Attacking Chess for Club Players: Improve Your Skills to Overpower Your Opponents

Every chess player loves to attack the enemy King. Your goal is clear, your thinking is concrete, your creativity is flowing and direct victory is just around the corner. Few things in life are better than successfully conducting a blistering attack on your opponent’s King!

But how good are you actually at attacking? Have you ever analysed your efforts? Looked at calculation errors, missed opportunities and derailed efforts?

After the immense success of his award-winning classic Chess Strategy for Club Players, Herman Grooten has now written an equally accessible follow-up primer on attacking chess. He teaches you how to spot opportunities, exploit weaknesses, bringing your forces to the frontline and striking at the right moment.

Grooten concentrates on training the most valuable skills for this process: visualizing, structuring, anticipating, calculating, memorizing and other mental aspects.

This is not just another collection of useful thematic moves and motifs but a complete and highly structured course of attacking techniques. And with fantastic new examples, clear explanations and many instructive exercises.

International Master Herman Grooten is a chess trainer with over 30 years of experience. Several of his pupils have gone on to become grandmasters. His prizewinning Chess Strategy for Club Players was a worldwide bestseller.


GM Matthew Sadler, former British Champion:
"Judging from the title, it shouldn’t really be for me, but I’ve enjoyed it enormously (..) This book presents the material in a relaxed, easy to read way with surprising examples and little stories that keep you awake and interested throughout."

IM Gary Lane, ECF Newsletter:
"Providing thought-provoking examples (..) There is quite a lot of analysis to allow the keen player to see all the nuances of a particular theme and once you think you have mastered it there are a few more to reinforce the idea (..) A highly readable account of a bamboozling art, but vital if you want to raise your rating."

IM Dirk Schuh, Rochade Europa Magazine:
"I like the structure of the book a lot (..) After simple examples things are getting more difficult step by step (..) A very solid book. Players of any level will be interested in the fundamentals and players of up to 2100 ELO will be thrilled by the more demanding game fragments. The material is often not well-known and Grooten writes very entertainingly, so reading the book is a real joy."

Chris Wainscott, ChessIQ:
"Includes many examples which I feel reasonably sure have not been published before (..) At the end of a chapter the reader is first given a list of bullet pointed conclusions that can be drawn, along with a set of exercises to drive the material home."

CHESS Magazine (UK):
"The reader is shown how to spot opportunities, gradually build up their forces and crash through the defensive lines. The book is certainly well-structured and contains a number of useful test positions."

IM John Donaldson:
"Well-chosen examples and clear explanations are present throughout the book (..) Grooten sprinkles anecdotes about the featured examples (..) The most important thing Grooten has going for him as an author is: knowing who is writing for. Many stronger players have authored books aimed at the club player, but usually they do not understand the capabilities of their audiences."


GM Robin Swinkels, Schaaksite.nl:

"The book deals with every attacking theme and motif and has a clear structure. There are loads of nice examples, interesting anecdotes and a variety of exercises (..) A very instructive and a must-have book if you wish to improve your knowledge of and skills in attacking."