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In recent years the Scandinavian has been catapulted into the limelight, and it has now firmly established itself as an opening to be reckoned with. Why has it become popular? Because it's easy to play - in the majority of lines Black relies upon the same system of development. Also there's still relatively little theory when compared to mainline defences to 1.e4. One further attraction is that it can lead to both tactical and positional play - there is something to suit all styles of player. Opening expert Jovanka Houska has successfully played both sides of the Scandinavian, and in this book she reveals everything you need to know, whether you are playing it as Black or facing it with White.

The Everyman Chess Starting Out series has firmly established itself as the leading guide to studying openings for up-and-coming players. These books are distinguished by their easy-to-read layout, the lucid explanations of the fundamentals, and the abundance of notes, tips and warnings to help the reader absorb vital ideas. Starting Out opening books are ideal for enthusiastic chess players who have little experience of the openings in question and who wish to appreciate the essential principles behind them.

The Sicilian Taimanov (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6) is a very flexible Black system in the Sicilian Defence developed by Mark Taimanov. It is characterised by the development of the g8-knight on e7, often along with a quick ...b7-b5. The Taimanov often leads to tense, dynamic position which are ripe in counterattacking possibilities.

In Opening Repertoire: The Sicilian Taimanov, highly experienced chess author and coach Nigel Davies guides the reader through the complexities of the Taimanov and carves out a repertoire for Black. 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. There are also suggestions for countering White’s “anti-Sicilian” tries thus creating an entire repertoire to meet 1.e4.

In "The Duel", Alessandro Bossi and Claudio Brovelli go deep into the lives of these two legendary World Champions, who have left their mark in an unforgettable manner on their epoch (the first forty years of the 20th century) and who remain – in part, due to their very different personalities and relationship with the game – inimitable examples for all the chess-playing generations to come. The choice to present in parallel the two biographies (in my opinion quite rightly so), shows clearly and effectively similarities and differences, not only in the style of play, but also in the approaches to life of the two protagonists. With very precise historical descriptions and presenting the events in chronological order, the authors accompany us on a journey alongside the lives of these two legends of chess. In this fashion the personalities emerge, in many ways antithetical but equally fascinating: Capablanca, friendly and charming in society, precocious, genial and nearly invincible on the chessboard, and Alekhine, who combined a wonderful talent with a capacity for work, a competitive attitude and an energy which was truly enviable.

We are pleased to release another book in the Fred Reinfeld Chess Classics series. The Immortal Games of Capablanca was – and continues to be – one of Reinfeld’s most popular books. A detailed biography of the third world chess champion introduces the 113 games. They are presented chronologically, with clear and instructive annotations.

This 21st century edition has been revised and reformatted to meet the expectations of the modern chessplayer. This includes:

(a) The original English descriptive notation has been converted to modern figurine algebraic notation;

(b) Over 200(!) diagrams have added, along with more than a dozen archival photos; and

(c) The Index of Openings now has ECO codes.

Reinfeld’s annotations were also cross-checked by Stockfish 14, one of the most powerful engines available. When Stockfish had a different, meaningful evaluation from that of Reinfeld’s, the engine’s suggestion is indicated by “S14:” followed by the specific line.

As in our other “21st Century Editions,” and with the exception of the occasional supplement by Stockfish, Reinfeld’s original text has been preserved.

Follow the life and games of the brilliant Cuban world champion in Reinfelds’s timeless classic The Immortal Games of Capablanca.

Volume 2 is divided into eight chapters. Unlike Volume 1, it is possible to mix the order in which you study these chapters, but not to study the games within each chapter out of order, since the examples build upon each other in complexity. I suggest that the chapter on “Passed Pawns” should be studied first, because many of the various middlegame structures can ultimately give rise to a passed pawn in the endgame. Work carefully through these examples, because masters use pawn structures even in the opening to predict the properties of endgames which can potentially arise – this is a widely neglected aspect and can be a strong weapon for you!

Welcome to Volume 2 of Cheparinov's 1.d4!.

In the second part of the series, I am sharing my knowledge about the Slav Defense. I am confident that the book contains many new and interesting ideas and I have tried to provide you with the best practical options. Objectively speaking Black looks good in many lines but in practice things may look different. While I cannot promise you a big advantage in each line, I do believe you will have the best practical chances during the game.

Writing the second volume was very challenging for me. The Slav encompasses a wide but solid body of theory. Black has plenty of options and finding advantages and practical chances was not easy at all. In any case I believe that chess players from amateurs to very strong players will appreciate this book. While the Covid pandemic gave me a lot of free time to concentrate on the book, I am very happy to see that many tournaments are back. This means that my book can be useful, and you may actually be able to apply some of the ideas in your games. 

The best way to use this book is to first examine the lines on an actual board and then check them with an engine. I hope this method of study increases your understanding of the positions that arise from the Slav. This book can be a very important starting point for building your 1.d4 repertoire.

Contents:

Leitao – American Continental Championship (Tournament Review)

Moradiabadi & Arsovic– Fide Grand Prix Belgrade and Berlin (Tournament Review)

Gormally – Danny’s Chess Diary – 4NCL (Tournament Review)

Prusikin – Nimzowitsch Legacy (Instructive Lesson)

Foisor – The Pillsbury Attack (Instructive Lesson)

Davies – The 3...Qd6 Scandinavian – part 2 (Theoretical Survey)

Perunovic – The Alapin Sicilian (Theoretical Survey)

Szabo – The Scotch Game C45 (Theoretical Survey)

Petrov – World Championship Game Changers – part 4

Rogers – The Balaton Tournament 1983 (Roger’s Reminiscences)

Griffin – The most entertaining draw at the USSR Championships (From Informant Archives)

Traditional sections: games, combinations, endings, Tournament reviews, the best game from the preceding volume and the most important theoretical novelty from the preceding volume.

The periodical that pros use with pleasure is at the same time a must have publication for all serious chess students!

(WEBSTORE SPECIAL - You can purchase the book on our webstore and access it from all your Forward Chess apps. Pull down to refresh the "Books" tab in your mobile apps).

The most hated cliché in chess is: And the rest is a matter of technique. In A Matter of Endgame Technique Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard deals with one of the few things chessplayers hate even more – losing a winning position. No serious chessplayer is new to the misery of spoiling hours of hard work in a few minutes...

A Matter of Endgame Technique offers the second-best happiness – the misfortune of others – as well as deep explanation of the underlying patterns of how and why we misplay winning endgames. At just under 900 pages, this book is actually six books in one, explaining the technical and practical areas of chess endgames plainly, simply and deeply. Endgame theory is well covered elsewhere; this book is all about technique and devoid of material to memorise.

Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard won the British Championship at his first and only attempt. Aagaard has won more awards than any other chess author, and is co-founder of Quality Chess and the online academy killerchesstraining.com.

Aagaard’s students have won school tournaments, national titles, FM, IM and GM titles, international opens, the US Championship, the World Cup, the Candidates Tournament and Olympiad medals of all denominations.

Chess is 99% tactics. If this celebrated observation is true for the master, how much more so for beginners and casual players! If you want to win more games, nothing works better than training combinations.

There are two types of books on tactics, those that introduce the concepts followed by some examples, and workbooks that contain numerous exercises.

Chess masters and trainers Franco Masetti and Roberto Messa have done both: they explain the basic tactical ideas AND provide an enormous amount of exercises for each different theme. Masetti and Messa have created a great first tactics book. It teaches you how to:

• identify weak spots in the position of your opponent

• recognize patterns of combinations

• visualize tricks.

1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners can also be used as a course text book, because only the most didactically productive exercises have been used.

This book is a Black repertoire against the Ruy López. We will be focusing on the Arkhangelsk (Möller) Defence.

In the modern world where computers keep getting stronger and stronger, openings need to be updated on a daily basis. After the emergence of NNUE engines, the style of play has changed drastically. Players started to sacrifice material for long term compensation/initiative trying to pose as many practical problems as possible so that it becomes difficult for opponents to solve all the problems over-the-board in the given time control.

So let me explain what I have done in the book you are holding in your hands, dear readers. Please, do not get carried away with the computer’s assessment all the time! We should not forget that we are not playing correspondence chess where the opponent has lots of time to ponder and refute our lines! In a tournament game, it is a different scenario! I believe it is important to choose the openings/positions where we feel comfortable. It is equally important to choose and study some model games in the openings we play.

I would like to quote one of my favourite sayings that had been on my mind ever since I have signed this project. One individual may die for an idea, but that idea will, after his death, incarnate itself in a thousand lives - Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. The same way, ideas suggested in this book may die at some point or the other. However, I hope that the approach behind the moves may not die! Dear readers, I hope you will enjoy my work and if you like you can also adapt the modern-day approach of working on openings. Good luck on your chess journey!

The author writes:

"This book offers a full repertoire based on the Taimanov move order 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6! 5.Nc3 Qc7. It is especially effective against the English attack and early kingside pawn storms. However, the fianchetto 6.g3 and the Classical system with 6.Be3 a6 7.Be2 pose certain problems. I propose to meet them with the Scheveningen set-up ...d6. Thus we take the best of two different worlds.

In 2014 I wrote The Most Flexible Sicilian with Delchev. It was based on my coauthor’s repertoire, with a focus on the Kann (without Nc6). On the opposite, I have always preferred the Scheveningen set-up whenever possible. The biggest problem is to avoid the Keres Attack and the system with f4, Qf3. The Taimanov move order is perfect for that aim.

My new book practically does not overlap with The Most Flexible Sicilian or with Pavlidis’ The Sicilian Taimanov as I recommend other lines, which are better or keep more tension, in my opinion.

I have been a devoted Sicilian player all my life and I have played at least 10 000 blitz games featuring 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6. Since a good half of them featured 3.c3, 3.g3, 3.d3 or other anti-Sicilians, I included these lines in the book."

The Rossolimo is the Anti-Sicilian that is by far the most popular with club players – and with elite grandmasters such as Magnus Carlsen, Anish Giri, and Alireza Firouzja.

If you play 3.Bb5 in the Sicilian, you do not need to keep up-to-date with the dazzling theoretical developments in all kinds of Open Sicilians. You can sidestep theory, play your own creative game – and put your opponent in trouble! You will love the harmonious, easy development and reach unbalanced positions with winning opportunities and surprisingly dynamic play.

Victor Bologan has played the Rossolimo ever since his youth – in practical play, but also in training sessions with Garry Kasparov. Bologan has now updated and expanded his authoritative 2011 repertoire book. As a former top-20 player, Bologan is one of the few Grandmasters whose opening books are read by both his peers and by club players. His ideas are always thoroughly analyzed and checked by the strongest engines, but still very accessible to amateurs.