Age, Performance, and Areas to Improve

Prolific author and book reviewer FM Carsten Hansen returns to Perpetual Chess to talk chess improvement, chess publishing, and to provide a rundown of standout recent chess books. We start with a listener question about plateauing in tactics training. How do we know if we’re just hitting a speed bump, or if we’ve reached our ceiling? From there, we dive deep into chess books, sharing recommendations with both a biographical and improvement focus. Lastly, we discuss Chess Openings for Dummies and Carsten’s many other book projects. I still don’t know how Carsten puts out so much chess material, but it’s always fun to hear about it.

EP 468- FM Carsten Hansen on Tactics Plateaus & The Best Recent Chess Books 

Prolific author and book reviewer FM Carsten Hansen returns to Perpetual Chess to talk chess improvement, chess publishing, and to provide a rundown of standout recent chess books. We start with a listener question about plateauing in tactics training. How do we know if we’re just hitting a speed bump, or if we’ve reached our ceiling? From there, we dive deep into chess books, sharing recommendations with both a biographical and improvement focus. Lastly, we discuss Chess Openings for Dummies and Carsten’s many other book projects. I still don’t know how Carsten puts out so much chess material, but it’s always fun to hear about it.

Thanks to our sponsor, Chessable.com, you can sign up for Chessable Pro here:

https://www.chessable.com/pro/?utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=benjohnson&utm_campaign=pro

Check out their new courses here:

https://www.chessable.com/courses/all/new/

2:00 – Welcome 

Prior FM Carsten Hansen interviews: Episodes 84, 206, Book Recap #30

4:00 –Carsten joins:  Patreon mailbag question: tactics plateaus and adult improvement

Mentioned:  The Chess Wizardy of Wotowa 

Invisible Chess moves

Forcing Chess Moves 

12:00 – Carsten’s own chess goals and IM aspirations

19:00 – Carsten’s favorite chess books of the past few years

Mentioned: 

Tiger’s Chaos Theory

The Stories, Games and Intrigue of Capablanca and Alekhine 

Gideon Stahlberg: An Epoch in Swedish Chess

Korchnoi Year by Year

Hubner Year by Year

Alexander Alekhine: The Russian Sphinx

IM Cyrus Lakdawala: Becoming an IM

Converting an Extra Pawn in Chess

Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual: 6th Edition

Endgame study books by GM Jan Timman and IM Yochanan Afek

29:00 – Carsten discusses his newest project with FM James Eade, Chess Openings for Dummies

Download the Chess for Dummies bonus content here:

https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Chess+Openings+For+Dummies%2C+2nd+Edition-p-9781394345014#downloadstab-section

41:00- Carsten’s other projects:

Mentioned:

Mazukevich’s Madness

Carsten’s Newly Edited Capablanca books:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=carsten+hansen+capablanca&crid=E42JM4JTS3CX&sprefix=carsten+hansen+capablanc%2Caps%2C114&ref=nb_sb_noss

Coming soon: The Canal and Prins Gambits

Inside the Mind of Bobby Fischer 

53:00 – Closing thoughts and wrap-up

 Thanks to Carsten for rejoining me! Here is how to keep up with him:

Website: 

https://www.winningquicklyatchess.com/

Email- carstenchess at gmail dot com 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices