If you had to choose a single luxury chess item to take to a desert island, then how about this – a superb selection of 400 puzzles to solve? Each author has carefully chosen 100 original positions, graded by difficulty and theme into four sections of 25. The emphasis throughout is on entertainment, instruction and inspiration. The solutions pinpoint lessons to be learnt and explain why plausible but incorrect solutions fail.
This book is written by an all-star team of authors. Wesley So is the reigning Fischer Random World Champion, the 2017 and 2020 US Champion and the winner of the 2016 Grand Chess Tour. Michael Adams has been the top British player for the last quarter of a century and was a finalist in the 2004 FIDE World Championship. John Nunn is a three-time winner of both the World Solving Championship and the British Chess Federation Book of the Year Award. Graham Burgess is Gambit’s Editorial Director and the author of 30 books.
Watch a YouTube video in which GM John Nunn presents a sample from this book.
Download a pdf file with a sample from the book.
“This book by a group of stellar authors is my very favourite. Gambit have published some wonderful puzzle books in recent years, and this is no exception. So’s puzzles are all selected from his own games, and it is particularly exciting as a reader to attempt decisions that he made over the board. Many of the puzzles come with interesting or amusing introductory text, and special care has been given to the solutions, which feature full explanations and extra diagrams where necessary” – James Vigus
“...the wealth of positions, coming from different chess minds, will certainly challenge and stimulate chess improvement” – Davide Nastasio, Georgia Chess News
“A good resource to sharpen your chess tactical skills” – Miguel Ararat, Florida Chess Magazine
“Players from roughly 1800 on up will find this this book provides many hours of instruction and enjoyment” – IM John Donaldson
“A carefully chosen collection of 400 puzzles, loaded with tactical creativity... one of the best produced puzzle books I have ever seen” – John Elburg, chessbooks.nl
“No less than four greats have bought together 400 challenging puzzles... the book falls into the genre: fun, but also educational, of course especially in the tactical field” – B.H.Wilders, Nederlands Dagblad
“There are countless ‘puzzle books’ – but if you buy from Gambit books, you can almost always be sure of a high quality product. This is also the case with Omnibus” – IM Herman Grooten, schaaksite.nl
“Would I take it to a desert island? Well, at the time of writing we are still isolated in lockdown so in a way I already have. Yes, it is another chess puzzle book and one that you would do well to snap up quickly – lest lockdown returns to haunt us all again later in the year.” – Carl Portman, Carl Portman Blog
“In summary, this is a superb puzzle book with a varied pot-pourri of problems such as opening traps, pure tactics, attacking ideas, defensive ideas, endings, and studies with a varying degree of difficulty to suit all standards. An excellent book for not just junior training but for players of all standards to hone their tactical skills” – FM Richard Webb, British Chess News