The Art of Attack Update

The Art of Attack is quite ambitious and tries to answer many deeper questions regarding attacking play in chess such as


When is an attack justified ?


What are the stages of an attack ?


What are the principles of attacking on the various types of positions, Castled Kingside, Queenside, King in the middle, Fianchettos ?


How should defence be conducted?


What is the proper coordination of pawns and pieces in an attack?



I hope to understand some of these concepts better and move beyond being an attacker using cheap traps. I hope to move toward his ideal of Alekhine who was an efficent attacker. One played attacking chess with a minimum of commiting his pieces until it was the right moment to strike.

This certainly is not a perfect book as Vukovics did not have the benefit of computer analysis. However, Nunn does does a nice job modernizing it and correcting some lines. I did spend sometime analysing a line which was just plain wrong . Looking closer at the notes, I realized Nunn corrected it in the footnotes.



I have just completely chapter one and studying it's ten or so games. I am hitting this book very hard and approaching it from a few tiers. Reading the book in it's entirety without following the games (just completed) Reading the games analysis lightly then followed by more heavy involved study. I am finding my myself puzzled if certain moves could be played and why some of the moves were played. So I am first trying to figure them out for myself then work with Fritz on it. I have played a few positions against the computer as well.

My tactical eye is not as sharp as from my peak of doing Ct-art . Maybe I should......