The Polgar Way to Better Chess!
Learn Chess the Right Way is a five-volume chess puzzle book series aimed at the novice, beginner and intermediate level player, using the unique methods of the award-winning coach and former world champion Susan Polgar. It introduces the most important checkmate and material-winning tactics, as well as defensive techniques to the new chess player. Each of the five volumes will consist of over 500 puzzles.
In Volume 3, you will be introduced to 500 must-know defensive techniques. Each chapter will start with a few introductory examples and explanation about to what to look for in the puzzles that follow.
In chapter 1, the task is to move an attacked piece. In each puzzle, there is only one good solution by moving the attacked piece to a safe square. In chapter 2, one of the kings is in check. The goal is to find the correct response. In chapter 3, a piece is attacked, but has no good square to which to move. So, rather than moving the attacked piece(s), you will need to look for a way to protect it with another piece.
In chapter 4, we focus on defensive ideas against a direct checkmate threat. In chapter 5, one side “defends” by counter-attacking. In chapters 6 and 7, you will be introduced to the game-saving techniques of drawing by stalemate or perpetual check. In chapter 8, the task is to catch a pawn that is about to promote. In chapter 9, a certain piece is about to get “trapped.” The task is to prepare for the attack and avoid material loss. Finally, in chapter 10, you can practice solving a variety of defensive ideas, with the goal to avoid or minimize material losses or being checkmated.
With over 40 years of experience as a world-class player and coach, international grandmaster Susan Polgar has developed the most effective way to help young players and beginners – Learn Chess the Right Way. Let her show you the way to understanding the most common and critical patterns and let her show you the way to becoming a better player.
SUSAN POLGAR is a winner of four Women’s World Championships and the top-ranked woman chess player in the United States. She became the #1 woman player in the world at 15 and remained in the top 3 for over 20 years. In 2013, she received the U.S. Coach of the Year Award and the following year, she was named the Chess Trainer of the Year by the International Chess Federation (FIDE). She thus became the first person in history to be accorded both honors. Under her guidance, SPICE chess teams at both Texas Tech University and Webster University have won a combined six consecutive National Division I Collegiate Chess Championships.
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British Chess Magazine (May 2024)
In the phase of the game, the endgame, strange things happen. Material advantages don’t bring home the expected fruits, wins vanish, draws slip away, and frustrations build. Why is it that when things are supposed to be simpler, they become slippery and nearly impossible to handle with any kind of accuracy? And why do players such as Rubinstein, Capablanca, Andersson, Karpov, and Carlsen seem able to drum up resources out of nothing, make the lives of their opponents miserable, and win things that looked drawn and draw things that looked lost? Many factors are at play, but an accurate assessment of the remaining resources, both present and latent, allows these players to make better plans and maximize the potential for a positive outcome.
In this book, experienced authors, IM Lakdawala and FM Hansen, look at this phenomenon and help the reader better “read” the positions to understand what measures are needed in a given position.
Along with numerous practical examples, and endgame studies with practical application, there are also many exercises for the student to work through, either on their own or with a coach.
100 Years Later, Nimzovich Is Still Good for Your Chess!
Almost a century ago, a chess book about positional play and strategic concepts appeared on the chess scene. Written by a Latvian grandmaster residing in Denmark, it quickly took its place as one of the classics of chess literature. Since then, Aron Nimzovich’s magnum opus My System has been embraced by every generation of chessplayers.
However, there were some inherent flaws. For starters, it was quite “dense.” The reader had to plow through many subjective digressions and other literary detours before getting to the core concepts. Now American Grandmaster Alex Fishbein has adapted this classic for the modern chessplayer.
While remaining true to the original text – and with the same goals as his outstanding work with the FastTrack Edition of Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual – Fishbein has produced an eminently readable, modernized version of My System. The result is a book that not only retains the unique imagery of the original text, but a book that is also easy to understand by both club players and masters.
As the author stated in his preface: Nimzovich’s ideas have stood the test of time and, if anything, are more relevant today. In his famous foreword to the 1974 Russian edition, Mikhail Tal wrote: “This old book, sustaining many editions in different forms and different languages, is imbued with an elixir of eternal chess youth.” My aim was to retain that elixir in this new translation.
Alex brings you the best of Nimzovich’s My System, erasing all misconceptions. As a newcomer to the game, you will feel blessed to learn pure, unmistakable strategies, while if you are an old chap like me, you will appreciate the fresh clarity, helping you re-evaluate your personal chess philosophy… Nimzovich is good for your chess, and a more coherent Nimzovich even better. – From the Foreword by GM Vassilios Kotronias
Simen Agdestein was awarded the title of chess grandmaster at the age of eighteen, the youngest in the world at the time. Two years later he wrote in his diary that he believed he could become the best in the world.
But chess wasn't his only passion. He also excelled at football and was selected nine times for the Norwegian national team. Foreign clubs wanted to sign him as a professional.
Simen Agdestein's combined careers are unique and amazing. 'I can't choose between my left and my right arm', he once said of the choice between chess and football.
His international football career was cut short when he refused to play for Norway in a World Cup qualifier against Scotland. He opted instead to play Garry Kasparov in a chess tournament in Belgrade. A few years later, a knee injury put an end to his footballing dreams.
These days Agdestein is a coach and teacher at the Norwegian College for Top Athletes, a fertile breeding ground where his most successful pupil, Magnus Carlsen, also attended. Agdestein continues to compete in chess. In 2023 he won the Norwegian Championship for the ninth time, 41 years after his first successful bid.
Games and Goals is a gripping biography of a unique double talent, revealing his insecurities and ambitions, his doubts and dreams. The author had access to Agdestein's private letters and diaries and conducted numerous interviews with relatives, friends and Agdestein himself.
Atle Grønn (1971) is Professor of Slavic linguistics at the University of Oslo, an International Chess Master and a prolific writer on the game of chess. His books Sjakken eller Livet (Chess or Life, 2016) and Sjakkgeniene (Chess Geniuses, 2018), co-authored with Olav Lahlum, were bestsellers. With his appearances as a chess expert in live broadcasts of chess competitions on NRK and VGTV, he has become a television personality in Norway.
Victor Bologan is not only a strong and creative chess grandmaster, he has also made a career in Moldovan and world chess politics. His strong will and incredible versatility have enabled him to lead a colourful and interesting life. ‘Believe in yourself’ is his motto and it has taken him to places many of us will never see.
A sparkling description of the many roads Bologan has travelled lies before you. In this autobiography you will read about the adventures of an enterprising youngster in turbulent Moldova, his collaborations with renowned chess coaches such as Vyacheslav Chebanenko, Zigurds Lanka and Mark Dvoretsky, and his alliances with top players such as Alexander Morozevich, Ruslan Ponomariov, Vladimir Kramnik and Garry Kasparov. The book also offers a candid insight into Bologan's activities as Executive Director of the World Chess Federation FIDE and his career in Moldovan national politics.
Central to this book, of course, is Bologan's chess career. His most impressive tournament victory was in Dortmund in 2003, where he beat both Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik. But he also won the incredibly strong Aeroflot Open in Moscow in 1995 and twice came first in a personal favourite, the annual Poikovsky tournament. Bologan has extensively annotated 88 of his best and most attractive games.
Victor Bologan (1971) is a world-class grandmaster who has won many prestigious tournaments. In 2005 he was ranked 18th in the world. For New In Chess Bologan has written the acclaimed and ground-breaking opening manuals The Chebanenko Slav, The Rossolimo for Club Players, The Powerful Catalan, Bologan's King's Indian, Bologan's Caro-Kann, Bologan's Ruy Lopez for Black and Bologan's Black Weapons in the Open Games.
CHESS INFORMANT’S 159th ADVENTURE
VIGOROUS
CONTENTS:
• Afek - Wijk aan Zee 2024 (Tournament Review)
• Leitao - The Difficult Art of Defence in Chess
• Gormally - My Hastings Nightmare (Danny's Chess Diary
• Kotronias - King's Indian Defence - Gligoric System (Theoretical Survey)
• Perelshteyn - The Alekhine - Exchange Variation (Theoretical Survey)
• Davies - Understanding the Openings (Theoretical Survey)
• Perunovic - The Sicilian Off-Road (Theoretical Survey)
• Marin - Old Wine in New Bottles
• Prusikin - The Caro-Kann Exchange Variation (Instructive Lesson)
• Barak Gonen - World of Correspondence Chess
• Rogers - Europe v Asia Match, Batumi 2001 (Roger’s Reminiscences)
• Griffin - Browne v Hort, Wijk aan Zee 1975 (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!
The vast majority of chess games witness familiar strategies and well known tactical motifs. These are the games that you will find in the anthologies and opening repertoires. Sometimes however, games appear that seem to have been played on a different planet.
Conventional strategies go out of the window. Familiar tactical themes are nowhere to be seen. Chaos has broken out. The pieces appear to be in open rebellion and are steadfastly refusing to do the natural jobs that they were designed for.
Having to navigate a path in such a game can be a nightmare. Do you rely purely on calculation? Is it better to trust your instincts? Can you assess the position using “normal” criteria?
In order to answer these questions, prolific chess author and coach Cyrus Lakdawala has assembled a collection of brilliantly unconventional and irrational games. The positions in these games appear almost random. Kings have gone walkabout, pieces are on bizarre squares, huge pawn rollers are sweeping all before them.
Irrational chess is like nothing you’ve seen before. As well as being highly instructive this is a hugely entertaining book.
Do not adjust your set. It’s chess, Jim, but not as we know it.
Ian Nepomniachtchi, challenger to Magnus Carlsen’s World Championship title in 2021, is an outstanding chess talent. “Nepo” as he is universally known is a fascinating player and this book assesses his career and analyses his original and creative style in great depth with numerous deeply annotated games.
Nepo is one of the very few players in the world to hold (at least prior to the match) a plus score (four wins to one with six draws) against Carlsen in classical chess. Nepo and Carlsen are peers and first started playing each other in the Under-12 category of the World Youth Championship in 2002. In that event, Nepo edged out Carlsen on tie-break. At that time he out-rated Carlsen by 100 points and was generally considered to be the more promising of the two prodigies.
Nepo is a fascinating player who loves open and irrational positions and excels when on the attack. Unsurprisingly, he cites Mikhail Tal as his all-time favorite player and says Tal is the player who has exerted the greatest influence on him. As with that great Latvian genius, Nepo thrives on anarchy and chaos and has frequently got the better of Carlsen in games with mind-boggling complications. He is also lethal when he has the initiative.
Nepo has steadily climbed the world rankings and his finest achievement was his victory in the 2020/2021 Candidates’ tournament with 8½/14 points (+5-2=7) which gave him the right to challenge Carlsen for the world title.
Cyrus Lakdawala is an International Master, a former National Open and American Open Champion, and a six-time State Champion. He has been teaching chess for over 40 years, and coaches some of the top junior players in the U.S.
Are you bored with playing it safe in the opening? Had enough of developing your pieces sensibly, aiming to control the centre and getting your king castled? Do you yearn to tear the opposition apart in the style of the great 19th century masters? Then Grandmaster Gambits 1 e4 is the book for you!
The highly successful writing duo of Richard Palliser and Simon (GingerGM) Williams have teamed up again to create a repertoire based on jettisoning a pawn (and often a whole lot more) very early on. Whatever opening your opponent favours against 1 e4, the authors have a dynamic gambiteering counter which will throw them onto their own resources.
The Sicilian Defence? Attack it with the Wing Gambit.
1...e5? Tear Black apart with the Max Lange Attack.
The French? Suffocate Black with the Advance Variation including Magnus Carlsen’s souped-up version of the Milner-Barry Gambit.
The Caro-Kann? Play the Hillbilly Attack with 2 Bc4! Your opponent might laugh but they won’t be laughing when you crash through on f7.
Forget about playing “properly” in the opening. Open 1 e4, play the Grandmaster Gambits and rip your unprepared opponents apart!
Turbo-Charge Your Tactics 1 is essentially a chess puzzle book, but not a typical one. It’s a multi-year effort by GM Mykhaylo Oleksiyenko and his world-renowned trainer IM Vladimir Grabinsky to introduce you to the world of “unnatural” tactical moves.
Presenting examples of extreme beauty, no matter where they come from – be it online bullet or world-class grandmaster praxis – this book will cure your “selective blindness” by destroying the false notion of chess principles being a set of rules, instead of helpful guidelines. Most chess games are decided by tactics, so solving tactical puzzles is the most effective path to improvement.
Turbo-Charge Your Tactics 2 concludes a multi-year effort by GM Mykhaylo Oleksiyenko and world-renowned trainer IM Vladimir Grabinsky to create the perfect chess puzzle books. This second volume builds upon the first, using games from the World Champions and their challengers. Most chess games are decided by tactics, so solving tactical puzzles is the most effective path to improvement.
This book also contains a special chapter with expert guidance on how to use chess engines. The engines might analyse precisely but they can also harm our chess understanding if followed blindly, so we must know when and how to use them.