IM Bonin offers the answers to practical questions that every chessplayer faces as the clock is ticking.

Fred Reinfeld’s timeless Attack and Counterattack in Chess starts with the basic premise that White plays to build on the natural initiative that is inherent in having the first move, while Black plays to sap White’s divine right to this initiative, only to take it over the moment it is possible. The book is neatly divided into two sections: How White manages to make good use of his right to the first move by taking advantage of typical mistakes by Black, and how Black succeeds in challenging that right and taking over the initiative by jumping on blunders by White. There are several points to keep in mind as you peruse the games involved. The first is that this is not an opening book. The examples of play are all built around a complete chess game that came to a logical conclusion based on one player’s muffs and the other player’s exploitation of those errors. The other point is that the poor moves that are taken advantage of were to some extent based on carelessness or inattention or lack of knowledge but were also set up on purpose by the winning player.

The readers will see 50 incredible tense battles with many beautiful ideas, sacrifices and hidden motifs.

Joel Benjamin concentrates on a wide array of practical issues that players frequently have to deal with. By applying a grandmaster’s train of thought, club players will more often arrive at strong moves and substantially improve their game.

In Black is Back!, the Hungarian grandmaster Andras Adorjan continues his crusade against this negative mindset. He shows that White’s advantage is far from obvious and that winning with Black starts with having the right attitude.

Christian tackles one of the most important issues in chess: how to select candidate moves. He illustrates and discusses many different themes such as: > entering relatively uncharted territory > replying on your acquired knowledge > using intuition > play prophylactically

Romain Edouard launches a brand new series of exercise books. In this first volume he focuses on middlegames. Romain gives you different instructions for each chapter, so you can improve your general thinking from various angles – exactly as you would face in your own games.

Cyrus Lakdawala does something no other chess writer has done before: he makes you reflect deeply about your style of play and its consequences. After reading Chess for Hawks you will be a stronger player because you have mastered an essential but neglected skill: you will know how to obey the position’s requirements instead of your natural inclination.

In this, his penultimate work, legendary chess instructor Mark Dvoretsky (1947-2016) explores identifying and dealing with problems on the chessboard.

After his 2008 book ‘Winning Chess Middlegames’, Grandmaster Ivan Sokolov takes us a step further into his dungeon of middlegame skills. In his well known style, Sokolov focuses on the different aspects of the complex middlegame.

It teaches the most important patterns you need to know in order to develop and mobilize your pieces, manoeuvre your pawns into positions of strength, put pressure on your opponent, attack the enemy king, or execute standard sacrifices to get the initiative. Ambitious beginners and post-beginners who study this book will soon experience a significant improvement in their results.

In this follow-up to My System, Nimzowitsch demonstrates and explains how his concepts worked in his own games.