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 lines where Black does not meet 3.Bb5 with 3...a7-a6, and vast portions of this volume, are devoted to Berlin Defense Closed lines and the Berlin Wall Ending.
Sergei Tkachenko has written a fascinating account of Alexander Alekhine’s time spent in Odessa during World War I, the Russian Revolution and Civil War, as well as of the impact of Odessa on his later life. The book includes 24 complete games (some handicapped) with annotations from Alekhine, Sergei Tkachenko and Sergei Voronkov (co-author with David Bronstein of Secret Notes), as well as five puzzles and one fragment. Alekhine played in 22 of these games and the fragment and set three of the puzzles.
Marshall’s Brilliant Victory
In the spring of 1904, most of the chess world’s elite gathered in the sleepy northwestern Pennsylvania town of Cambridge Springs, where the first great tournament of the twentieth century was to take place. World Champion Emanuel Lasker topped the field. The champions of America (Harry Pillsbury), Russia (Mikhail Chigorin), France (David Janowski) and the Austria-Hungarian Empire (Carl Schlechter) were also playing.
Among the other players in this historic fifteen-round-robin event was a young master from Brooklyn, Frank Marshall. He had some international experience, including defeating World Champion Lasker in their individual encounter at Paris in 1900. However, he certainly was not considered among the favorites at the time. Nevertheless, Marshall finished in first place, two full points ahead of the rest of the field, the only undefeated player.
The story of this great tournament is superbly told by author Robert Sherwood. Each game is deeply annotated, while contemporary sources and rare archival photos nicely supplement the round-by-round account.
With this victory, Frank Marshall took his place among the world-class players of his era. You are invited to join Marshall on his journey in this splendid account of his magnificent triumph in the first major international tournament of the twentieth century.
The Royal Chess Couple is a combined attempt to introduce the various traits of the most significant piece with the most powerful piece on the chessboard. Following a short historic review of the development and metamorphoses of each piece over time, the reader is offered 240 positions (480 in total) from tournament practice as well as from the magic world of chess composition. In each position a royal piece plays either a crucial offensive or defensive role. These positions are subdivided into 60 themes, four positions per theme, arranged by their increasing difficulty. The reader may use the positions as training challenges to improve his understanding and playing skills or just to enjoy playing through them. In either case he will learn to appreciate the characteristic qualities of each piece alone and in collaboration with other pieces.
CHESS INFORMANT’S 146th ADVENTURE
Once Upon a Time
CONTENTS:
NORWAY CHESS 2020 GM Elshan Moradiabadi & GM Miloš Perunović
FOUR NATIONS CHESS LEAGUE (4NCL) GM Gawain Jones
CRITICAL TIMES AT THE US CHESS CHAMPIONSHIPS 2020 WGM Sabina-Francesca Foişor
THE LEGEND OF HENRIQUE MECKING GM Rafael Leitão
HOW I SHOULD HAVE WON THREE BRITISH CHESS CHAMPIONSHIPS GM Daniel Gormally
THE ENGLISH OPENING – PART II GM Aleksander Delchev
THE ENGLISH REPERTOIRE FOR WHITE – PART II GM Ivan Ivanišević
SACRIFICING THE QUEEN – PART II GM Kannappan Priyadharshan
POSITIONAL EXCHANGE SACRIFICE – Occupying The Outpost GM Michael Prusikin
THE BEAUTY OF THE KING MARCH GM Sundar Mohanraj Shyam
ROGERS' REMINISCENCES – LINARES 2003 GM Ian Rogers
FROM THE CHESS INFORMANT ARCHIVES Douglas Griffin
Traditional sections: games, combinations, endings, puzzles, 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!
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.
The Belgian master Edgard Colle was one of the most dynamic and active chess players of the 1920s and early 1930s. Though his international career lasted only ten years, Colle played in more than 50 tournaments, as well as a dozen matches. Moreover, he played exciting and beautiful chess, full of life, vigor, imagination and creativity. As with such greats as Pillsbury and Charousek, it was a tragedy for the game that his life was cut short, at just age 34.
Author Taylor Kingston has examined hundreds of Colle’s games, in an effort to understand his skills and style, his strengths and weaknesses, and present an informed, balanced picture of him as a player. Colle emerges as a courageous, audacious, and tenacious fighter, who transcended the limitations his frail body imposed, to battle the giants of his day and topple many of them. 110 of Colle’s best, most interesting, and representative games have been given deep and exacting computer analysis. This often revealed important aspects completely overlooked by earlier annotators, and overturned their analytical verdicts. But the computer’s iron logic is tempered always with a sympathetic understanding that Colle played, in the best sense, a very human kind of chess.
Though not intended as a tutorial on the Colle System, the book has many instructive examples of that opening. Additionally, there is an extensive excerpt from Max Euwe’s Gedenkboek Colle, several other memorial tributes, biographical information about many of Colle’s opponents, his full known tournament and match record, and all his available tournament crosstables.
We invite the reader to get acquainted with this wounded but valiant warrior, whom Hans Kmoch called a “chess master with the body of a doomed man and the spirit of an immortal hero.”
CHESS INFORMANT’S 151st ADVENTURE
Eternally Puzzled
WIJK AAN ZEE 2022 GM Ivan Sokolov
FIDE GRAND PRIX 2022 GM Elshan Moradiabadi
THE CLASH OF GENERATIONS GM Rafael Leitão
THE BERLIN RUY LÓPEZ GM Mikhail Golubev
THE SCANDINAVIAN – Part I GM Nigel Davies
NEW IDEAS IN THE PAULSEN SICILIAN GM Miloš Perunović
KING’S INDIAN, FIANCHETTO – Part II GM Krisztián Szabó
POSITIONAL ZUGZWANG GM Ivan Ivanišević
BISHOP PAIR IN CLOSED POSITIONS GM Michael Prusikin
IDEAS AND PLANS IN ISOLATED QUEEN’S PAWN (IQP) GM Sabina-Francesca Foişor
ROGERS’ REMINISCENCES – Manila Olympiad 1992 GM Ian Rogers
CHAMPION OF THE NEW EPOCH GM Marian Petrov
Traditional sections: games, combinations, endings, Tournament reviews, the best game from the preceding volume and the most important theoretical novelty from the preceding volume.