Of course you see the solution immediately....

...but can you imagine carelessly missing this shot (or, even worse, allowing it) in a tournament game?

White to play and win

Once again, this is from  Winning Chess Exercises For Kids, a fabulous workbook for advanced beginners!

The Pillsbury mate

Another exercise from Jeff Coakley's Winning Chess Exercises For Kids.

 White to play and mate

Be honest: did you have to calculate the solution, or did you solve it instantly because you knew the mating pattern?  (But please don't ask the author of this blog entry to be honest.)

Have I mentioned that I love this book?

The book in question is Jeff Coakley's Winning Chess Exercises For Kids.

 White to play: what's White's best move?

 

In real life, successful tactics don't always give you a won game, but only a slightly superior position.

A great deal of endgame wisdom condensed into one position

Jeff Coakley's Winning Chess Exercises For Kids  delivers a healthy dose of endgame wisdom along with the tactical exercises.

White to play and win 

In the general case, are rook endings easy to win?

Easy combination with several cute points

We're cribbing once again from Jeff Coakley's Winning Chess Exercises For Kids

White to play and win material

Defenders need to calculate, too

A simple but pleasing example from the very first quiz page of Jeff Coakley's Winning Chess Exercises For Kids.  (You may not have realized that you're teaching your students an introduction to geometry!)

 White to play: what's White's best move?

More from my favorite

At the risk of repeating myself: if you are teaching advanced beginners (students above USCF 800) and you can afford 30 clams, you must stop what you are doing and buy Winning Chess Exercises For Kids right now!  (No, I'm not getting a commission!)

Another sample:

 White to play and win material

Those of you strong enough to see the correct solution immediately might not notice that there are two (!) traps in an alternative variation that looks completely plausible to beginners.

The one beginner's book you absolutely MUST buy!

I had never heard of Jeff Coakley before reading teaching guru Elizabeth Vicary's blog.   Follow this link to get some of Coakley's wonderful free chess lesson plans (a software download is required).

If you are teaching advanced beginners (students above USCF 800) and you can afford 30 clams, you must stop what you are doing and buy Winning Chess Exercises For Kids right now!  (The linked site is Canadian: I bought the book on Amazon last month, but they seem to be out of inventory at the moment.)  Be forewarned that these problems are far too difficult for players below USCF 600, and be careful to order the right title (Coakley has authored several books with similar titles: another book, Winning Chess Puzzles for Kids, is a tactics primer for true beginners.)

 

In the introduction to Winning Chess Exercises for Kids, Coakley promises, "This is at least a year's worth of material," and he delivers!  There are 100 exercise sheets in the book: each sheet is a quiz with nine diagrams: three mates, three combinations to win material, and three "find the best move" problems that develop defensive, middlegame, and endgame skills.  At the bottom of the page, there's a question generally designed to make students think about the way the pieces work. (For example: "What is the most total squares that can be attacked by two rooks?")  Most adults would find the material challenging, but Coakley and illustrator Antoine Duff present the exercises in a kid-friendly format.  (Adults rated 1000 to 1600 may wish to work through the book for their own benefit before using it to teach!)

Over the next couple weeks, I'll post some sample problems from Winning Chess Exercises for Kids.  Here's one:

White to play and mate