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Playing the Trompowsky

The Trompowsky — 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 — is the great theory-dodger’s weapon. By pinning or harassing the knight on move two, White sidesteps the Nimzo-Indian, the Grünfeld, and the King’s Indian in one stroke, avoiding the deep, well-trodden main lines those defences demand and steering the game into fresh, creative, and genuinely complex positions instead.

Richard Pert — a Trompowsky specialist who has played it for years — turns that idea into a complete White repertoire. He works systematically through Black’s replies, from the solid 2...e6 and the combative 2...c5 to the immediate 2...Ne4 and the structural 2...d5, giving a clear recommendation and the typical plans in each case, and he also covers the related 2.Bg5 systems against the Dutch and against 1...d5.

The appeal is practical: the amount of theory you must learn is modest, the resulting middlegames reward understanding and imagination over memorisation, and you will routinely take better-prepared opponents out of their comfort zone early. Pert’s recommendations are ambitious without being unsound — he is happy to fight for an advantage rather than settle for a quiet game.

A sound, low-maintenance opening for club players and above who want an aggressive, off-beat answer to 1...Nf6 and would rather play chess than recite the latest 25-move main line.

Monster Your Middlegame and Endgame Planning Bundle

Building on the tremendous success of Openings for Amateurs in 2014, Pete Tamburro offers a new collection of practical tips to help club-level and young chessplayers to play the opening on their own terms. Centering the discussion around 67 selected model games, Openings for Amateurs – Next Steps covers troublesome variations commonly seen in amateur play, such as the Smith-Morra Gambit, Grand Prix Attack, Schliemann Defense, Anti-Grünfeld, Two Knights, London System, Stonewall Attack, and the Benko Gambit, among others. As befits an experienced chess teacher, the author gives special attention to promoting positional understanding of the Open Games, isolated queen’s pawn strategies, and plans revolving around the queenside pawn majority. In combination with the original volume, you will enjoy over 600 pages of common-sense explanations for average players and 122 model games, enabling you to cope with your booked-up opponents because you understand what the positions are about once you get out of the opening.

With the seemingly bulletproof Berlin Wall and Marshall Attack continuing to thwart White’s best efforts to find an advantage in the Ruy Lopez, many top players have incorporated the Italian Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4) along with the related Bishop’s Opening (2.Bc4) into their repertoires. In this two-volume work, GM Martyn Kravtsiv shares his insights on this Italian Renaissance from White’s perspective. Before reaching the Italian, White must be ready to deal with the Petroff Defence (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6). In the first part of this, the first volume, Kravtsiv advocates the well-regarded 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.Nc3 variation, offering an array of weapons to cause problems for Black, including a large number of untested yet dangerous ideas. The next topic is the Bishop’s Opening, which can be used as an optional Anti-Petroff move order as well as a weapon in its own right. 2.Bc4 may or may not transpose to the main Italian lines, and it is useful to be able to play both move orders in order to choose the most effective sequence against each opponent. By combining this book with its companion volume, you too can be a part of The Italian Renaissance. Martyn Kravtsiv is a Ukrainian Grandmaster with a peak rating of 2685, with expert knowledge and experience of 1.e4.

In the Scotch Gambit, White immediately strikes in the center and attacks the f7-pawn, provoking concessions from Black. An imbalance typically results, where White has attacking chances on the kingside. The Scotch Gambit will help you develop a finer feeling for the initiative and improve your combinational vision.

The astounding success of How To Study Chess on Your Own made clear that thousands of chess players want to improve their game — and like to work on their training at least partially by themselves.

The bestselling book by GM Kuljasevic offered a structured approach and training plans. Due to popular demand, Kuljasevic has created a series of accompanying Workbooks with exercises and tools a chess student can use to start his training immediately.

Most workbooks offer puzzles and puzzles only. But Kuljasevic has used his coaching experience to create a broader and more exciting training schedule. Tasks like these will challenge you:

– Solve deep visualization puzzles

– Find a ‘hidden tactic’ – and a mini-plan

– Playing a sharp tactical position – against a friend or an engine, carefully set an appropriate level

– Simulation – study and replay a strategic model game

– Analyze – try to understand a thematic endgame position

Volume 2 is optimized for chess players with an Elo rating between 1500 and 1800 but is helpful for anyone between 1200 and 2000. Volume 1 is for 1800-2100 Elo, and Volume 3 will serve the needs of more advanced club players.

Davorin Kuljasevic is an International Grandmaster born in Croatia. He graduated from Texas Tech University and is an experienced coach. His bestselling book Beyond Material: Ignore the Face Value of Your Pieces was a finalist for the Boleslavsky-Averbakh Award, the best book prize of FIDE, the International Chess Federation.

The Orangutan, 1.b4, is also known as the Sokolsky opening, respectively named by the endearing name given to the opening by grandmaster Savielly Tartakower in 1924 after a visit to the New York Central Park Zoo or the opening's primary researcher and practitioner, Alexei Sokolsky. The opening challenges normal conventions by launching an instant attack on Black's queenside right from the outset of the game and leads to an interesting game where both players are challenged to play creatively right from outset. This book by experienced chess author Carsten Hansen presents a repertoire for White to help navigate Black's many tricky alternatives and lead White to a position of playing for the win.

Danish grandmaster Lars Schandorff is known for clear explanations and practical, fighting recommendations, and this volume delivers both. It presents a complete white repertoire against Black's Queen's Gambit responses — the positions arising after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 — covering the Slav, the Semi-Slav, the Queen's Gambit Accepted, and various other systems.

Schandorff's approach throughout the GM Repertoire series has been to choose lines that create real problems for Black rather than opting for technical, drawish variations. This volume continues that philosophy: the repertoire here is designed to produce middlegames with genuine winning chances for White, even at the cost of some theoretical complexity.

At 320 pages this is a focused treatment of one branch of 1.d4 play. Volume 2 (The Indian Defences) completes the repertoire by handling the Nimzo-Indian, King's Indian, Grünfeld, and other systems Black can choose by delaying ...d5. The two books together give White a complete, tested approach to 1.d4 written by a grandmaster who plays these lines himself.

Chess is a cruel game. We all know that feeling when your position has gone awry and everything seems hopeless. You feel like resigning. But don’t give up! This is precisely the moment to switch to swindle mode. Master the art of provoking errors and you will be able to turn the tables and escape with a draw – or sometimes even steal the full point! Swindling is a skill that can be trained. In this book, David Smerdon shows how you can use tricks from psychology to marshal hidden resources and exploit your opponent’s biases. In a lost position, your best practical chance often lies not in what the computer recommends, but in playing your opponent. With an abundance of eye-popping examples and training exercises, Smerdon identifies the four best friends of every chess swindler: your opponent’s impatience, their hubris, their fear, and their need to stay in control. You’ll also learn about such cunning swindling motifs as the Trojan Horse, the Decoy Trap, the Berserk Attack, and ‘Window-Ledging’. So, come and join the Swindlers’ Club, become a great escape artist and dramatically improve your results. In this instructive and highly entertaining guide, Smerdon shows you how.