Bologan's Ruy Lopez for Black
The Ruy Lopez is the most respected of all answers to 1...e5, and meeting it well is one of the harder tasks a Black player faces. In this companion to his acclaimed Bologan’s Black Weapons in the Open Games, Victor Bologan builds a complete, modern repertoire against the Spanish, drawing on the lines favoured by Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian.
Its most distinctive feature is choice: Bologan gives two viable options against every main line, so you can pick the style that suits you or keep opponents guessing. The coverage is thorough — the Exchange Variation, the many faces of the Closed Ruy, the Wormald and Steinitz set-ups with 5.Qe2 and 5.d3, the anti-Marshall systems, and the deeply analysed main lines after 8.c3 d5.
The book is also built for practical use. Alongside the deep theory there is a quick-start guide for newcomers, a "Fast Lane" giving the minimum you need to play the opening at once, a strategy section on the recurring structures and ideas, and clearly marked traps, tactical motifs, and move-order points.
A rich, flexible repertoire for club players and above who want to play 1...e5 and meet the Ruy Lopez head-on, with winning chances rather than just equality.
Opening Originals focuses on both sound and dangerous opening ideas that have escaped wide notice.
Mastering Chess Middlegames
Alexander Panchenko (1953–2009) was one of the most successful chess trainers the Soviet Union — and later Russia — ever produced, running a legendary school that specialised in turning talented juniors into masters. This book is the classic training course at the heart of that school, available in English for the first time.
Panchenko’s method was systematic: rather than scattering tips, he organised middlegame mastery into clear themes and drilled each one with explanation followed by positions to solve. The chapters march through the essential topics — attacking the king, defence, counterplay, prophylaxis, and the art of realising an advantage — and then through the practical handling of specific material situations: major-piece battles, two minor pieces against a rook, same- and opposite-coloured bishops, and the bishop-versus-knight struggle.
What made "Pancha" special was the combination of first-rate training material with genuine warmth and enthusiasm as a teacher; the aim throughout is not just knowledge but the ability to make good practical decisions at the board.
A proven, structured middlegame course for club players who want to train the way Soviet talents were trained. Work through the positions, not just the prose, and it delivers.
The Dragon is one of the most thrilling chess openings and a favorite of attacking players. This volume deals with the 9.0–0–0 variation of the Yugoslav Attack, along with the Classical and White’s various other tries.
The Sicilian Dragon is one of Black's most thrilling and uncompromising responses to 1.e4.
In Grandmaster Repertoire: The Dragon – Volume 1, Grandmaster Gawain Jones presents a complete Black repertoire against the Yugoslav Attack (9.Bc4 and 9.g4 variations) — the sharpest and most critical test White can pose to the Dragon.
What's Covered?
About the Author:
Gawain Jones is an English grandmaster, twice British Champion, and one of the most respected opening authors of his generation. Known for a dynamic, creative playing style, he is widely regarded as the world's leading expert on the Sicilian Dragon and has played it as a primary weapon throughout his career.
This book presents a Black repertoire based on the QGA. The authors consider the Classical System with 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 e6, but they also offer alternative approaches – building up tension with 4…Bg4, and the destructive 4…a6 aimed at quick equalisation.
“Know thy enemy.” The skill this book trains is the one most players neglect: thinking not only for yourself but for your opponent. As Viktor Korchnoi observed, a player who does not check what the other side is doing ends up blaming bad luck after every game. Renowned trainer Mark Dvoretsky built this collection to fix precisely that blind spot.
It is a training manual, not a textbook. Each of the four chapters opens with a short theoretical discussion and then hands you dozens of exercises, graded from elementary to genuinely hard. The themes build deliberately: paying attention to the opponent’s resources, then the process of elimination, then traps, and finally prophylactic thinking — anticipating and preventing the other side’s ideas before they arrive.
With close to 500 positions drawn from every phase — opening, middlegame, and endgame — the book doubles as all-round calculation and decision-making practice. The solutions are detailed by design: Dvoretsky lays out the logic of the search, showing how a player can actually reach the right conclusion at the board rather than simply presenting the answer.
Among the last works from one of history’s greatest trainers, and close to unique in its subject. Demanding, and best suited to dedicated players from strong club level upward.
Art of Sacrifice in Chess
Rudolf Spielmann’s The Art of Sacrifice in Chess, first published in the mid-1930s, was instantly recognised as a classic — the book that first tried to classify, systematically, the nature of the chess sacrifice. This is its 21st-century edition, with Spielmann’s original work preserved in full and brought to a modern audience.
Spielmann’s great idea was to distinguish the "real" sacrifice (where you give up material for an unclear, long-term return) from the "sham" sacrifice (where the material comes straight back). Around that he organises a whole taxonomy — sacrifices for development, line-clearance, deflection, king-hunts, the king’s field, the exchange and queen sacrifices — that still shapes how we understand the subject.
For this edition, German grandmaster Karsten Müller has done far more than modernise the notation: he has roughly doubled the book, adding chapters on the Greek Gift and the classic weak points (g7, f7, e6, f6), on the sacrificial magic of Tal and Shirov, on the fine art of defending against sacrifices, and a wealth of exercises to test what you’ve learned.
A timeless subject in an enriched modern package — instructive and hugely enjoyable for any club player who wants to attack with imagination and judgement.
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