The engine has become the “Holy Cow” to which all chess players now pray regardless of their religious convictions or rating. Far from being a foe or rival it has become an invaluable helper, consultant and the highest of authorities. Since the highest of all oracles is soulless and cynical it is ready to help anyone ignoring opinions and preferences. Therefore, the task before each player is to use this dominant and universally accessible power to their particular advantage.

With the ascent of computer technology, humans have a chance to develop their thinking process based on hard evidence. Think Like a Machine explores human limitations and proposes new avenues for human thinking, inspired by computer engines. In positions taken almost exclusively from modern tournament play, the authors present jaw-dropping continuations which humans struggle to find, not due to lower human computing power, due to conceptual and perceptual limitations. In this book these “crazy” moves are analysed and categorised. If you want to expand your chess imagination, understanding and intuition, Think Like a Machine is the book is for you. Think Like A Machine is the second chess book co-written by Noam Manella and Zeev Zohar. Manella is a digital and Social Networks Researcher; Zohar is an accountant and businessman. Their previous book, Play Unconventional Chess and Win, was a highlight in chess publishing in 2014.

The Petroff Defence is well known to be one of Black’s soundest and theoretically robust responses to 1.e4, having been tried and tested by a host of World Champions and other elite players. This book shows how you too can harness the power of this top-class opening. Playing the Petroff offers an ideal solution for practical players. Swapnil Dhopade is a young Indian GM and theoretician, who presents a compact yet bulletproof repertoire for Black, drawing on the games of leading Petroff specialists such as Gelfand, Caruana and Kramnik. This book also provides plenty of guidance on how to deal with 1.e4 e5 games where White avoids 2.Nf3, with particular focus on ‘Anti-Petroff’ lines such as 2.Bc4.

The Dutch Defence is one of Black’s most combative responses to 1.d4, and the Stonewall is the boldest version of this opening. Black immediately seizes space in the centre and clamps down on the e4-square, laying the foundations for a complicated strategic battle. Many players believe the Stonewall to be a substandard opening, naively assuming that the e5-outpost and bad light-squared bishop must give White the advantage. GM Nikola Sedlak disagrees, and in Playing the Stonewall Dutch he shares the insights that have helped him to rack up a healthy plus score from Black’s side. In addition to providing a complete repertoire in the main lines of the Stonewall, this book also offers useful guidance on dealing with Anti-Dutch variations and various move-order subtleties.

The Sveshnikov is undeniably one of the most dynamic and aggressive Sicilians available these days. Most recently, it was made popular again by World Champion Magnus Carlsen in his match against Fabiano Caruana at the end of 2018. The main lines lead to complex positions, and a deep knowledge and understanding of the opening is a real necessity for any player who wishes to enter this battlefield. Our author, Robert Ris, focuses on all the current developments, highlighting the most important and instructive games from recent years, using his own over-the board experiences. Ris is well known for his theoretical knowledge and overall opening expertise. And we are quite convinced that he provides Sicilian players with an up-to date arsenal for playing the Sveshnikov.

From the first moment (about a year ago) when Mr. Daniel Vanheirzeele from Thinkers Publishing contacted me about the possibility of writing an opening book, I was really excited about the prospect. Writing a chess book was a completely new direction for me, and anything new excites me and gives me a high. Then after some discussion we narrowed the topic down to 1.e4 (‘Best by test’) and I found myself with a contract to cover two major variations within the Sicilian: the sharp Najdorf and the trendy Taimanov. I actually already had a decent reputation as a dangerous theoretician on the white side of 1.e4, and in particular against these two openings. I had shown some interesting ideas in my games over the years which were the result of my real passion for opening knowledge, a trait which has stayed with me throughout my chess career.

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 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.

Imagine you are a club player who has been given the opportunity to talk at length with a famous Grandmaster. How would you make the most of this opportunity? This book is the much anticipated follow-up to the highly acclaimed and award-nominated Lessons with a Grandmaster. It bridges the gap between great player and amateur through a series of conversations between teacher, the renowned Grandmaster Boris Gulko, and student Dr. Joel R. Sneed, a professor of psychology and amateur chess player. The lessons are based on Gulko's own battles against fellow Grandmasters. This second volume focuses on dynamic chess, developing chess imagination, the capacity to take risks, the ability to simultaneously attack and defend, and perhaps above all, the ability to visualize the chess board and calculate combinations in sharp positions.

Garry Kasparov on Garry Kasparov: Part III is the final volume in a major three-volume series made unique by the fact that it records the greatest chess battles played by the greatest chessplayer of all-time. Kasparov's series of historical volumes have received great critical and public acclaim for their rigorous analysis and comprehensive detail regarding the developments in chess that occurred both on and off the board. The first two volumes in this series saw Kasparov emerging as a huge talent, toppling his great rival Anatoly Karpov and then defending the World Championship title on three occasions. This third volume focuses on the final 12 years of Kasparov's career up until his retirement from full-time chess in 2005. This period witnessed three further World Championship matches: wins against Short (London 1993) and Anand (New York 1995) before the loss against Kramnik (London 2000) which finally ended Kasparov's 15-year tenure as world champion. This period also saw Kasparov achieve a colossal 2851 rating (1999), a record which stood until 2013. Despite loss of the World Championship, Kasparov continued to be ranked as the world number one and dominated the elite tournament circuit. He won the Linares super-tournament for four consecutive years (1999-2002) with the fourth of these victories in 2002 concluding an unprecedented run of ten straight wins in the world's elite events (Linares 4, Wijk aan Zee 3, Sarajevo 2 and Astana 1). The games in this volume feature many masterpieces of controlled aggression played against the world's absolute best.

In the course of a game of chess, questions continually arise that test a player’s reasoning skills. Questions such as: “Who has the better position?”, “Should I resolve the tension in the center?”, “How can I improve the placement of my pieces?”. In this long-awaited extension of the classic Best Lessons of a Chess Coach, the reader is invited to take a seat in the classroom of a renowned chess teacher, and learn how to answer such questions while experiencing the beauty, logic, and artistry of great chess games. When Sunil Weeramantry lectures on the games of top grandmasters, one can imagine making decisions alongside them. When he lectures on his own games, one can also experience the personal excitement, disappointment, and satisfaction of a well-contested game of chess. The cumulative effect of studying these lessons is to give the aspiring player a wide range of tools with which to win.

There are many differing opinions amongst the top players in the world of chess, but there is one thing upon which World Champions, Grandmasters and other experts all agree: the art of chess calculation is the absolute key to the success of a player. Master this discipline and you can surely expect your results to improve dramatically. And yet there have been very few serious attempts in the past by chess authors to delve into this delicate topic, perhaps not surprisingly given its complexity and difficulty. In Excelling at Chess Calculation, Jacob Aagaard tackles the subject matter head on, unravelling the many secrets behind chess calculation and arming the reader with the necessary tools to be able to calculate effectively at the chessboard. Aagaard pays particular attention to the searching practical questions like "when should you calculate?", "how can you discover candidate moves?" and "how long should you spend on critical moves?" A thorough study of this book will enable you to calculate with confidence in future games.