Opening Books

The author presents a full opening repertory for the club player, which is analysed in seven volumes. In the books you will find many novelties for both sides, with a full move-to-move presentation. Furthermore, the reader will get access to middlegame strategies, endgame techniques and common tactical motifs, which are patterning the proposed variations.

In the sixth volume the openings of the the Janowski Defence, the Orthodox Defence, the Cambridge Springs Defence, Various Slav Systems and the Tartakower Defence are presented.

This is a brand new series which provides an ideal platform to study chess openings. By continually challenging the reader to answer probing questions throughout the book, Move by Move greatly encourages the learning and practising of vital skills just as much as the traditional assimilation of opening knowledge. Carefully selected questions and answers are designed to keep you actively involved, and allow you to monitor your progress as you learn. This is an excellent way to study any chess opening and at the same time improve your general opening skills and knowledge. In this book, Grandmaster John Emms invites you to join him in a study of the Nimzo-Indian - an opening which is highly popular at all levels of chess and has been his favourite defence to 1.d4 for over 30 years. Here he shares his experience and knowledge, examines the opening from both sides of the board and offers answers to all the key questions.

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.

In the first book ever exclusively devoted to the Exchange French Variation, American grandmaster Alex Fishbein recognizes that the Exchange French is an opening for a player who likes active piece play, fights for the initiative, excels in positions with possibilities on both sides of the board, and finds strategic and tactical nuances that arise out of almost nothing. And if you play the French as Black, then this book will help you deal with White’s 3.exd5. Authors of French Defense books from the black perspective have recognized for a while that there is no draw here at all and have proposed lines where Black can create interesting play. Indeed, both sides can create complications. The author shows that playing “boring” moves is actually risky with both White and Black. The Exchange French is a vibrant opening, just like any other, and yet there has been very little literature showing how to play it from the white side. That void is filled with this book.

The first volume dealt with the Najdorf and Scheveningen variations, and it is now time to pay attention to three other extremely popular systems: the Taimanov, Kan and Richter-Rauzer variations. After careful consideration within the Thinkers Publishing team, we decided that it made sense to group these variations together. In particular, the first two are closely related and share the feature that, in both cases, Black plays ...e7-e6 and ...a7-a6 at an early stage. They typically have the idea of retaining more options for their king’s bishop by postponing ...d7-d6 (or even omitting it entirely.) The bishop may go to b4 or c5 in different lines. The Richter-Rauzer is, in theory, just one of the possible developments from a Classical Sicilian. We have already dealt with a few games that started with the Classical and where Black shortly played ...e7-e6; and 6.Bc4 (the Sozin variation) was rightly treated within the Scheveningen pages. However, it is clear that White’s most popular counter, the Richter-Rauzer variation (6.Bg5) deserves separate attention.

In what way is this book special? How can it make someone a better player? These are perfectly legitimate questions and whenever I buy a new chess book, I essentially ask the same ones. The short answer is that this book will give you a comprehensive understanding of the chosen openings. Unlike many other books with a similar profile, it goes beyond pure theory and in addition to giving a great deal of practical advice, it touches on issues such as sample games, typical tactical strikes and, in the last chapter, endgames. On top of all this, a homework section enables you to immerse yourself in a given topic and achieve an in-depth understanding of it in your own time. We follow this structure because as a coach, I know how important it is to receive as much guidance as possible on a new opening. Only this can lead to true mastery. Let me recommend this book to any player who wants to learn more about closed openings, adopt a new approach to chess and build up a thorough and sophisticated repertoire. I have tested these openings with my students with good results, so I believe this book is suitable for anyone with an Elo rating from 1600-2500. This book aims to provide a complete overview of a 1.d4 repertoire against five main openings (King’s Indian Defense, Grünfeld Defense, Slav Defense, Benoni Defense, and Catalan systems after 1.d4 d5), offering analysis of classical games and typical tactical motifs to provide an in-depth understanding of the associated middlegames. A concluding chapter explores typical endgames that are likely to arise from 1.d4. Each chapter includes a thorough discussion of a particular opening, answering questions such as what types of players choose it, which world champions played it, or how games typically proceed afterwards.

I have chosen 1.e4 for various reasons. First and foremost, it is the move I have played for the entirety of my chess-playing life. In the database, I have recorded approximately 400 white games, of which 350 began with 1.e4! I have also heavily researched the openings covered in this volume, through my column ‘1.e4’ for ChessPublishing. Secondly, I believe that Black has a wider margin of error in the closed games than in the open games. Even if they do not know all the details of a certain line in the former case, they will end up with only a slight disadvantage in the majority of cases. The same cannot be said about the defenses to 1.e4. In this book you will find that Black must tread carefully if they play an offbeat system, as I have discovered several refutations to the most popular and widely accepted lines within them. For every opening, I have adopted the same method of research. Firstly I undertake a detailed examination of human games, alongside correspondence/email games, with particular regard to the highest percentage of White wins and the number of games played. The human games allowed me to gain a natural feelings for the practical elements of the opening in question, while the correspondence games (essentially human-assisted engine games) covered the necessary element of objectivity. The next stage consisted of my own engine analysis, using the Chessbase Engine Cloud to examine critical but unexplored positions. Finally, I engage as critically as possible with the existing literature, as I hope others will do with my work in the future. At the beginning of every chapter is an overview of the opening, which serves to give the reader some basic foundations and highlights the general concepts, extracted from the analysis section. If the reader is in need of a brief summary of a particular opening, I suggest you focus on the overviews. The analysis section contains the main body of work. The reader is not expected to memorize everything by heart; in fact, that is probably not a productive exercise. When going through a variation, it is best to stop at a point you think is appropriate, and that should always be the point at which you find that you have fully understood the position. Each subchapter ends with a model game, which gives the reader a simplified picture of the variation at hand. Similar to the overview chapter, this section is largely illustrative.

Lars Schandorff opens his preface with a quote from the Netflix series The Queen's Gambit: "The Caro-Kann Defence. Genuine bummer. What is wrong with the Caro-Kann? It is all pawns and no hope!" — attributed to the fictional grandmaster Benny Watts. He lets it sit for a paragraph, then dismantles it. The Caro-Kann, he argues, has changed: it is no longer a defence played for solid equality, but a weapon that the world's best players — including Carlsen and Caruana — have been using as a genuine winning try with Black.

 

This book is Schandorff's second on the Caro-Kann, but not an update of his earlier Grandmaster Repertoire 7. It is a completely new book built around a different main recommendation. In GMR 7, Schandorff advocated the classic 4...Bf5 in the Classical Variation — the move the Caro-Kann was essentially designed to play. Here he switches to 4...Nf6 5.Nxf6† exf6, a more combative line in which Black voluntarily accepts doubled pawns in exchange for piece activity and kingside pressure. Nothing is wrong with the old recommendation, he notes — Black has met every challenge of the past decade. But the new system creates more strategically demanding play and, in Schandorff's judgment, gives Black better winning chances.

 

In the Advance Variation's Short System, Schandorff retains his earlier recommendation of the immediate counterattack 5...c5. In the critical main line after 6.Be3, he now offers two options rather than one: the solid 6...cxd4 (his previous recommendation, which eventually equalises) and a new addition, 6...Qb6!?, which is equally sound but tests White's knowledge more and offers Black more winning chances. This pattern of expanded choice appears throughout the book wherever Schandorff felt it was appropriate.

 

344 pages. Suitable for intermediate to advanced players. Part of the Quality Chess Playing... series.

Because of the sheer volume of variations, possible transpositions and ever-changing theory, chess openings can be overwhelming – even intimidating. This book is an introduction to understanding and playing chess openings. The author, Danish Master Carsten Hansen, stresses opening play based on comprehending opening principles as well as useful, fundamental knowledge. With an overview of all the most important opening variations, examples of good and bad opening play, opening traps and problems to solve, chess openings and its major principles are covered thoroughly. Many games are lost as a result of a player’s poor grasp of even the most basic principles of opening play. This book will help you enhance your understanding and give you guidelines on how to best study and play chess openings, reaching good, playable middlegame positions.

This second volume on the Ruy Lopez consists of two parts. In the first part I focus on modern systems with ...Bc5, attempting to dissect both the Archangelsk and Moller Variations. These two variations have quite a rich history but in 2020 there have been several developments. If I had to name one person that contributed the most to the developments in those lines it is, without a doubt, Fabiano Caruana. His encounters in the Candidates Tournament in Ekaterinburg, then his theoretical discussion in those lines with Leinier Dominguez, revised my opinion on many of those lines and led to interesting discoveries that I analyze in this book. In the subsequent part I discuss the Closed Ruy Lopez. It is easily one of the most popular openings throughout the history of chess with many games occuring as early as the 1800s. I suggest going for 9.h3 which usually leads to a positional battle. I present new trends and find new paths and ideas in such evergreen variations as the Zaitsev, Breyer, Chigorin and others. Additionally, I attempt to crack the Marshall Attack by suggesting the Anti-Marshall lines with 8.a4. I must admit that I thought that it would be a pretty easy task to analyze those openings having some prior analysis and experience with both colors. However, time after time I was encountering new challenges and new ideas from both sides that I had to resolve. My conclusions, based on careful analysis with the most powerful engines currently available is presented in this book. This book completes my series on the Ruy Lopez.

The Sicilian Defence is the most popular reply to 1 e4. With 1...c5 Black comes out fighting, immediately challenging any sense of a “natural white advantage”. Sicilian Defence players are often very well prepared theoretically and the tremendous dynamism of the Sicilian can often disturb their opponents. In this book, German FIDE master Jonas Hacker provides a complete repertoire for White when facing the Sicilian. The recommended systems are based on solid strategic considerations. The backbone of the repertoire is the line 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 f3!? This is a perfect line to throw Najdorf and Dragon players off their stride. White will (usually) follow up with c2-c4 and establish a useful space advantage. Many of the other recommended lines are also based around the space-gaining c2-c4 advance providing cohesion across the whole repertoire. In Opening Repertoire: Beating the Sicilian, Jonas Hacker guides the reader through the complexities of the Sicilian and carves out a repertoire for White. He examines all aspects of this highly complex opening and provides the reader with well-researched, fresh, and innovative analysis. Each annotated game has valuable lessons on how to play the opening and contains instructive commentary on typical middlegame plans.

1...e5 enjoys an excellent reputation as a reliable defence against White’s most popular opening choice, 1.e4. However, anyone who is primed to face the Ruy Lopez must also be prepared to face a number of White alternatives. This collection of variations make up the Open Games and include not only popular choices such as the Italian Game, Scotch Game, Bishop’s Opening, King’s Gambit, Vienna Game and Four Knights, but also many tricky sidelines and some wild and wacky gambits. Many of these might not be theoretically strong but can be both daunting and dangerous for the uninformed player. In this book, FIDE Master Martin Lokander tackles all these lines head on and presents a practical repertoire for Black in the Open Games. This book tells you everything you need to know about facing the Open Games when White avoids the Ruy Lopez.