A Free 700-Page Chess Manual Explains 1,000 Chess Tactics in Straightforward English

Image by Michael Mag­gs, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

FYI: In 2011, Ward Farnsworth pub­lished a two-vol­ume col­lec­tion called Preda­tor at The Chess­board: A Field Guide To Chess Tac­tics (Vol­ume 1 — Vol­ume 2) where he explains count­less chess tac­tics in plain Eng­lish. In this 700-page col­lec­tion, “there are 20 chap­ters, about 200 top­ics with­in them, and over 1,000 [chess] posi­tions dis­cussed.” Now for the even bet­ter part: Farnsworth has also made these vol­umes avail­able free online. Just vis­it chesstactics.org and scroll down the page. There you will find the con­tent that’s oth­er­wise avail­able in Farnsworth’s books. With this free resource, you can start mak­ing your­self a bet­ter chess play­er when­ev­er you have the urge, or espe­cial­ly as you watch The Queen’s Gam­bit on Net­flix.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Clay­ma­tion Film Recre­ates His­toric Chess Match Immor­tal­ized in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

Gar­ry Kas­parov Now Teach­ing an Online Course on Chess

A Human Chess Match Gets Played in Leningrad, 1924

Man Ray Designs a Supreme­ly Ele­gant, Geo­met­ric Chess Set in 1920 (and It’s Now Re-Issued for the Rest of Us)

Play Chess Against the Ghost of Mar­cel Duchamp: A Free Online Chess Game

A Beau­ti­ful Short Doc­u­men­tary Takes You Inside New York City’s Last Great Chess Store

A Brief His­to­ry of Chess: An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to the 1,500-Year-Old Game