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!
I was pleased to become acquainted with the endgame chess workbook by the young creative duo from Serbia. Endgame technique is often a stumbling block not only for beginner chess players but also for experienced professionals. What immediately stands out is the fresh and high-quality selection of material, as well as the fairly large number of examples. I have no doubt that the reader who diligently masters this work will, like a Jedi from the famous Star Wars saga, feel the Force within and play endgames with much greater confidence. The book is intended not only for coaches and titled players but can also be recommended to a wide audience of chess enthusiasts.
This chess book centers around an attempt to introduce analytics to modern chess, which eventually culminates in a chess personality quiz, although this takes part in the third part of the book. The final few chapters are really intended as an aperitif, and accompliment to what has gone before. So in essence, you could view this book as being made up of four parts. In the first part of this book I'll be talking about some of my recent tournaments and what I have learned in regards to my own chess. The characters I've met along the way and what we can learn from them; their mistakes and my mistakes. In the second part I will attempt to prepare you for the third and most important part, the personality quiz, which will hopefully guide the reader towards the necessary steps to make chess improvement.
The book about defense is created as an endeavor to help players who struggle with issues that are rarely written about. Namely:
– How to organize a proper defense?
– How to perry opponent’s threats and thwart his plans?
– How to create a strong counter-attack?
After a careful study of interesting and instructive examples we decided to divide the material into several logical chapters:
1. Good Defense. Learn and draw conclusions about how the best players think when solving the problems of defense in practical play.
2. Poor Defense. Examples of incorrect defense can be found at practically all levels. We believe these examples show exactly how demanding defense is.
3. The King. Modern ways of king evacuation, or keeping the king in the center. Also, we explain how the king "thinks" and takes care of himself in dangerous situations.
4. Critical moments in the game. Games and game fragments that tackle with the moments when the fate of the game is decided and how the best players react in those situations.
5. Defense in inferior endgames. Defense is not only about the king that is threatened in a game, and it is not just about thinking of the king’s safety. It is highly instructive and practical to apply defensive principles in endgames as well.
6. Openings. Presentation of modern openings and typical defensive reactions in the Italian, the Ruy Lopez and the Grunfeld Defense.
Finally, the book ends with 50 demanding exercises that should reenforce the knowledge you have gathered after a careful study of all examples.
We hope you will enjoy studying the presented material and successfully pro gress in this extremely demanding area of chess.
SERIES INTRODUCTION
There are many various concepts and approaches to creating chess books. Chess strategy books have, more or less, well-known structure and contents. Writers work on “elements, principles, concepts... The chapter titles are more or less known in advance. I suggest an alternative concept. I will try to explain how to use your pieces and how to handle situations with the same pieces in your opponent’s camp!
Not once I heard statements like: “He doesn’t know how to play with minor pieces, or “He always stays with a bad bishop”, or “He is bad in rook endgames” etc. That conclusion motivated me to focus on such peculiar problems and to explain everything related to a concrete chess piece.
EVERYTHING ABOUT THE KING
The first volume is dedicated to the most important piece – the king. Some principles are well known: in the opening we should castle as soon as possible to secure the king and give freedom to other pieces. In the middlegame we should attack the opponent’s king if he is not safe to mate and win, in the endgame we are well-advised to activate our own king in order to have one more piece in action... There are many exceptions or modifications of these principles and there are many other less common principles.
I am sure that you will learn a lot while reading this book that and you will enjoy some interesting games. The material is divided in six chapters. In the first chapter our story will be about the importance of having an active king in the endgame. The next three chapters are about launching and organizing attacks on our opponent’s unsafe king (king in the center, attacks with castling on the same side and on the opposite sides). The fifth chapter is about king evacuation, a concept of great value both in defense and attack! The final chapter focuses on art and beauty in chess and you will see brave kings in action and some risky walks performed across the whole board!
I have no doubt that the mix of well known, unknown and fresh examples will be interesting to you, dear reader.
PRACTICAL CHESS TUTOR - FROM BASIC TO MASTERY 2 is a complete manual of chess strategy for club players, with some introductory tactical themes at the very end of the book. All the crucial elements of strategy are examined in great detail by examining the most instructive classical and modern games (100 games in total).
Strategic themes we focus on are: strong and weak squares, open file, center, exchanging and improving of the pieces, bishop pair, bishop versus knight situations, various pawn structures and formations, prophylactic play etc. I decided to explore strategic themes by presenting model games in their entirety so you could have a whole picture of the developments and see how the game ended once the strategic advantage had been obtained.
I advise you to go through the whole games on a chess board and to invest time and attention to diagram positions. You can try to find the correct move in those situations on your own, having in mind that these positions are strategic in nature so quite often there are multiple good moves (you could even find some improvements over the game moves). Such practice will help you to absorb the ideas and principles much easier!
This manual can be used by students working alone or with fiends, parents who study chess with their children, and of course chess trainers who need carefully prepared material for lectures. Finally, this book can be read as a collection of instructive and entertaining chess games with special emphasis on chess strategy.
Dear readers, the book in your hands is primarily intended for all who are entering the magical world of chess, beginners, children and their parents and of course - adult ambitious improvers. This chess textbook will enable readers to strengthen their knowledge of the chess basics and fundamentals and will help trainers and chess teachers in working with their students.
* The Rules of Chess
* Basic Checkmates and Winning Material
* Essential Endgame Skills
* Tactics and Combinations
* How to play the Opening?
The author has 35 years of experience working with the most promising junior players, many of them becoming chess professionals, Grandmasters and International Masters. As a senior trainer he has gathered a deep knowledge and understanding of *what a diligent improver* should devote his attention to, and is able to guide a prudent reader with a steady hand.
This book is the first one in the series that should bring you great enjoyment and satisfaction in accumulating chess skills and winning many games along the way!
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.
Why not just to have a simple puzzle book where you are supposed to find best move in each position? Every single position is picked carefully and this method will help you develop different strategic concepts and patterns. There are no chapters or indicative names or comments to help you find solution more easily. Just positions. “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” - Leonardo da Vinci.
All these positions are new! What does that mean? We didn’t recycle old, fa mous games that everyone knows. We didn’t use material and positions from other books and courses. All positions are unique. Also, the 99% of the positions are from modern games played in the last couple of years. This book will teach you how to be flexible and practical chess player. No matter what type of position or pawn structure you have on the board, you must be able to find the best move and the best plan. The more concepts and patterns you know, the stronger player you become.
How to study this book? You should simply try to solve puzzles one by one. That’s all. After you find the move and decide what would you do in a certain position, you should go to the back pages and compare your solution with the solution in the book. We made sure that the solutions and the moves we put are precise and easy to understand. Also, we put a lot of diagrams to help you visualize better. Our personal advice is to put every position on the board and try to solve it in the old-fashioned way. But, it is totally fine to solve the positions directly from the book if you are not at home or you simply don’t have chess board with you. The way we created everything allows you to do it in the both ways. So, let’s study chess strategy in the more dynamic and fun way!
Every serious trainer must insist on strategy work, because strategy will be a powerful and probably decisive weapon against players who neglected it in their own chess study. That was my motivation to write this book, to present crucial elements and principles of strategy and to reveal its secrets to you, dear reader. After careful study of the book you will be fully equipped with strategic concepts, patterns and definitely you will catch “how it works” in chess game.
– KEY CONCEPTS OF CHESS STRATEGY (Center, Open lines, Bishop pair, Squares, Space)
– PAWN STRUCTURES (Passed pawn, Hanging pawns, Pawn majority, Doubled pawns, Isolated pawns, Backward pawn, Pawn chains, Pawn Islands and weaknesses)
– PRINCIPLES OF CHESS STRATEGY (Harmony, Activity and Initiative, Restriction and Prophylactic play)
From the Foreword by GM Dragoljub Jacimovic: I know that this book has been prepared for a long time, and being familiar with the author’s methodology and the huge number of games from which he selected the most instructive jewels, I truly believe that this work will be an exemplary book worthy of every praise and highly useful to players of different categories
Daniel "Danny" Gormally (1976) became an International Master in 1997 and a Grandmaster in 2005. He was born in South Shields and was brought into the game of chess by his father at the age of 7. Besides distinguished tournament results he played for the England national team in European Championships and Chess Olympiad. Danny Gormally is also an acclaimed chess author and analyst.
Danny Gormally is a Chess Grandmaster stuck in a fugue state. He has forgotten how to analyse - blinded by the brilliance of chess engines, every time he gets stuck he turns on the machine. In this book he attempts to discover his love of analysis and the game of chess by attempting different methods of analysis and calculation. He asks what separates the analysis methods of an amateur player with a Grandmaster, and further still what separates the very best players from super computers. It all culminates in the mind-bogglingly complex "Impossible quiz" where some of the most skilled players in chess are confronted by extremely complex positions.
If that sounds off-putting it shouldn't be - Gormally breaks down the material in a way that is comprehensible to any amateur player.
The sequel, or the second part of the “Secrets of Positional Sacrifice” manual is titled “Positional Sacrifice in Modern Chess”. We assume that readers will conclude that the subject of our analysis are recently played games, especially the games played over the last few years. The book is intended for chess players who aspire to raise the level of positional play in this particular field of expertise, as well as coaches working on chess education.
Like the previous book “Secrets of Positional Sacrifice”, the book in our hands is divided into chapters according to the material that is the subject of the sacrifice: the positional sacrifice of a pawn, exchange, piece, rook, and queen. Finally, the last chapter deals with “hot games” and contains six games played during November and December 2021. We believe that the book is as interesting and instructive as its prequel. However, the examples are a tad more complicated, primarily because of the positional rook sacrifice section. In actual fact, the examples on this kind were very difficult to find in practice, and processing them in the right way was a particular challenge for us. The first section, the positional pawn sacrifice, should encourage the reader to execute one of the most complicated positional sacrifices in practice as often as possible. On the other hand, the sacrifice of exchange is the most common and easiest to apply and can very successfully serve as a means of relieving the fear of possible sacrifice of material. Asymmetric positions, i.e., positions with an unusual distribution of material, are mostly featured in the positional piece and queen sacrifice positions. In the last chapter entitled “Hot Games,” we present the analysis on the topics of various fascinating examples, from the latest games of today’s great players. We tried to choose the examples that were easy to follow, so they are embellished with diagrams and explained verbally as well. We paid more attention to the analysis of the positional sacrifice from the moment of its execution to the end of the game. Hence, the introductory part of each example may be somewhat shorter in relation to the first book.
Finally, the invaluable exercises at the end of the book should be mentioned. The tasks cover four topics to make them as interesting and easy to solve as possible. The exercises are based on the correct assessment of asymmetric positions and, of course, on concrete calculations. In conclusion, we would like to emphasize that the book highlights the beauty of human ideas and their practical application. In some cases, the authors give preference to the human idea over the assessment of the computer. When a player cannot calculate complicated lines accurately, he should look for an alternative solution of the similar quality. One of the possible answers is the positional sacrifice that leads to asymmetric material and thus the change of the character of the fight.
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