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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.”

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.

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.

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.

In this book, aimed at strong tournament players (1900-2300 Elo or fast improving juniors) the authors introduce a wider approach to developing middlegame tactical and positional skills that a formidable chess player needs. Specifically, they present 111 positions from games of grandmasters played in 2019, including super-GMs such as Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Ding Liren, Anish Giri, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Daniil Dubov, Wesley So, Hikaru Nakamura, Levon Aronian, and Wang Hao, in which they first explain the mistake made by one of the players in underestimating their opponent’s counterplay, then they analyze how the game progressed where punishment for the mistake is meted out. After that, they return to the starting position to demonstrate the correct or a more promising continuation. Therefore, the text is structured so that each challenge contains the starting diagram twice – before the moves in the actual game, and then, on the page overleaf, before the solution. There are numerous elements that a chess player should keep in mind in the middlegame and the authors have designed this book to address specific middle-game thematic mistakes: unsound sacrifices, creating imaginary threats, imaginary defense against threats, pawn-grabbing, give check or attack material – which is best?, wrong evaluation of changes to the pawn structure, lack of vigilance in decision-making, replacing strategy with tactics and taking wrong positional decisions. Studying these key fragments from grandmaster games will help a player to develop their middlegame approach. Firstly, the student analyzes why a move or series of moves by one of the players was erroneous. What counterplay by the opponent did the player making the mistake underestimate? Secondly, armed with this answer, the student can review the position to try and figure out the better move. If the student is working with a coach, then the coach should first set up the position on the board, demonstrate the erroneous move played, and ask the student to find the refutation to that bad move. After the refutation is found by the student, the coach should once again set up the critical position and ask the student to find the strongest continuation for the initial player. This may be one or more moves, depending on the position. Naturally, in the case of self-study the student can change their approach, either trying to figure out the refutation to the error by covering up the subsequent text, or simply studying the moves in the game before trying to find the better continuation, which is detailed overleaf together with the starting diagram.

In this book, aimed at strong tournament players (1900-2300 Elo or fast improving juniors) the author introduces a wider approach to developing endgame tactics skills that a formidable chess player needs. Specifically, he presents 101 positions from games of grandmasters played in 2019, including super-GMs such as Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren, Alireza Firouzja, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexander Grischuk, Wang Hao, Alexei Shirov, Samuel Shankland, Kirill Alekseenko, and Levon Aronian, in which he first explains the mistake made by one of the players in underestimating their opponent’s counterplay, then he analyzes how the game progressed where punishment for the mistake is meted out. After that, he returns to the starting position to demonstrate the correct or a more promising continuation. Therefore, the text is structured so that each challenge contains the starting diagram twice – before the moves in the actual game, and then, on the page overleaf, before the solution. Studying these key fragments from grandmaster games will help a player to develop their endgame approach. Firstly, the student analyzes why a move or series of moves by one of the players was erroneous. What counterplay by the opponent did the player making the mistake underestimate? Secondly, armed with this answer, the student can review the position to try and figure out the better move. If the student is working with a coach, then the coach should first set up the position on the board, demonstrate the erroneous move played, and ask the student to find the refutation to that bad move. After the refutation is found by the student, the coach should once again set up the critical position and ask the student to find the strongest continuation for the initial player. This may be one or more moves, depending on the position. Naturally, in the case of self-study the student can change their approach, either trying to figure out the refutation to the error by covering up the subsequent text, or simply studying the moves in the game before trying to find the better continuation, which is detailed overleaf together with the starting diagram.

In Coaching Kasparov, Year by Year and Move by Move Garry Kasparov's long-term coach, second and mentor Alexander Nikitin tells the story of how he trained Kasparov from a brilliant but raw junior into becoming and then remaining the world champion.Volume II , the present work, covers the period 1982-1990, including the first four world championship matches against Karpov and the candidates matches against Smyslov, Korchnoi and Beliavsky. The present volume contains 39 fully annotated games. These include 20 secret training games that Kasparov played against his grandmaster coaches Evgeny Vladimirov and Gennady Timoshchenko in 1982-83 that have never before been published and which are annotated by Grandmaster Dorian Rogozenco, national coach of the German Chess Federation and captain of the German national team. These games are provided by the Kasparov family specially for the 2020 edition of this book. The reader has a unique opportunity to gain an insight into Kasparov's secret preparation in those years, which were a new starting point in his career: he had to adjust his openings. Rogozenco is a big expert on Kasparov's games, having helped FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov prepare for his planned match against Kasparov in 2003. Kasparov's legendary opening repertoire, which was to define trends in chess theory for decades, was created not just through deep analysis, but also via training games. The never previously published material in this book consists of 16 games with classical time control and 4 rapid thematic games. Testing the Catalan for the first time with white, searching for ideas in the King's Indian with black, preparing the Queen's Gambit with both colors, playing typical Sicilian positions and trying new openings (for instance the Tarrasch as the big surprise for his candidates match versus Beliavsky) - all this can be found in these games. Further, the time records on most of Kasparov's original scoresheets (all of them pictured in this book) show that Kasparov and his coaches paid serious attention to such an important training aspect as the distribution of time during the game. From intuitive positional sacrifices to precisely calculated combinations and instructive play in typical pawn structures - the training games provide a lot of interesting material for both players and coaches. The other games, annotated by Nikitin, are well known, but Nikitin explains many of Kasparov's decisions in those games from the point of view of the world champion's coach, providing the context of his pupil's thought process and mistakes and tracing his progress as they together gradually out-thought Korchnoi and then Karpov. He also uses these games to illustrate and expand upon his coaching advice. His many insights include the preparation of the “cross-fire” strategy (playing the same opening against the same opponent with both colors) and a systematic approach to maintaining time discipline during games based on chronometric analysis. This makes his commentary quite unique and instructive, of formidable practical use to budding players, coaches and parents.

Ivan Bukavshin, born in Rostov-on-Don in 1995, was a Russian chess prodigy. He was European U12, U14 and U16 champion and placed third in the world U16 championships among many other successes, gaining the Grandmaster title at just 16 years of age. Ivan finished third in the Aeroflot Open in 2015, behind Daniil Dubov and Ian Nepomniachtchi, where he put in a performance rating of 2803. Ivan achieved a series of 2700+ performances over 2013-2015. He tragically died in early 2016 at the age of 20. This book, by his friend and coach Grandmaster Jakov Geller, takes a detailed look at Ivan’s life and career in 50 deeply annotated games and 14 fragments. Apart from Jakov, 20 other guest grandmasters annotate games in this book, including super GMs Dubov, Alexander Morozevich, Vladislav Artemiev, Vladimir Fedoseev, Maxim Matlakov, and Evgeny Alekseev. The list of Ivan’s opponents in these games includes Peter Svidler, Alexander Morozevich, Vladimir Fedoseev, Ernesto Inkariev, Richard Rapport, and Dmitry Andreikin.

International Master Maxim Chetverik’s book covers the Bogo-Indian Defense which is normally arrived at after the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Bb4+. This book additionally covers Catalan-Bogo hybrids, in particular, the Bogo response to the Catalan Opening with 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 Bb4+. Maxim is a big expert in this opening, having played it in 76 official games as of the publication date, and one of his full games as well as several fragments from his play are included in this volume. While this solid opening remains part of the repertoire of top-level players, it is also interesting for club players to study and adopt. Its strategic ideas are easier to absorb than those of the Queen’s Indian Defense, and black will not be required to learn as much theory as in the QID. Sharp variations are rare, and tactics play very much a subordinate role to strategy. The key focus is pawn structures, with most pawns remaining on the board in generally closed positions. Yet black retains the ability to vary the pawn and piece setup to suit his taste. 114 deeply annotated games are grouped into 20 chapters with Maxim’s carefully considered recommendations. Many of the featured games and fragments are played by world champions and supergrandmasters, including Carlsen, Kasparov, Alekhine, Anand, Kramnik, Smyslov, Korchnoi, Caruana, Short, Gelfand, Topalov, Shankland, Nakamura, Judit Polgar, Ivanchuk, Yusupov, Ding Liren, Giri, Aronian, Svidler, Hou Yifan, Timman, and many others. Many of the games are drawn from the very recent past and are not covered in previous books on the Bogo-Indian. Indeed, a large number of games from 2018-2019 are included, hence this work, which is full of Maxim’s original analysis, covers the latest theory as of the publication date. This book is essential reading for both black and white in the Bogo-Indian Defense.

In Coaching Kasparov, Year by Year and Move by Move Garry Kasparov's long-term coach, second and mentor Alexander Nikitin tells the story of how he trained Kasparov from a brilliant but raw junior into becoming and then remaining the world champion. Volume I, the present work, covers the period 1973-1981, until Kasparov reached the age of 18. The author goes to great lengths to describe his educational approach during the early period to raise Kasparov's theoretical knowledge and practical performance, covering both play and psychological training. The present volume contains 46 games fully annotated by Nikitin, including all 14 games of a blitz match played between the 15-year old Kasparov and ex-world champion Mikhail Tal on 26 December 1978 in Tbilisi that have never before been published and which are provided specially for the 2019 edition of this book. Most of the other games are well known, but Nikitin explains many of Kasparov's decisions in those games from the point of view of the future world champion's coach, providing the context of his young pupil's thought process and mistakes and tracing his progress. He also uses these games to illustrate and expand upon his coaching advice. This makes his commentary quite unique and instructive, of formidable practical use to budding players, coaches and parents.

The diverse set of tactical ideas involving a bishop and knight in the finale will enable them to gain a deeper understanding of how the bishop and knight pair combine.