A trainer of 500+ checkmates with a special focus: The Sacrifice.
No price is too great for the scalp of the enemy King.
- Alexander Koblents
The Reversing Mate series is an extremely useful way to tackle Checkmate puzzles, and "the Doc" is back with a third in the series with a special focus: The Sacrifice.
As Nigel Short claimed, "checkmate ends the game", but when you deliver checkmate with a sacrifice, there is just something extra special about it.
We cannot resist the fascination of sacrifice, since a passion for sacrifices is part of a Chessplayer’s nature.
- Rudolf Spielman
About the Course
The course studies more than
500 checkmate variations with insightful commentary. The variations are grouped by difficulty and have been selected from the games of chess players of a rating with at least 2200. Each variation has the offer of a sacrifice and all the
important themes are all covered:
forcing and non-forcing sacrifices; passive sacrifices; defections; decoys; removing the defender; pawn promotion; demolition; clearing squares … and a whole lot more. All the major and minor piece sacrifices are included: The queen, rooks, knights and bishops. There's even a couple of examples of the pawn's self-sacrifice to force the mate.
✅ 500+ checkmate sacrifices, presented as …
✅ 500+ mate-in-1 checkmate puzzles
✅ 100 mate-in-2 checkmate puzzles
✅ 400+ mate-in-3 or more checkmate puzzles
✅ Presented as elementary, easy, intermediate and challenging puzzles
✅ 75+ trainable forwarding variations to explore alternative lines
✅ Adaptable to your playing strength
✅ Clickable links to reference the database of full games
The
2,150+ trainable variations of this course are based on
500 mating patterns. These 500 patterns are presented as 500 mate-in-1 variations, and then again as 500 mate-in-2 (in the elementary mates chapter) and mate-in-3 or more puzzles (presented as easy, intermediate and challenging variations). In addition, there are 75+ forwarding variations (alternative lines) of possible opponent replies. All the variations are repeated in the test chapters for testing and drilling. An additional 15 examples in the learning/review format are included to illustrate the important themes. In other words, this course is a
comprehensive trainer for checkmate sacrifices!A
reference database of the full games is included, and every game is linked to its variation via a single mouse click.
There are two types of sacrifices: correct ones, and mine.
- Mikhail Tal
Here's a course to help you play the correct ones!
The Reversing Mate Method
The Reversing Mate theory is simple, but incredibly effective: for every checkmate variation there is first a mate-in-1 to be solved, and that will become the template to solve the same position from several moves back. In addition, to explore possible opponent replies, there are 75+ "Forwarding" variations in which alternative lines need to be studied and solved.
A course that can be adapted to your level
A
special feature of the course is that it can be
adapted for players of all strengths, including two-part test chapters dedicated to just the mate-in-1 puzzles and then the mate-in-2 or more. These test the user without the advantage of the Reversing Method and for drilling away at important mating patterns.
About the Author
Dr Alan Bester (PhD) resides on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast of South Africa. Alan is passionate about chess and while playing league chess in the mid-1990s was invited to give chess lessons to a group of scholars in the local school. The Chessable platform has enabled him to now share his chess learning experiences with a wider and an international community.
Alan is the author of the highly rated
The Unexpected Mate, Reversing and Forwarding the Tactics of Bobby Fischer, and On the Attack series which have together attracted thousands of students.
As Chessable staff, we'd also like to remind you that the high quality of Dr Bester's chess work has led to endorsements from leading coaches and players such as GM Alex Colovic.