When John Shaw decided to write a puzzle book he had many ideas in mind:

-The puzzles should be challenging but not so difficult that a chessboard is needed

-they can be solved on the train, plane or wherever you happen to be when you have a few minutes to spare

-The positions should be educational with some instructive point to the solution

But, he also selected many puzzles just because they were fun.

The positions are all from fairly recent games, so the reader will not have seen them before in older puzzle books.

John Shaw is a grandmaster and one half of Quality Chess.

He has been Scottish Champion three times.