Material imbalances are a fundamental part of almost every chess game, yet have not received much attention in chess literature. In this illuminating book, GM Mauricio Flores Rios breaks down this universal topic into categories such as bishop vs knight, opposite-coloured bishops, possessing and playing against the bishop pair, and various scenarios with a queen or rook being traded for a number of pieces.
With meticulously chosen examples, insightful commentary and exercises to test your newfound understanding of all types of material imbalance, Chess Imbalances is an essential tool for chess improvement.
Few books have dealt with the topic of exchanges in chess, leaving this important part of chess strategy a mystery to most. In Mastering Chess Exchanges, grandmasters Jacob Aagaard and Renier Castellanos break down the topic into crystal-clear themes, including piece preferences, tension, weaknesses, colour complexes, king safety and endgames, illustrating the concepts with illuminating examples.
Then the reader is given a chance to turn understanding into skill, with 365 instructive exercises, featuring a novel, multiple-choice format designed to focus the reader’s attention on possible exchanges.
When Learn from the Legends was published in 2005, the book became an instant classic and Mihail Marin became known as one of the world’s finest chess authors. In Learn from the Legends 2, the Romanian GM shines the spotlight on five more all-time-great players: Leonid Stein, Lev Polugaevsky, David Bronstein, Paul Keres and Lajos Portisch.
Much like the first book, the ambitious student can learn a great deal from studying the legends of yesteryear, aided by the author’s expert insights, while more casual readers will enjoy the biographical and best-games compilation of five wonderful chess players.
Every chess player faces an opening dilemma: big main lines are complicated and time-consuming to learn, while easy-to-learn sidelines usually suffer from other defects. Finding the best of both worlds has been an impossible dream – until now!
Reimagining 1.e4 offers the Holy Grail of a simple, easy-to-learn White repertoire, which packs a punch against all of Black’s main defences. In some lines, White unleashes a surprise as early as move 3. In others, White follows the known paths for a little longer, but only when there are big rewards to justify a modest effort.
This book advocates the 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 move order for Black – with 3.Nc3 Bb4 having been covered in the sister volume Playing the Nimzo-Indian. By waiting for the knight to appear on f3 before transposing to a Queen’s Gambit, Black reduces White’s options.
Spanish GM Renier Castellanos completes his cutting-edge repertoire for Black against 1.d4, with the Vienna Variation (4.Nc3 dxc4) and Catalan (4.g3 dxc4) the biggest topics. This book also provides thorough guidance against all of White’s significant alternatives on moves 2-4.
With thoughtful explanations backed up by precise analysis, Beating the Queen’s Gambit – Indian Style! provides everything you need to handle 1.d4 Nf6 variations where White avoids the Nimzo-Indian Defence.
TACTICS TRAINER AVAILABLE!
The Woodpecker Method 2: Positional Play
Unlock Your Chess Potential with the Ultimate Training Regimen
From the acclaimed authors of The Woodpecker Method comes the highly anticipated sequel that promises to take your chess skills to the next level. Dive into The Woodpecker Method 2: Positional Play, a comprehensive training guide designed to transform your positional understanding and tactical prowess through rigorous and repetitive practice.
Inside This Book:
Why This Book?
Author Insight:
Building on the groundbreaking success of The Woodpecker Method, this sequel delves deeper into the world of positional chess, offering insights from the games of legendary World Champions. Through structured exercises and detailed analysis, The Woodpecker Method 2: Positional Play is your go-to resource for mastering the complexities of the game.
Take your chess training to the next level with The Woodpecker Method 2: Positional Play. Embrace the challenge, refine your skills, and become the player you've always aspired to be.
The Nimzo-Indian Defence is an ideal weapon for Black at all levels. It has been popular for over a century due to its positional soundness, yet has experienced a revolution in recent years, with modern analysis increasingly highlighting its dynamic potential.
Playing the Nimzo-Indian offers a complete repertoire for Black after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4, with an active, counterattacking emphasis on the choice of lines. The forthcoming companion volume, Beating the Queen’s Gambit – Indian Style!, will complete the coverage of 1.d4 Nf6 from Black’s perspective by covering White’s alternatives on moves 2 and 3, with 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 the biggest topic.
With bulletproof analysis, more novelties than we could keep track of, and deep explanations of plans and concepts, Playing the Nimzo-Indian offers everything you need to learn and play the Nimzo-Indian successfully.
Have you ever admired an amazing game of chess, simultaneously thinking “I could never play like that”? In Tiger’s Chaos Theory, you will find a different perspective, treating extraordinary play and creativity as a learnable skill. Thinking outside the box is a stock phrase of the commentators; champions expand their box.
GM Tiger Hillarp Persson is renowned as one of the most creative and original thinkers in chess – attributes he developed through targeted study. Tiger shares how to map patterns and navigate the outrageous, using games and ideas that helped him expand his creative approach.
Tiger’s Chaos Theory will take you on an inspirational journey, featuring concepts such as extreme Hecatomb sacrifices, Houdini-style pawn breakouts and even becoming another player at the board. With thought-provoking chess content, amusing anecdotes and candid reflections on the author’s games and career, this book is unmissable.
In Chess Survivor – The Last of the Greats a chess legend shares his life story and annotates his best games.
When FIDE introduced the grandmaster title in 1950, Andor Lilienthal was one of the 27 names on that original list. And when he died at age 99, he was the last survivor of that historic group. This inspired our title. Douglas Griffin translated Lilienthal’s book from Russian and added 17 games to the 60 that Lilienthal annotated.
Lilienthal met or played all the World Champions of the 20th century. In fact, that understates it – Lilienthal won a game against Lasker, whose reign began in the 19th century. And some 21st-century champions, such as Vladimir Kramnik, certainly met Lilienthal. One might say that Lilienthal was connected to three centuries of chess.
Lilienthal’s quality of play matched his longevity. Most famous is his win against Capablanca in 1935. Equally famous is the story that when Bobby Fischer saw Lilienthal in the audience during his 1992 return match against Spassky, Fischer immediately said: “Pawn e5 takes f6!” – a reference to that Capablanca game.
We all have an intuitive feeling of the stress, pressure and frustration on the path to winning a World Championship in sport, but rarely will you get as unfiltered and raw an insight into the struggle to succeed as in The Mental Game.
Aleksandra Maltsevskaya won the 2018 World Junior Championship and 2022 European Rapid Championship. This book reveals the inside story of an 18-month period in which she worked with Grandmaster Alexander Galkin. A year later, Maltsevskaya became World Junior Champion. Galkin holds nothing back in revealing the highs, lows, jubilations and frustrations that were experienced in their collaboration, all while providing expert insights that will benefit chess players and coaches alike. The book contains a wealth of bonus material, including all eleven annotated games from Maltsevskaya’s World Championship victory.
Turbo-Charge Your Tactics 2 concludes a multi-year effort by GM Mykhaylo Oleksiyenko and world-renowned trainer IM Vladimir Grabinsky to create the perfect chess puzzle books. This second volume builds upon the first, using games from the World Champions and their challengers. Most chess games are decided by tactics, so solving tactical puzzles is the most effective path to improvement.
This book also contains a special chapter with expert guidance on how to use chess engines. The engines might analyse precisely but they can also harm our chess understanding if followed blindly, so we must know when and how to use them.
Turbo-Charge Your Tactics 1 is essentially a chess puzzle book, but not a typical one. It’s a multi-year effort by GM Mykhaylo Oleksiyenko and his world-renowned trainer IM Vladimir Grabinsky to introduce you to the world of “unnatural” tactical moves.
Presenting examples of extreme beauty, no matter where they come from – be it online bullet or world-class grandmaster praxis – this book will cure your “selective blindness” by destroying the false notion of chess principles being a set of rules, instead of helpful guidelines. Most chess games are decided by tactics, so solving tactical puzzles is the most effective path to improvement.
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.
