English edition. We also offer a Dutch edition.
For the first time in history, a chess player from North Korea takes part in the North Sea Chess Tournament. She is under pressure to perform, as are her opponents, including a cheating Italian, an Icelandic womaniser, a Tunisian fundamentalist and Dutch talent Christiaan N'Koulou. Inside and outside the arena, the boundaries of the game are sought and transgressed. Even the secret services interfere with the moves on the board. When the American player is found dead in his bathroom on the rest day, chess maecenas Godfried, the sponsor, must intervene to save the tournament at the risk of his own life.
An international literary thriller, The Sponsor is based on the notes that one of the sponsors has been taking behind the scenes of the Hoogovens-Corus-Tata Steel chess tournament for over ten years.
For the chess enthusiast, an appendix contains annotations of the games involved in the story.
Fred Das is an international entrepreneur, property developer and keen chess player. After selling his business he is mainly a full-time father.
Jeroen Terlingen was a trade union journalist, editor at Vrij Nederland and a journalism teacher. He writes books, makes films and teaches courses.
This book is the first part of a trilogy and is designed to help chess players up to 1700 rating improve their endgame calculation skills. The book covers all of the important theoretical positions and techniques that are necessary for successful endgame play, and includes 400 carefully selected exercises to help readers practice and reinforce their understanding of these concepts. The exercises are arranged in a progressive manner. What sets this book apart from other endgame books is authors' clear and concise explanations of the key concepts and ideas combined with practical exercises.
Overall, the first book of the trilogy is an excellent resource for any chess player looking to improve their endgame skills. Mihalcisin's and Sakelsek's thorough coverage of important theoretical positions and techniques, combined with their clear explanations and numerous exercises, make this book an ideal choice for players up to 1700 rating.
In this volume, the authors cover the main lines of the Closed Ruy Lopez. These lines include: The Marshall Attack, The Anti-Marshall, The Zaitsev Variation, The Breyer Variation, The Chigorin Variation, and a number of minor lines, such as the Bogoljubow Variation, The Smyslov Variation, The Keres Variation and more.
The Accelerated Dragon is a dynamic choice for Black and arguably the most natural way to play the Sicilian Defence: Black develops rapidly and chooses the most active squares to place his or her pieces. Unknowing white players looking for a direct attack similar to the one used against traditional Dragon are shocked by Black's increased options due to the flexible move order. Instead, White sometimes employs a more positional approach incorporating the famous Maroczy Bind, when the battle centres on White's impressive pawn structure against Black's lively pieces and the ability to create a pawn break. The Accelerated Dragon was brought to prominence by the Danish chess legend Bent Larsen, while in more recent years its advocates have included World Championship Candidate Sergey Tiviakov.
This book is a further addition to Everyman's best-selling Starting Out series, which has been acclaimed for its original approach to tackling chess openings. International Master Andrew Greet, an Accelerated Dragon expert, revisits the basics of the opening, elaborating on the crucial early moves and ideas for both sides in a way that is often neglected in other texts. The reader is helped throughout with a plethora of notes, tips and warnings highlighting the vital characteristics of the Accelerated Dragon and of opening play in general. Starting Out: The Accelerated Dragon is a perfect guide for improving players and those new to this opening.
– User-friendly design to help readers absorb ideas
– Includes coverage of the Hyper-Accelerated Dragon
– Ideal for improvers, club players and tournament players
Viswanathan Anand is undoubtedly one of the World's greatest ever chess players. He first shot to fame in his youth, when he enthralled the chess public with his results and his amazing speed of play. He became India's first ever grandmaster, at the age of eighteen. He has won five World Championships, and was the undisputed World Champion from 2007 to 2013. He's been the World number one ranked player and one of the very few to break the 2800 rating barrier. His renowned versatility has help him to become successful in all forms of the game: tournament play, match play, knockout and rapidplay.
In this book, Grandmaster Zenón Franco examines in detail Anand's chess career to date. He selects and studies his favourite Anand games, and demonstrates clearly how we can all improve our chess by learning from Anand's play.
Move by Move provides an ideal platform to study chess. By continually challenging the reader to answer probing questions throughout the book, the Move by Move format greatly encourages the learning and practising of vital skills just as much as the traditional assimilation of 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 improve your chess skills and knowledge.
– Learn from the games of a chess legend
– Important ideas absorbed by continued practice
– Utilizes an ideal approach to chess study
Have you ever admired an amazing game of chess, simultaneously thinking “I could never play like that”? In Tiger’s Chaos Theory, you will find a different perspective, treating extraordinary play and creativity as a learnable skill. Thinking outside the box is a stock phrase of the commentators; champions expand their box.
GM Tiger Hillarp Persson is renowned as one of the most creative and original thinkers in chess – attributes he developed through targeted study. Tiger shares how to map patterns and navigate the outrageous, using games and ideas that helped him expand his creative approach.
Tiger’s Chaos Theory will take you on an inspirational journey, featuring concepts such as extreme Hecatomb sacrifices, Houdini-style pawn breakouts and even becoming another player at the board. With thought-provoking chess content, amusing anecdotes and candid reflections on the author’s games and career, this book is unmissable.
The Nimzo-Indian Defence is an ideal weapon for Black at all levels. It has been popular for over a century due to its positional soundness, yet has experienced a revolution in recent years, with modern analysis increasingly highlighting its dynamic potential.
Playing the Nimzo-Indian offers a complete repertoire for Black after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4, with an active, counterattacking emphasis on the choice of lines. The forthcoming companion volume, Beating the Queen’s Gambit – Indian Style!, will complete the coverage of 1.d4 Nf6 from Black’s perspective by covering White’s alternatives on moves 2 and 3, with 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 the biggest topic.
With bulletproof analysis, more novelties than we could keep track of, and deep explanations of plans and concepts, Playing the Nimzo-Indian offers everything you need to learn and play the Nimzo-Indian successfully.
TACTICS TRAINER AVAILABLE!
The Woodpecker Method 2: Positional Play
Unlock Your Chess Potential with the Ultimate Training Regimen
From the acclaimed authors of The Woodpecker Method comes the highly anticipated sequel that promises to take your chess skills to the next level. Dive into The Woodpecker Method 2: Positional Play, a comprehensive training guide designed to transform your positional understanding and tactical prowess through rigorous and repetitive practice.
Inside This Book:
Why This Book?
Author Insight:
Building on the groundbreaking success of The Woodpecker Method, this sequel delves deeper into the world of positional chess, offering insights from the games of legendary World Champions. Through structured exercises and detailed analysis, The Woodpecker Method 2: Positional Play is your go-to resource for mastering the complexities of the game.
Take your chess training to the next level with The Woodpecker Method 2: Positional Play. Embrace the challenge, refine your skills, and become the player you've always aspired to be.
Available via subscription
British Chess Magazine (August 2024)
*** THE NEW WORLD CHESS CHAMPION ***
On 12 December 2024 Gukesh D became the 18th World Chess Champion, defeating Ding Liren by a score of 7.5–6.5. This made him the youngest undisputed world chess champion in history and the second Indian to hold the title after Vishy Anand.
This book, published just a few months before his amazing world title victory, covers his 70 most exciting games up to and including the 2024 Candidates Tournament.
***
Gukesh Dommaraju became the challenger for the 2024 World Chess Championship when the then 17 year old won the Candidates Tournament in Toronto earlier that year, ahead of favourites including Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana and Ian Nepomniachtchi. A year earlier Gukesh wasn't so well known in the West, even though the chess prodigy had been consistently breaking records:
* Gukesh was the second-youngest Grandmaster in chess history, missing being the youngest-ever by only 17 days.
* He was the fourth-youngest player to shatter the stratospheric 2700 rating barrier.
* He was the youngest-ever winner of the Candidates cycle at age 17, making him the youngest challenger in a World Chess Championship match.
Gukesh's style and strategic mastery much resemble those of the young Anatoly Karpov. He wins imperceptibly, where every 12 moves or so you notice his position improving, seemingly without having done anything! Gukesh seeks to smother his opponent's intentions in the crib, before they have a chance to grow into actual threats.
In 70 fully annotated games, this book covers Gukesh's fiercest battles against many of the world's top players. Opponents include world champions Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren, Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik, as well as other world-class players such as Caruana, Nepo, Nakamura, Giri, Firouzja, Vidit, and his long-standing rival Praggnanandhaa among others. Seven games are taken from the Toronto Candidates Tournament.
The book contains 500 of the most instructive examples from the games played during 2023 in tournaments around the world. The positions are selected owing to their practical value, importance and inherent aesthetics, and are divided into 4 levels of difficulty to make your training and browsing through the material smooth. Exercises are not organized in sections according to tactical motifs they are based on, because my intention was to present examples which are resembling real game situations.
Today's openings are reruns of an old sitcom that we have all seen a hundred times before, while for players in the past, life on the chess board was wild, unexplored territory. Learning the details of that gigantic entity, the Ruy Lopez (from either side), is on par with the time that hateful 7th-grade teacher made us memorize the capital cities of every country in the world--in alphabetical order!
The Origins series is an attempt at a "big picture" view that displays the interlocking parts of a much larger mechanism in time.
In this volume, the authors cover specialty lines either side deviates before heading into the Closed System Main Lines, for instance, The Exchange Variation, The Worrall Attack, The Open Ruy Lopez, The Møller, The Arkhangelsk, and many more.
Cookie settings
We use cookies to deliver and improve our services, analyze site usage, and if you agree, to customize or personalize your experience and market our services to you. You can read our Cookie Policy here.