This is the second half of Lars Schandorff’s acclaimed White repertoire with 1.d4, and it completes the picture. Where Volume 1 dealt with 1...d5 and the Queen’s Gambit, this book answers everything else — the whole family of Indian Defences and related systems Black uses to avoid an early ...d5.
The coverage is broad and ambitious. Schandorff gives clear recommendations against the Nimzo-Indian, the King’s Indian, the Grünfeld, the Modern Benoni, the Benko Gambit, the Old Indian, and the Dutch, plus a chapter mopping up the various minor lines, the Budapest Gambit, and Modern Defence set-ups.
As in Volume 1, the approach reflects Schandorff’s style throughout the series: choose principled, fighting lines that pose Black real problems rather than steering for a quiet technical edge, and explain the resulting middlegames clearly enough that the reader can play them with understanding.
Together the two volumes give White a complete, coherent, grandmaster-tested repertoire after 1.d4 — written by an author who plays these positions himself. This is a demanding book aimed at ambitious club players and above who want one dependable answer to everything Black can throw at 1.d4.
Mating the Castled King
Almost every game these days features a castled king, which means almost every attack is an attack on a castled king. This book is a systematic course in exactly that skill — turning a promising position into a forced mate, the moment that most often slips through club players’ fingers.
Its engine is pattern recognition. The heart of the book is a collection of 160 mating finishes, organised by the mechanism behind them: the Greek Gift bishop sacrifice, breakthroughs on the g-, h- and b-files, dragging the king into the open, smothered mates, back-rank themes, and the classic queen-and-bishop or rook-and-knight mating pairs. Seeing the patterns again and again trains your eye to spot them instantly in your own games.
From there it builds toward whole-attack thinking: breakthroughs with pieces and with pawns, typical pawn-storm sacrifices, and finally a set of exercises to test everything. The author draws on twenty years of training experience to present the material in digestible, memorable units.
A practical attacking manual for improving players who keep reaching good positions but missing the knockout. Work through the patterns and the mate-in-fours stop getting away.
Mikhail Tal’s Best Games, Volume 1 – The Magic of Youth
Mikhail Tal, the eighth World Champion, captivated the chess world with his fearless imagination and attacking brilliance. The Magic of Youth: Mikhail Tal’s Best Games, Volume 1 traces his rise from a gifted Latvian junior to a World Championship challenger — a story told through 69 deeply annotated games and fresh insights from IM Tibor Karolyi.
Inside This Book:
International Master Tibor Karolyi is a renowned Hungarian chess trainer and author, celebrated for his deeply researched biographical works. A former coach of Peter Leko and Judit Polgar, Karolyi combines analytical precision with a gift for storytelling. His acclaimed titles include works on World Champions including Kasparov, Karpov, Spassky, Tal, Petrossian, etc.
Players who meet 1.d4 with ...d5 or ...Nf6 spend most of their preparation on the main lines — and then, in practice, keep running into everything else: the London, the Torre, the Colle and Colle-Zukertort, the Trompowsky, the Veresov, the Barry Attack, the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit and a host of other sidelines designed to dodge theory. This book, part of Quality Chess’s Grandmaster Repertoire series, provides a complete, active answer to all of them.
The material is organised by Black’s move order so it slots neatly alongside an existing main-line repertoire. The four parts cover the sidelines arising after 1.d4 d5, after 1.d4 Nf6 (including a thorough treatment of the Trompowsky), after 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6, and after 2.Nf3 g6 — the latter handling the London, Torre, Barry, and fianchetto tries against a King’s-Indian/Grünfeld set-up.
The recommendations are ambitious rather than merely safe: the goal throughout is to give Black a sound position with real winning chances, not just equality, against opponents hoping to avoid a theoretical fight.
A genuinely useful book to own, because these systems appear constantly at club and tournament level. Aimed at intermediate and advanced players.
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.
The Classical Slav provides a sound and active chess opening repertoire for Black based on 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4. White’s early deviations from move 3 onwards are also covered. Boris Avrukh has had the Slav in his repertoire throughout his career and has never lost a serious game with it.
For Lluis Comas Fabrego chess is about more than just winning as many games as possible, it is a creative search for the truth. In True Lies in Chess Comas Fabrego takes on the challenging task of separating the truth from lies in chess literature. Guided by many practical examples and clear advice, the readers will learn how to reduce the complexity of chess towards the essential features of each position, and so improve their play.
Grandmaster Repertoire 14 – The French Defence 1 introduces the Winawer Variation after the opening moves 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4, and provides expert recommendations against all of White’s major possibilities, with the exception of the most critical 7.Qg4 line which receives special coverage in Volume Two of the series. Volume Three will deal with the Tarrasch, Advance and all of White’s other options.
The French Defence is one of the most popular and reliable responses to 1.e4. Grandmaster Repertoire 15 – The French Defence 2 covers the most critical variation of the Winawer, which occurs after the opening moves 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3† 6.bxc3 Ne7 7.Qg4. This volume presents three contrasting ways of meeting White’s aggressive opening system: 7...cxd4 leading to the notorious Winawer Poisoned Pawn; 7...0–0 8.Bd3 f5, a solid yet strategically complex system; and 7...0–0 8.Bd3 Nbc6, which leads to a tense, full-blooded battle
There are many ways to study and improve at chess, but some are more effective than others. GM Axel Smith, the author of Pump Up Your Rating, is a master at teaching his students how to make the most of their training. In this book, he dives into the technical and psychological aspects of chess and shows readers the best practice techniques and strategies for rapid improvement.
Smith covers many areas of chess from openings to middle and endgames, focusing on active learning acquired through ample training exercises and clear explanations.
Pump Up Your Rating is particularly great for intermediate to advanced players looking to overcome a plateau and increase their rating.
In 2013 chess returned to world headlines.
The energetic Norwegian prodigy Magnus Carlsen was front page news and his fans were not disappointed: the World Number 1 won the World Championship.
Carlsen’s Assault on the Throne gives an inside view of Carlsen’s dramatic journey: from one of eight challengers in the London Candidates tournament, with the near disaster in the final rounds, ending with triumph in Chennai.
With behind-the-scenes stories and top-level analysis of the games Kotronias & Logothetis have written the ultimate book on how Carlsen became the 16th undisputed World Champion.
Vassilios Kotronias is a grandmaster and nine-time Greek Champion. He is a key member of the Greek team as both a player and coach.
Sotiris Logothetis is a computer expert and highly-regarded arbiter and organiser.
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.
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