and novices.

Each topic has a simple introduction, followed by several pages of problems to try.