The Attacking Manual 2: Technique and Praxis

Very good book for the serious student of chess. In the style of Dvoretsky in terms of the depth of the analysis and commentaries. Requires a lot of serious work from the reader.

Excellent

Great book. The Art of attack is very vague but this book is very specific

Just a great book! And it's extremely hard. It really opens your eyes to just how much you don't know. It is a 6 month work in progress which can only pay benefits.

Aagaard's attacking manuals confirmed in my mind that GM Jacob Aagaard is the best chess author in the world. The first manual had a huge impact on my chess (my chess.com blitz peak shot up from 2335 to 2458 when studying the first manual and I started beating IMs and GMs much more frequently) and I think the second volume was at least as good quality as the first volume (and much thicker - there is more content). Obviously I can't fully attribute my results to this book, but I've already had another breakthrough (new chess.com blitz peak of 2517). Enough about my quick results from studying the attacking manuals, on to the content.In manual 1, Aagaard explains his general theory of chess dynamics with a heavy focus on principles with qualifiers and high level examples. Manual 2 builds on this with specific attacking methods. Patterns are often analytically deconstructed. For example, there are 20+ puzzles building on the greek gift, at least one hard enough that GMs failed to solve it, and many related annotated examples which are used to illustrate his '3 piece rule' principle. Specific attacking structures are also analytically deconstructed. For example, in the "Understanding Mating Attacks" section, Aagaard starts with simple patterns (mini-diagrams are shown without the full board), showing various sub-patterns which build on the archetype, with annotated examples and puzzles to help all the important details stick. Thought you knew that pattern? Perhaps you knew the archetype, but unless you are a strong IM or GM, you probably didn't have all of the sub-patterns... many strong masters (IMs and GMs) got it wrong in their games, sometimes with repeated mutual blunders. It might say something that AlphaZero seems to be aiming for that specific attacking structure when possible, and has defeated Stockfish multiple times using it (see GM Matthew Saddler's "Game Changer: AlphaZero's Groundbreaking Chess Strategies and the Promise of AI" for more information). And this is just the warm up (chapter 1) in comparison to the rest of the book. It gets harder from there, but manual 1 can properly prepare readers to understand and apply the principles and patterns that Aagaard gives. The goal of Attacking Manual 2 was to build on manual 1 and teach the most important aspects of attacking chess in tremendous detail. I think Aagaard succeeded, and it's clear to me that he spent a lot of time working on these manuals from the quality (I believe his claim that it took him 8 years to write these volumes).The attacking manuals are very challenging. It will take work to get the most out of Aagaard's books, but it's worth it, as major improvement (even at strong master level) is possible when working with Aagaard. To emphasize the difficulty, readers are often asked to improve on super-GM games in the puzzles, and if you absorb Aagaard's instruction, it becomes possible to do so frequently. As evidence, in the selection of 50 puzzles at the end of the book, I managed to improve on several GMs at critical moments (Believsky, Morozevich, Averukh, and some weaker GMs).I recommend readers of these attacking manuals to also study Aagaard's "Attack and Defense", Dvoretsky's "Tactical Play", Gormally's "Mating the Castled King", and "Advanced Chess Tactics" (Psakhis). Club players can learn from Aagaard's books, but the main target audience is those over 2000 USCF/FIDE, and mainly masters. Highly recommended to advanced players who are willing to work hard.

Great book!(so far) Not a cover to cover data dump (nobody could accuse Mr. Aagaard of ever dong this). I like his books and if he'd quit having issues with another writer I like quite a bit, I'd like his book even more. Mr. Aagaard does something I've always admired about good writers....He Writes...and doesn't just pronounce a heaping pile of analysis a book. He is thought-provoking, instructive, and generally keeps me interested in the subject matter more than most. No I haven't finished it yet,I'm still working on his other books and you know what? Like martha says "that's a good thing" I should go back to reading now before I start quoting reruns of Johnny Quest or tip my hand as to how old I am. Just Buy The Book and be happy!

Excelente libro

bonjour,lisez le commentaire du tome 1il s'applique a celui ci integralement avec peu etre encore la necessite d'encore plus de travail!merci

Wonderful book and a great read.

Superb material, but not an easy read, the author tends to leave cryptic loose ends. I assume these are designed to stimulate the reader into further thought, but they frustrate this reader more than encourage.