Looking For Trouble: Recognizing and Meeting Threats in Chess

Looking for Trouble

Almost every tactics book trains the same thing: here is a position, find the win. But half of practical chess is the opposite skill — spotting what your opponent is threatening before it lands. This book, now in a revised and enlarged third edition, is built around that neglected half.

Award-winning instructor Dan Heisman presents more than 300 problems in which your task is not to attack but to identify and meet a threat — in the opening, the middlegame, and the endgame. Recognising the danger is the first and most commonly skipped step, and training it directly does more to stop you losing than any number of "white to play and win" puzzles.

The problems are organised by phase and graded for difficulty, with Heisman’s trademark clear, patient explanations that suit players of a wide range of strengths. A bonus section on famous threats from master play adds some enjoyment to the workout.

For the many players who keep getting hit by things they "didn’t see coming," this is a direct and unusually practical remedy — a defensive-awareness course rather than another tactics anthology.

This ebook is a part of Bundle: Dan Heisman's Books