Game Collection Books

In his three-volume treatise, leading Russian chess historian Sergey Voronkov vividly brings to life the long-forgotten history of the Soviet championships held in 1920-1953. Volume I covers the first 10 championships from 1920-1937, as well as the title match between Botvinnik and Levenfish. The key contestants also include world champion Alekhine and challenger Bogoljubov, lesser-known Soviet champions Romanovsky, Bogatyrchuk, Verlinsky, and Rabinovich, and names that today will be unfamiliar yet were big stars at the time: Riumin, Alatortsev, Makogonov, Rauzer, Ragozin, Chekhover, and many others. This book can be read on many levels: a carefully selected collection of 107 of the best games, commented on mostly by the players themselves, supported by computer analysis. A detailed and subtly argued social history of the Soviet Chess School and of how chess came to occupy such an important role in Soviet society. A discussion of how the chess community lost its independence and came to be managed by Party loyalists. A portrayal of how the governing body and its leader, Nikolai Krylenko, strived to replace an entire generation of free-thinking chess masters with those loyal to the state. A study of how the authorities’ goals changed from wanting to use chess as a means of raising the culture of the masses to wanting to use chess to prove the superiority of the Soviet way of life. Or a sometimes humorous, often tragic history of talented, yet flawed human beings caught up in seismic events beyond their control who just wanted to play chess. This book is illustrated with around 170 rarely seen photos and cartoons from the period, mostly taken from 1920s-1930s Russian chess magazines. As Garry Kasparov highlights in his foreword “this book virtually resembles a novel: with a mystery plot, protagonists and supporting cast, sudden denouements and even ‘author’s digressions’ – or, to be exact, introductions to the championships themselves, which constitute important parts of this book as well. These introductions, with wide and precise strokes, paint the portrait of the initial post-revolutionary era, heroic and horrific at the same time. I’ve always said that chess is a microcosm of society. Showing chess in the context of time is what makes this book valuable even beyond the purely analytical point of view.”

Magnus Carlsen is arguably the strongest player of all time. His dominance is such that every loss comes as a shock. They remind us that even he has his weak moments. In fact, identifying the root causes of his losses holds valuable lessons for all players. Cyrus Lakdawala’s search starts with a series of Magnus wins and draws to give the reader a feel for how incredibly difficult it is to beat him. The World Champion’s arsenal is awesome: a superlative ability to calculate, near-perfect intuition, probably the best endgame technique ever, a wide and creative opening repertoire, a willingness to unbalance the position almost anytime, and last but not least: his unparalleled will to win. How to Beat Magnus Carlsen has a thematic structure, which, together with Lakdawala’s uniquely accessible style, makes its lessons easy to digest. Sometimes even Magnus gets outplayed, sometimes he over-presses and goes over the cliff’s edge, and sometimes he fails to find the correct plan. And yes, even Magnus Carlsen commits straightforward blunders. Lakdawala explains the how and the why. It’s wonderful to have a World Champion who is not just incredibly strong, but who is also happy to experiment and take risks. That’s what makes Magnus Carlsen such a fascinating chess player. And that’s why he is the hero of this book. There is no doubt that Carlsen has examined all his losses under a microscope. If he benefits from this process, then so will we.

Alexander Alekhine was a two-time World Chess Champion and is widely regarded to be one of the greatest chess players of all time. During his best years he dominated tournaments, and in 1927 he defeated his great rival José Raúl Capablanca to win the world title. Alekhine was renowned both for his fierce competitive nature and his dazzling combinative play. He had a phenomenal ability to unleash combinations even from seemingly harmless positions, and he is undeniably one of the best attackers the game has ever seen. In this book, FIDE Master Steve Giddins invites you to join him in a study of his favourite Alekhine games, and shows us how we can all learn and improve our chess by examining Alekhine’s masterpieces. Move by Move provides an ideal platform to study chess. By continually challenging the reader to answer probing questions throughout the book, the Move by Move format greatly encourages the learning and practising of vital skills just as much as the traditional assimilation of knowledge. Carefully selected questions and answers are designed to keep you actively involved and allow you to monitor your progress as you learn. This is an excellent way to improve your chess skills and knowledge.

International Master Tibor Karolyi and FIDE Master Tigran Gyozalyan have written a comprehensive two-volume treatise on the life and games of Tigran Petrosian, who was world champion from 1963-1969. The present Volume I takes the reader on a journey from Tigran’s childhood, through the war years, successes in Georgian and Armenian national championships, his emergence as an elite player winning the Soviet championship and Olympic gold, and victory at the famous 1962 Candidates Tournament in Curacao. Karolyi and Gyozalyan provide deep modern analysis of 148 full games and fragments, and summarise almost all known games played by Petrosian in the period. They also provide considerable background colour on each game, with round-by-round analysis of tournaments and matches in which they were played. Very few of these games have previously been analysed in detail in modern books, and those that were have nevertheless been subjected to considerably improved analysis. Petrosian’s opponents in Volume I include world champions and challengers Fischer, Tal, Spassky, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Euwe, Korchnoi, and Bronstein, as well as leading players such as Keres, Geller, Benko, Polugaevsky, Reshevsky, Taimanov, Kotov, Gligoric, and many others. There is a special focus on his coaches Ebralidze, Lilienthal and Boleslavsky. An added bonus is the inclusion of rare photos taken from private collections in Georgia and Armenia, many of which have never before been published in the West. With a foreword by the greatest Armenian chess player of modern times Levon Aronian.

CHESS INFORMANT proudly presents the book about the most famous team match in history of our royal game: 2 outstanding teams; 20 best chess-players in the World; 4 rounds of epic battle; 40 thrilling, hard-fought games. The match between the USSR and the Rest of the World was an epoch-defining event that featured many of the greatest names in the history of chess. Five World Champions, and all of the world’s highest-rated players – without exception – took part. Not for nothing was it billed as the “Match of the Century”. On the 50th anniversary of that great event in the Serbian capital, we invite the reader to take a step back to those years and to re-live the match as it was experienced at the time, in the words of its participants and some of the leading journalists of the day... This edition is revised, extended, and compiled by Douglas Griffin, chess historian and connoisseur and Igor Žveglić, Chess Informant commissioning editor.

CHESS INFORMANT’S 145th ADVENTURE

HARVEST

CONTENTS:

WOJTASZEK WINS BIEL TRIATHLON GM Ian Rogers & IM László Hazai

LEGENDS PLAYING THE RAGOZIN GM Elshan Moradiabadi

LEGENDARY TECHNIQUE IN THE LEGENDS OF CHESS WGM Sabina-Francesca Foişor

THE CROATIAN CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP 2020 GM Saša Martinović

THE STRENGTH OF MOBILE PAWN CENTRE GM Mihail Marin

THRILL ON THE EDGE OF THE CHESSBOARD GM Šarunas Šulskis

THE ENGLISH REPERTOIRE FOR WHITE GM Ivan Ivanišević

AN INTERESTING NEW IDEA IN THE RUBINSTEIN GM Francesco Rambaldi

WHAT IS NEW UNDER THE RICHTER–RAUZER SUN? GM Milos Perunović

SACRIFICING THE QUEEN GM Kannappan Priyadharshan

POSITIONAL QUEEN SACRIFICE GM Michael Prusikin

ROGERS' REMINISCENCES – BATH 1983 GM Ian Rogers

FROM THE CHESS INFORMANT ARCHIVES Douglas Griffin

Traditional sections: games, combinations, endings, endgame blunders, Tournament reviews, the best game from the preceding volume and the most important theoretical novelty from the preceding volume.

The periodical that pros use with pleasure is at the same time a must have publication for all serious chess students!

In Magnus Wins With Black Grandmaster Zenon Franco deeply analyses 30 of Magnus Carlsen’s most instructive games where he wins with the black pieces. This book is written in “move by move” style, a good training tool containing exercises and tests. This format is a great platform for studying chess, improving both skills and knowledge, as the reader is continually challenged to find the best moves and the author provides answers to probing questions throughout. It is the second of two volumes written by Franco for Elk and Ruby Publishing House on the games of Magnus Carlsen. His first volume Magnus Wins With White has proved to be an international best seller. The main difference between these games and those in the previous book is that fewer of them are attacking games than when Carlsen plays White. This should not come as a surprise, because White has more chances to dictate the game scenario. Nevertheless, there are still some examples in this volume where Carlsen wins by attack. Another important difference is that there are more endings in this volume, which is also understandable. What remains unchanged is that the fights are always intense. Carlsen never stops trying to win the game, no matter if, objectively, his chances are small. There are several examples where, at some point, his opponents collapse, unable to withstand the tension that Carlsen maintains in the game. Most of the games are taken from Magnus’s recent career, including one from 2020 and six from 2019. His opponents are nearly all super-grandmasters, and they include former world champions Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik, as well as Fabiano Caruana, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexei Shirov, Levon Aronian, Ding Liren, Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Anish Giri.

The official story of the 2020 Candidates Tournament began on November the 11th, 2019 with the signing of a contract between FIDE and the Russian Chess Federation detailing the hosting duties of said tournament in Ekaterinburg from the 15th of March to the 5th of April, 2020. At that point no one could have even imagined how difficult the road to that tournament would be nor how unexpected the outcome. Yet the significance of the actual numbers in this dramatic epic is hard to overestimate which is why the author will attempt to play the role of chronicler and try to describe as accurately as possible the key moments of this historic event. Vladimir Tukmakov was our close observer, author and wrote an historical important book on the first part of the Candidates 2020.

Four-time US Champion Yasser Seirawan provides a fascinating and highly entertaining account of his games and encounters with the world champions of chess including: Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, Bobby Fischer, Boris Spassky, Tigran Petrosian, Mikhail Tal, Vassily Smyslov, Mikhail Botvinnik and Max Euwe. Having been involved in frequent battles against world champions over a 25-year period, Seirawan is in an ideal position to reveal how it really feels to be facing the legends of the game. He describes and analyses, in depth, his most memorable encounters - both famous victories and painful defeats, against the best chessplayers of the last 50 years. During this time Seirawan has also been highly active in off-the-board chess activities. This has brought him into close personal contact with many of these champions. In,"Chess Duels: My Games with the World Champions,"Seirawan recounts many stories involving these giants of the game - giving an intriguing insight into their personalities away from the board.

Jan Timman is one of the greatest chess players never to win the world title. For many years ‘the Best of the West’ belonged to the chess elite, collecting quite a few super tournament victories. Three times Timman was a Candidate for the World Championship and his peak in the world rankings was second place, in 1982. For this definitive collection, Timman has revisited his career and subjected his finest efforts to fresh analysis supported by modern technology. The result is startling and fascinating. From the games that he chose for his Timman’s Selected Games (1994, also published as Chess the Adventurous Way), only 10(!) made the cut. Some games that he had been proud of turned out to be flawed, others that he remembered as messy were actually well played. Timman’s Triumphs includes wins against great players such as Karpov, Kasparov, Kortchnoi, Smyslov, Tal, Spassky, Bronstein, Larsen and Topalov. The annotations are in the author’s trademark lucid style, a happy mix of colourful background information and sharp, crystal-clear explanations. Once again Jan Timman shows that he is not only one of the best players the game has seen, but also as one of the best chess analysts and writers.

In Magnus Wins With White Grandmaster Zenon Franco deeply analyses 32 of Magnus Carlsen’s most instructive games where he wins with the white pieces. This book is written in “move by move” style, a good training tool containing exercises and tests. This format is a great platform for studying chess, improving both skills and knowledge, as the reader is continually challenged to find the best moves and the author provides answers to probing questions throughout. Most of the games are taken from Magnus’s recent career, including one from 2020 and eight from 2019. His opponents are nearly all super-grandmasters, and they include former world champions Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik, as well as Wesley So, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexander Grischuk, Levon Aronian, Boris Gelfand, and, naturally, Anish Giri. In the majority of these games, Magnus demonstrates his ability to outplay his opponents in the middlegame by simply making stronger moves and applying constant pressure that eventually forces the opponent to crack and play weaker moves. In some games, however, this takes place in the endgame. A second book, Magnus Wins With Black, is forthcoming.

Evgeny Vasiukov (1933-2018) was a top-level grandmaster from Moscow who won the Moscow championship 6 times, and over 50 major tournaments in total, including the strong Manila 1974 tournament ahead of Bent Larsen, Lajos Portisch and Svetozar Gligoric. He participated in 11 Soviet championships and was a coach and aide to Anatoly Karpov, Mikhail Tal, David Bronstein, Viktor Korchnoi and Efim Geller among other famous players. In particular, he was part of Karpov’s team of seconds in the world championship matches against Korchnoi in 1978 and Kasparov in 1984 and 1985. In 1995 he won the world senior chess championship. His play was notable for an attacking approach with swashbuckling combinations in the style of Mikhail Chigorin, as well as innovations in offbeat openings such as 2.d3 against the French Defense. He boasted positive career scores against Vasily Smyslov, Larsen and Bronstein. In this book his life-long friend and sparring partner, Garry Kasparov’s long-term coach Alexander Nikitin, presents a selection of games illustrating Vasiukov’s career and legacy. Opponents in this games collection include world champions and challengers Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, Tal, Smyslov, Bronstein and Korchnoi, as well as other leading players such as Lev Alburt, Alexander Morozevich, Mark Taimanov, Portisch and Geller, among others. Readers will find the annotations both highly instructive and entertaining, in an informal style.