TACTICS TRAINER AVAILABLE! Working on chess tactics and checkmates will help you win more games. It develops your pattern recognition and your ‘board vision’ – your ability to capitalize on opportunities. This Workbook features a complete set of fundamental tactics, checkmate patterns, exercises, hints, and solutions. Peter Giannatos selected 738 exercises based on ten years of experience with thousands of pupils at the prize-winning Charlotte Chess Center. All problems are clean, without unnecessary fluff that detracts from their instructive value. The Workbook has ample room for writing down the solutions to the exercises. This is helpful for both students and coaches, who can assign homework from the book without having to worry about being unable to review the solutions. And writing down the correct chess moves will greatly accelerate your learning process. Everyone’s First Chess Workbook offers you a treasure trove of chess knowledge and more than enough lessons to keep you busy for a year!
The London System in 12 Practical Lessons
After the success of The Agile London System, Óscar de Prado returns to the opening he is most associated with — but with a deliberately more practical aim. Instead of long, forcing variations, this book teaches the London through plans, schemes, and the standard manoeuvres that recur in almost every game.
The structure is its strength: twelve self-contained lessons, each on a concrete practical theme. You learn the core move-orders and ideas, then the typical attacking plans — the assault on b2, the early h4 thrust, the f2-f4 schemes, queenside play — followed by the recurring middlegame motifs (good knight versus bad bishop, the key queen manoeuvres) and, importantly, the typical London endgames so often reached.
A lesson on the latest theoretical developments keeps the repertoire current, and a closing chapter of tactical, strategic, and theoretical exercises lets you test what you’ve absorbed. A preface by grandmaster Pepe Cuenca sets the tone.
Best suited to club players who want a sound, low-maintenance 1.d4 system they can play on autopilot — understanding the plans rather than memorising lines.
Initially things looked gloomy for Bobby Fischer. Because he had refused to participate in the 1969 US Championship, he had missed his chance to qualify for the 1970 Interzonal Tournament in Palma de Mallorca. Only when another American, Pal Benko, withdrew in his favour, and after the officials were willing to bend the rules, could Bobby enter the contest. And begin his phenomenal run that would end with the Match of the Century in Reykjavik against World Champion Boris Spassky. Fischer started out by sweeping the field at the 23-round Palma Interzonal to qualify for the next stage of the cycle. In the Candidates Matches he first faced Mark Taimanov, in Vancouver. Fischer trounced the Soviet ace, effectively ending Taimanov’s career. Then, a few months later in Denver, he was up against Bent Larsen, the Great Dane. Fischer annihilated him, too. The surreal score in those two matches, twice 6-0, flabbergasted chess fans all over the world. In the ensuing Candidates Final in Buenos Aires, Fischer also made short shrift of former World Champion Tigran Petrosian, beating the hyper-solid ‘Armenian Tiger’ 6½-2½. Altogether, Fischer had scored an incredible 36 points from 43 games against many of the world’s best players, including a streak of 19 consecutive wins. Bobby Fischer had become not just a national hero in the US, but a household name with pop-star status all over the world. Jan Timman chronicles the full story of Fischer’s sensational run and takes a fresh look at the games. The annotations are in the author’s trademark lucid style, that happy mix of colourful background information and sharp, crystal-clear explanations.
Larry Kaufman can safely be called an exceptional chess grandmaster. Larry Kaufman started out as a prodigy, however not in chess but as a whizz kid in science and math. He excels at shogi (Japanese chess) and Go, and is also a world-famous computer programmer and a highly successful option trader. Remarkably, as a chess player he only peaked at the weirdly late age of fifty. Yet his victories in the chess arena are considerable. Over a career span of nearly sixty years Kaufman won the state championships of Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida, Virginia, D.C. and Pennsylvania. He was an American Open Champion and won the U.S. Senior Championship as well as the World Senior Championship. ‘Never a great chess player’ himself (his words), he met or played chess greats such as Bobby Fischer, Bent Larsen, Walter Browne, Boris Spassky, Viktor Kortchnoi and many others. He worked as a second to legendary grandmaster Roman Dzindzichashvili, and coached three talented youngsters to become International Master, one of them his son Raymond. This engrossing memoir is rife with stories and anecdotes about dozens of famous and not-so-famous chess players. In one of the most remarkable chapters Larry Kaufman reveals that the American woman chess player that inspired Walter Tevis to create the Beth Harmon character of Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit fame, is his former girlfriend. You will learn about neural networks, material values and how being a chess master helps when trading options. And find lots of memorable but little-known annotated games.
The Scandinavian Defence is one of the most popular chess openings among amateur players, and it is easy to see why. Black players immediately limit the opening theory they have to know because there is no way White can side-step Black’s first move. What’s more, the Scandinavian requires only very little theoretical knowledge, so it has an extremely low maintenance factor. To cap it all, Black gets a solid structure. And that’s not even the end of the good news, as Thomas Willemze demonstrates in this compact and practical manual. Playing the Scandinavian teaches invaluable techniques that you can use in almost all of your other games. Pressuring the centre, neutralizing your opponent’s initiative, improving your piece coordination, trading the right pieces and exploiting your opponent’s weak points are all typical ‘Scandinavian’ spin-offs that Thomas Willemze teaches you in his trademark lucid style. The Scandinavian for Club Players offers everything you need to know to be fully prepared to meet 1.e4. The various lines are enriched with verbal explanations, diagrams, flash-cards and exercises that make this book even more accessible. Willemze not just uses examples from the games of elite grandmasters. As an experienced trainer he knows that discussing club player’s adventures are particularly instructive for his target group.
Almost every improving player has asked some version of the question this book is named for — and, as the author notes in his preface, almost none get a satisfying answer. Davorin Kuljasevic, a grandmaster who shifted from playing to full-time coaching, found that when students put him on the spot he could offer only a few quick tips. This book is his attempt to finally answer the question properly.
The result is not a collection of exercises but a method. Across nine chapters, Kuljasevic builds the reader toward a single practical outcome: your own structured, personalised study plan. He starts with mindset — the difference between studying with the right and wrong frame of mind — then moves through fifteen concrete study methods, how to identify your priorities, and how to choose resources appropriate to your level rather than copying what works for someone hundreds of points stronger.
Separate chapters then tackle how to actually study each phase: openings in genuine depth, tactical training, endgames, and a system for organising middlegame knowledge. The book closes by pulling everything into an actionable plan you can follow week to week.
The emphasis throughout is on independence. Kuljasevic’s goal is not to be a crutch but to make you self-sufficient — able to diagnose your own weaknesses and design your own training long after you finish the book. Suitable for everyone from ambitious club players to professionals, and rich in tables, checklists, and worked examples viewed from unusual angles.
AlphaZero benötigte nur wenige Stunden des Selbstlernens, um zu dem Schachspieler zu werden, der die Welt erschütterte. Das System Künstlicher Intelligenz wurde mit nichts anderem als den Regeln des Königlichen Spiels gefüttert, bevor es das weltbeste Schachprogramm in einem langen Match besiegte. Die im Dezember 2017 veröffentlichte Auswahl von zehn Partien sorgte für weltweites Aufsehen: Wie war es möglich, gegen einen Gegner von übermenschlicher Stärke derart brillant und riskant zu spielen, ohne auch nur eine einzige Partie zu verlieren? Für Zeitenwende im Schach haben Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan mehr als zweitausend zuvor unveröffentlichte Partien von AlphaZero untersucht. Zugleich hatten sie exklusiven Zugang zum Forschungsteam von DeepMind und konnten einen einzigartigen “Blick unter die Haube” werfen, um so die Tiefe und Breite von AlphaZeros Suchfunktion ermessen zu können. Zeitenwende im Schach präsentiert zugleich eine Sammlung einprägsam erläuterter Schachpartien außergewöhnlicher Qualität. Die erstaunlichen Entdeckungen von AlphaZero in jedem relevanten Bereich lassen die Spielstärke von Profi- wie auch Vereinsspielern wachsen: Eröffnungsvorbereitung, Figurenbeweglichkeit, Initiative, Angriffstechniken, langfristige Opfer und vieles mehr. Dieses Buch bietet faszinierende Einblicke in die Perspektiven und Möglichkeiten der Künstlichen Intelligenz. Wobei sich der Radius keineswegs auf die Bewältigung von Spielen beschränkt, sondern ebenso auf verschiedenartigste gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen gerichtet ist.
The Fully-Fledged French
This is Viktor Moskalenko’s third and most complete book on the opening he is most identified with. His earlier Flexible French (2008) and Even More Flexible French (2015) were international bestsellers — hailed as eye-opening, sparkling, and genuinely fun to read — and this volume brings the whole project fully up to date with countless new improvements, alternatives, and surprise weapons.
It is a complete repertoire for Black after 1.e4 e6, organised by White’s main systems and threaded through with the dynamic, attacking spirit that defines Moskalenko’s approach to the French. The Advance, Tarrasch, Classical and Winawer each get thorough, restructured treatment, and the final part adds five surprise weapons for players who like to take opponents out of their comfort zone.
What keeps Moskalenko’s books beloved is the writing: high-level analysis delivered with a light, enthusiastic touch, the critical ideas and traps clearly flagged, and the French presented as a living, fighting opening rather than a passive defence.
A first-class, current French repertoire for club players and above who want active, double-edged play with Black.
Many club players think that studying chess is all about cramming as much information in their brain as they can. Most textbooks support that notion by stressing the importance of always trying to find the objectively best move. As a result amateur players are spending way too much time worrying about subtleties that are really only relevant for grandmasters. Emanuel Lasker, the second and longest reigning World Chess Champion (27 years!), understood that what a club player needs most of all is common sense: understanding a set of timeless principles. Amateurs shouldn’t waste energy on rote learning but just strive for a good grasp of the basic essentials of attack and defence, tactics, positional play and endgame play endgame play. Chess instruction needs to be efficient because of the limited amount of time that amateur players have available. Superfluous knowledge is often a pitfall. Lasker himself, for that matter, also studied chess considerably less than his contemporary rivals. Gerard Welling and Steve Giddins have created a complete but compact manual based on Lasker’s general approach to chess. It enables the average amateur player to adopt trustworthy openings, reach a sound middlegame and have a basic grasp of endgame technique. Welling and Giddins explain the principles with very carefully selected examples from players of varying levels, some of them from Lasker’s own games. The Lasker Method to Improve in Chess is an efficient toolkit as well as an entertaining guide. After working with it, players will dramatically boost their skills – without carrying the excess baggage that many of their opponents will be struggling with.
The Ruy Lopez is one of the most important chess openings, hugely popular with amateurs and masters alike. Black players allowing the Ruy Lopez main lines are usually condemned to passivity, defending a slightly worse (though solid) position for as long as White chooses this situation to continue. World Champion Magnus Carlsen doesn’t like passivity. He likes unconventional and active systems that allow him to take command and put pressure on his opponent from early on. That’s why Magnus Carlsen revolutionized the old Møller Attack, one of the sharpest and most uncompromising variations against the Ruy Lopez. As yet largely disregarded and unexplored by the majority of players, Carlsen’s new approach allows Black to break free early and start giving White a hard time. FIDE Master Ioannis Simeonidis is the first to investigate this system, cover it in detail, and make it easy to grasp for club players. He has called it the Neo-Møller. Simeonidis has made lots of exciting discoveries, presents many new ideas and shows that it is a reliable and playable system. Since the Neo-Møller is a very early deviation from the main lines, it’s easy for Black to actually get it on the board and take opponents out of their comfort zone. Simeonidis has created a compact, accessible and inspirational book. One thing looks certain: White players of the Ruy Lopez are going to thoroughly dislike the Neo-Møller!
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.
Cookie settings
We use cookies to deliver and improve our services, analyze site usage, and if you agree, to customize or personalize your experience and market our services to you. You can read our Cookie Policy hier.
