Chess tactics explained
&gt; This site teaches chess in words.<p>&gt; It assumes you know only how the pieces move and builds step-by-step from there.<p>Do not get me wrong: TFA is a fine and useful book for an intermediate player but the above claims are overselling it. They are equivalent to telling you that learning the<p><pre><code>    x ^= y;
    y ^= x;
    x ^= y;
</code></pre>
trick will make you a better programmer while being silent on what copy-and-paste programming, magic constants, or hardcoded data are and how to avoid them. While novice chess players are naturally attracted to brilliant combinations, they will have no chance to play them without knowing how to gain positional advantage.<p>&gt; Strategy and tactics both are important, but tactics are <i>more</i> important.<p>&gt; If you&#x27;re a whiz at strategy but not much good at tactics, you will have trouble winning or having fun because your pieces will keep getting taken.<p>I beg to differ. You should first learn how to supercharge your pieces by controlling the centre, putting rooks on open files, co-ordinating your bishop pair, keeping a strong pawn structure, etc. Two oldie but goodie books that teach these principles and are available as PDF&#x27;s are Capablanca&#x27;s <i>A Primer of Chess</i> [0] and Nimzowitsch&#x27;s <i>My System</i> [1].<p>EDIT: memorizing openings ⊄ strategy. I understand strategy as applying good principles regardless of your opponent&#x27;s moves, and tactics as calculating (mostly) forced move sequences. Also, strategy does not have to be dull. Playing a gambit and attacking Black&#x27;s f7 weakness <i>is</i> a strategy, albeit one that can hardly succeed without tactical thinking.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;details&#x2F;aprimerofchess" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;details&#x2F;aprimerofchess</a> (this particular edition uses the outdated descriptive notation)<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;details&#x2F;my-system-2020" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;details&#x2F;my-system-2020</a>