Coach Christof has thoroughly revised and updated his 2018 best-selling chess opening manual. It covers everything you need to know when opening with 1.e4. You will get a complete White chess opening repertoire.
Why is this opening repertoire called simple? For the simple reason that the variations are easy to remember and require little or no maintenance.
International Master Christof Sielecki has created a hit series with his reliable opening lines for chess players of almost all levels. He developed this repertoire by working with students looking for something easy to understand and learn. Sielecki always clearly explains the plans and counter plans and keeps you focused on the position's requirements. Ambitious players rated 1500 or higher will benefit from studying this extremely accessible book.
Christof Sielecki is an International Master from Germany. He has taught and trained chess for many years and runs a popular YouTube channel called ChessExplained. He won numerous awards with his course on Chessable and has created three volumes of the Keep it Simple opening manuals.
GM Matthew Sadler (New In Chess magazine)
"There are a few different approaches to drawing up a complete opening course for White like this. At the extremes, you can pick a single setup or pawn structure (something like the King’s Indian Attack for example) and use it against as many Black systems as you can manage, or you take the grandmaster repertoire approach where you pick the best concrete line for each situation. Both have drawbacks of course. Sielecki manages a good blend of both approaches."
IM John Donaldson (Mechanics Institute)
“Keep it Simple 1.e4 – 2.0 is an invaluable tool for those rated 1800 to 2300 who want to play 1.e4 but don’t have the option of quitting their day job. There is plenty of explanatory prose to make this book accessible to the lower end of this rating group. There are also plenty of well-thought-out opening suggestions to make it interesting for master-level players and above. They will benefit from using the lines in this book as a starting point for further investigations.”
Chess has the rare quality that children love it despite the fact that it is good for them. Playing chess is just like life: you have to make plans, take decisions, be creative, deal with challenges, handle disappointments, interact with others and evaluate your actions.
In this guide, psychologist and chess teacher Karel van Delft provides access to the underlying scientific research and presents the best didactical methods. Van Delft has created a dependable toolkit for teachers and scholastic chess organizers.
What can teachers do to improve their instruction? How (un)important is talent? How do you support a special needs group? How do you deal with parents? What are the best selling points of a chess program? Boys and girls, does it make a difference? How do ‘chess in schools’ programs fare in different countries?
This is not a book on chess rules and moves, but it points the way to where good technical chess improvement content can be found. Van Delft offers a wealth of practical advice on the most effective didactics in order for kids to build critical life skills through learning chess.
Karel van Delft is a Dutch chess teacher and chess organizer. He holds a Master’s degree in Psychology of the University of Amsterdam and has lectured and published widely on the subject of the benefits of chess in education.
“More than 260 pages of pure motivation and inspiration. While other school chess books focus on concrete lessons, Karel van Delft provides insight into everything else that should be in the chess teacher's school bag (chess and autism, chess and girls, chess as social and therapeutic tool, the role of the parents...). The author strikes a wonderful balance between practical tips and scientific foundation. You can use some pages as a checklist, on the other hand the references to scientific works can make any school headmaster realise that chess really belongs in the classroom. And isn't that exactly what we need to spread chess in schools?”
Philippe Vukojevic, First Rank Newsletter, European Chess Union Education
“This book does not need to be read systematically. It is a work of ideas and advice, which will retain a long shelf life. Chess tutors and teachers will be able to dip into the book in search of inspiration and they will certainly find it waiting for them. It’s doesn’t matter how experienced a teacher or tutor may be: there will always still be plenty of new ideas to be found in ‘Chess for Educators’.”
Sean Marsh, CHESS Magazine
“Going through the book I encountered things that I had hardly heard of and that sometimes opened up an entire world to me, although I have been teaching chess for many years. Chapter 20 is an important one because it concentrates on research into the benefits of teaching chess. I think that many chess players will be able to identify with the section ‘Losing touch with school’. All in all a monumental work that deals with lots of aspects of teaching, coaching and organizing, but also with communication and promotion.”
IM Herman Grooten, Schaaksite
“2,000 hours of painstaking research, analysis and counselling ideas by Karel van Delft. Surely the most comprehensive guide yet for teachers and parents in the chess world.”
Chess Magazine Black and White (India)
“Essential reading for everyone interested in chess education, whether in practice or only in theory. Both established chess teachers and those just setting out will find great ideas to inspire them on every page. Karel van Delft is one of the world’s leading experts on the subject, so the book is an ocean of wisdom. The most important aspect of the book for me, on a very personal level, is the understanding that chess has potential social as well as cognitive benefits for a very wide range of young- and not so young – people. I hope Karel’s book meets with the success it deserves: you could start by buying a copy yourself.”
Richard James, British Chess News
“Van Delft does a great job of creating material for both chess club administrators and coaches. By combining both his own practical experience and extensive research, Van Delft has created a guide that is exceptionally useful for those within the chess education field.”
FM Peter Giannatos, Founder and Director, Charlotte Chess Center
It is amazing how much play you can create in a seemingly equal chess position - if you persevere. In this book, the greatest chess player of all time, Magnus Carlsen, and his friend, Grandmaster David Howell, explain how to win these kinds of chess games.
Carlsen and Howell show how you can keep a game alive, how you can keep posing problems to your opponent, how you can recognize the first small mistakes, and how you can grind your opponent down until he cracks.
New In Chess has converted this book from a popular Chessable video and MoveTrainer ® course with the help of Carlsen and Howell. The lively conversations of the two friends translate very well into a highly instructive chess manual. It is top-level chess, using grandmaster games as examples, but the insights are accessible to players of all levels.
Magnus Carlsen won the World Chess Championship in 2013 and gave up his title in 2023. He is regarded as the greatest player of all time and holds the #1 spot in the world ranking. He has read dozens of books published by New In Chess, but this is the first book with Carlsen as an author. Carlsen (1990) lives in Oslo, Norway.
David Howell is an elite chess Grandmaster with a 2700+ peak rating and an individual gold medal winner at the Olympiad. He is a well-known and popular commentator on live chess streams. Howell (1990) is two weeks older than Carlsen, was born in Eastbourne, United Kingdom, and lives in Oslo, Norway.
IM Gary Lane (Australian Chess)
“This delightful book looks at various instructive games which will certainly make you keener to work harder in your next tournament. An inspirational way to definitely improve your chess rating.”
WIM Alexey Root on sparkchess.com:
"Howell and Carlsen are entertaining teachers. They explain their own games, and their thought processes, extremely well. My FIDE rating is 1925, and I learned a lot from their book."
The Dragon Sicilian is the perfect choice for club players searching for chaotic and imbalanced positions. This opening manual shows how Black can turn up the heat against 1.e4, and enjoy dynamic winning chances game after game.
Top-10 player Anish Giri is the best tutor to bring this complicated opening across to 'everyday' club players. Anish serves up his super-GM lines and clearly explains the ideas and strategies behind the moves. So when game time comes, you know exactly which moves to play, at what moment, and how to deliver the knockout blow.
Make no mistake: This repertoire's "take-no-prisoners"-strategy means you will sometimes reach razor-sharp positions, where both sides must play 'only moves'. But that's why you'll love having Anish Giri as your opening coach. Giri delivers just the right mix of cutting-edge analysis and practical guidance for players of all levels with his trademark witty and down-to-earth teaching style.
The Dragon Sicilian also covers all other major systems Black could face, including what to play against Anti-Sicilians such as the Rossolimo, the 2.c3 Alapin, and the Grand-Prix Attack.
Grandmaster and world top-10 player Anish Giri is one of today’s most popular chess players. He has an active Twitter account, a massive YouTube channel, and is a regular contributor to New In Chess magazine. Giri has Russian, Nepalese, and Indian ancestry. He lived in Russia and Japan before his family settled in the Netherlands. His opening preparation is one of his strongest suits, and Giri is often referred to as the most prominent theory expert in the world.
‘This book, which is highly recommended, will interest a wide audience. Club players will find it provides all the detail they need while higher rated players are pushed the right direction for further investigation. Giri’s assessments are clear and to the point.’ – IM John Donaldson, Mechanics Institute Newletter
This book is designed to boost your positional understanding to new heights!
In this book, you'll find 500 examples from real games, sorted into four different levels. We've picked the best and most helpful examples from games played in the second half of 2024 and the first half of 2025. Most of these games were played by very strong players.
This book continues the journey we started last year, using the same concept. Our goal here is to introduce new ideas, creating a complete and comprehensive learning experience when combined with the previous book.
These exercises are perfect for intermediate and club players aiming to reach a FIDE rating of 2200-2300. They're also incredibly helpful for CM and FM-level players aspiring to become International Masters or Grandmasters.
This isn't just a collection of random positions. We've worked hard to bring you a wide variety of strategic ideas, from the simplest and most common positional thoughts to very complex and deep plans. Prepare to dive into the depths of modern chess and discover the secrets of strategic mastery!
Why can a grandmaster glance at a position and know within seconds what is going on? Ivan Sokolov’s answer is: pawn structure. This acclaimed book — carrying a foreword by Michael Adams — sets out to teach that same instant understanding by examining the handful of structures that shape the vast majority of middlegames.
Sokolov works through them one family at a time: doubled pawns, isolated pawns, hanging pawns, and central pawn majorities, each broken down into its essential recurring forms. For every structure he explains the plans available to both sides — where the pieces belong, which breaks to aim for, and which endgames to steer toward or avoid.
The teaching is done through deeply analysed top-level games rather than fragments, so you see the structure’s logic play out from middlegame to result. Sokolov’s annotations are demanding but accessible, and he takes nothing for granted — the explanations carry, in one reviewer’s words, “a large amount of genuine Grandmasterly wisdom.”
Studying it pays off in three ways: sharper middlegame play, a better sense of which positions suit your style, and — because structures arise from openings — a deeper practical grasp of your own repertoire. This revised edition refreshes a modern classic — runner-up for the ECF Book of the Year and shortlisted for the Guardian award — with more than half of the illustrative games replaced by newer examples. Aimed at club players and above.
Jan Timman completes an impressive and fascinating trilogy with his collected studies. In Timman's Titans, winner of the 2017 ECF Book of the Year Award, he writes about the world champions he admires. In Timman's Triumphs, he annotates his hundred best games. In Timman's Studies, he offers his collected compositions of endgame studies.
Throughout his career, Jan Timman has been captivated by the mystery and splendor of endgame studies. Even during his most successful and busy years as a world-class player, he continued to compose and admire endgame studies. He has always believed that his exploration of this magical world helped him grow as a player.
In this book, he presents 160 studies and explains how they were created, whether inspired by the works of other composers or game positions.
Jan Timman, a former world championship candidate, rose to number two on the FIDE world rankings. He is the author of several bestsellers, including Timman's Titans, Timman's Triumphs, The Art of the Endgame, 100 Endgame Studies You Must Know, and Max Euwe's Best Games. In 2022, he was awarded the title of FIDE Master of Composition.
Please keep in mind that the same stories are also featured in The Essential Sosonko.
Smart Chip from St.Petersburg contains portraits of players, both famous and forgotten, from the golden age of Soviet chess, as well as highly personal views on the psychology of the game and its players.
It radiates the author's love and devotion to chess, yet is tempered by objectivity and detachment. It will enchant not only chess players, but all who recognize the cultural value of chess.
Genna Sosonko lived the first 29 years of his life in Leningrad. He emigrated to Holland in 1972. His first book, Russian Silhouettes, was shortlisted for the world’s premier chess book award, the BCF Book of the Year 2000.
John Watson, The Week In Chess:
"Each essay is a revelation and a gift (…) Great photographs and a great read."
Hans Ree:
"Beautiful and moving."
Gary Lane, Australian Chess:
"An absorbing read."
British Chess Magazine:
"Remembering is sometimes sheer joy."
Jonathan Rowson:
"Sosonko writes with sustained subtlety and grace."
The Compulsive Reader:
"Immensely fascinating."
Jeremy Silman, author of 'How to Reassess Your Chess':
"Yet another masterpiece by Sosonko."
KARL Magazine:
"From Sosonko's portraits one learns more about chess than from 100 books about theory."
Taylor Kingston, ChessCafe:
"An absorbing collection."
The Washington Post on 'Russian Silhouettes':
"A delightful work."
Garry Kasparov on 'The Reliable Past':
"A gallery of wonderful pen-portraits."
The Jury of the British Chess Federation Book of the Year Award on 'Russian Silhouettes':
"An enthralling read."
The world’s top trainer, Mark Dvoretsky, and one of his best-known pupils, grandmaster Artur Yusupov, present a five-volume series based on courses given to talented young players throughout the world. The books contain contributions by other leading trainers and grandmasters, as well as games by pupils who have attended the courses.
Successful endgame play is all about technique. In this third volume of the series the authors explain how to study the endgame and to analyse endgame positions, and illustrate the highly important technique of converting an advantage.
Available via subscription
British Chess Magazine (November 2025)
The second volume explains the basic principles of the opening, discusses how to build an opening repertoire and produce opening novelties, and explores the connection between the opening and the later stages – the middlegame and the endgame.
Solving studies is well established as an effective method of chess improvement. Yochanan Afek is one of the world’s greatest ever study composers, and in this new edition he shares his finest creations, combining artistic beauty with practical relevance. This new book contains every study from the original Practical Chess Beauty along with thirty fresh studies composed by Afek in the interim period, all freshly checked for accuracy. Ignite your imagination, augment your appreciation of chess geometry, and fine-tune your feeling for the pieces’ potential by uncovering the magic contained in the hundreds of studies in this book. Or simply wonder at some of the most stunning chess moves ever conceived.
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