“Know thy enemy.” The skill this book trains is the one most players neglect: thinking not only for yourself but for your opponent. As Viktor Korchnoi observed, a player who does not check what the other side is doing ends up blaming bad luck after every game. Renowned trainer Mark Dvoretsky built this collection to fix precisely that blind spot.
It is a training manual, not a textbook. Each of the four chapters opens with a short theoretical discussion and then hands you dozens of exercises, graded from elementary to genuinely hard. The themes build deliberately: paying attention to the opponent’s resources, then the process of elimination, then traps, and finally prophylactic thinking — anticipating and preventing the other side’s ideas before they arrive.
With close to 500 positions drawn from every phase — opening, middlegame, and endgame — the book doubles as all-round calculation and decision-making practice. The solutions are detailed by design: Dvoretsky lays out the logic of the search, showing how a player can actually reach the right conclusion at the board rather than simply presenting the answer.
Among the last works from one of history’s greatest trainers, and close to unique in its subject. Demanding, and best suited to dedicated players from strong club level upward.
Art of Sacrifice in Chess
Rudolf Spielmann’s The Art of Sacrifice in Chess, first published in the mid-1930s, was instantly recognised as a classic — the book that first tried to classify, systematically, the nature of the chess sacrifice. This is its 21st-century edition, with Spielmann’s original work preserved in full and brought to a modern audience.
Spielmann’s great idea was to distinguish the "real" sacrifice (where you give up material for an unclear, long-term return) from the "sham" sacrifice (where the material comes straight back). Around that he organises a whole taxonomy — sacrifices for development, line-clearance, deflection, king-hunts, the king’s field, the exchange and queen sacrifices — that still shapes how we understand the subject.
For this edition, German grandmaster Karsten Müller has done far more than modernise the notation: he has roughly doubled the book, adding chapters on the Greek Gift and the classic weak points (g7, f7, e6, f6), on the sacrificial magic of Tal and Shirov, on the fine art of defending against sacrifices, and a wealth of exercises to test what you’ve learned.
A timeless subject in an enriched modern package — instructive and hugely enjoyable for any club player who wants to attack with imagination and judgement.
Sarhan Guliev presents a wide range of strategic manoeuvres that have been repeatedly employed by great chess players.
John Watson and Eric Schiller provide club-players with solutions to a huge selection of rarely-played or tricky chess openings. They concentrate upon ideas and strategy, with enough analysis to satisfy the needs of practical play.
In the second volume IM Tibor Károlyi examines some of the golden years of Tal’s career, from 1960 to 1971.
Positional Decision Making in Chess offers a rare look into the mind of a top grandmaster. In his efforts to explain his way of thinking, GM Boris Gelfand, a winner of all the major awards for chess writing, focuses on such topics as the squeeze, space advantage, the transformation of pawn structures, and the transformation of advantages.
Based on examples from his own games and those of his hero, Akiba Rubinstein, Gelfand explains how he thinks during the game, providing invaluable insights into a grandmaster’s thought process for advanced players.
This ebook is a part of Bundle: Gelfand Decision Making
When Viktor Moskalenko’s The Flexible French appeared in 2008 it became something of a cult favourite — praised everywhere as fresh, inspiring, and unusually fun to read. This is his full revision of that modern classic: same broad structure, but rebuilt around a decade of new theory, with hundreds of fresh ideas, improvements, and surprise weapons added.
It is a complete repertoire for Black after 1.e4 e6, organised by White’s main systems. The Advance, Tarrasch, Classical, and Winawer each get their own section, and a final part offers off-beat answers to the Exchange French, the King’s Indian Attack, and other sidelines that French players meet in practice.
What sets the book apart is Moskalenko’s style. Rather than dumping variations, he teaches the French as a living, dynamic opening — full of the counterattacking resources, pawn breaks, and piece manoeuvres that give Black the initiative. He writes with genuine enthusiasm, flagging the critical ideas and the traps in each line, and even points out resources for White along the way, so you understand both sides of the battle.
Best suited to club players and above who want a French repertoire built on understanding and active play rather than memorisation. If you already own the 2008 edition, this is a thorough update rather than a cosmetic one.
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