Thinkers' Chess Academy with Grandmaster Thomas Luther - Volume 3 - Test Your Chess Knowledge : Crucial Exercises to Sharpen Your Understanding

How to use this book I thought long and hard about the best way tostructure this Workbook. My idea was to make a book with additionalexercises for readers of my earlier books Thinker's Chess AcademyVolumes 1 & 2(TCA1 and TCA2 for short) while working with these books, plusmaterial for really interested and ambitious readers to maintain and broadenthe skills they have already learned. That's not an easy task, as it means combining ratherbasic material with really sophisticated exercises without making it boring forthe advanced readers or too hard for readers still on TCA1 level. My idea is tomix the two parts.Readers still on the lower level should work throughthe chapters Quick Test 1, QuickTest 2 etc and after Quick Test 10 go over to the chapters Advanced Lesson 1, Advanced Lesson 2 and so on. Advanced readers can use each chapter's Quick Test asa kind of warm-up test under time pressure, for example setting a time of 10seconds for each mate in 2 or whatever you may think is right for you. Afterthe Quick Test you go ahead with the following Advanced Lessons chapter. The hardest part of the book is called "Master Class". In these chaptersyou'll find really difficult exercises such as unusually long combinations orcheckmates. Not every reader is ambitious enough or has enoughtime to work very hard on his chess. That's quite understandable and nothing tobe ashamed of. You can enjoy chess very well without being a strong tournamentplayer. You could just entertain yourself by playing through interestingcombinations. In this case don't try too hard to solve the Advanced Lessons orMaster Class exercises. Have a look to make yourself familiar with theposition, than look at the solution and enjoy the surprising combinations. Youwon't learn as much as you would by racking your brain to crack the hard nuts.But some knowledge and experience will certainly rub off and increase yourunderstanding of chess. I hope this book will help you to work towards yourgoals and let have you fun with chess. Thomas Luther, September 2022