The brainchild of 19th century Welsh seafarer and inventor, Captain William Davies Evans, The Evans Gambit has long enjoyed a reputation for daring and adventurous play. Arising after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4!, the Evans Gambit forces Black to navigate stormy seas from the outset.
IM Andrew Martin takes you on a journey through the ages, showing how the Evans Gambit was used by the leading players of the Victorian era, before being moulded into a deadly weapon by Garry Kasparov, and subsequently by modern-day grandmasters who have proved its validity in the computer era.
With additional chapters providing similarly active and aggressive ideas against Black's main alternative tries after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3, this book is the ultimate guide for 1.e4 players looking to take the fight to their opponents.
Andrew Martin is a FIDE Senior Trainer and International Master. He is a popular chess writer, presenter and commentator, renowned for his ability to clearly communicate vital ideas to club and online players.
The journey into the world of sparkling short games continues. Chess in Miniature: Volume 2 takes up where the first book left off, exploring the next set of ‘Secrets’ that underpin brilliant miniatures. From choosing appropriate openings to exploiting greed, from classical sacrifices to advanced calculation, this volume reveals how winners consistently shape games that delight and instruct.
With carefully chosen examples and insightful commentary, the book not only entertains but also inspires readers to attempt their own mini-masterpieces. Whether you want to sharpen your tactical instincts, enrich your opening play, or simply enjoy some of the most striking games in chess, this volume will both instruct and delight.
David LeMoir is an experienced chess player and the author of several successful books, with the canny knack of presenting new ways to look at sacrifices and tactics.
Most chess players dream of winning quickly and stylishly, but few know how to increase their chances of such success. Chess in Miniature: Volume 1 takes on the challenge by presenting the eight key Secrets to winning in 25 moves or fewer, with eight additional vital Secrets to follow in Chess in Miniature: Volume 2.
David LeMoir presents the crucial concepts using illuminating examples, containing an ideal balance of short variations and instructive prose. Learn how to become an Opportunist Tactician and a Canny Investor, while aware that The Queen Rules and Beauty Favours The Strong. A final ‘challenge chapter’ is included to test and reinforce the reader’s newfound understanding.
Have you reached a plateau in chess? Do you ever struggle to find a plan, or learn after a game that your chosen strategy was all wrong? Expand Your Chess Strategy will dramatically enhance your ability in this vital area of chess, providing the key to unlock further improvement.
Grandmaster Neil McDonald offers a comprehensive strategic toolkit, using carefully selected examples covering pawn breaks, attacking and defending, how to optimise the value of your pieces, and much more. Expand Your Chess Strategy with this book, and take your results and rating to the next level and beyond!
Neil McDonald has been a grandmaster for almost thirty years. An acclaimed author and sought-after coach, he is the ideal guide towards improvement in chess strategy.
The chess board is rarely big enough for both armies, leading to a fight for the centre, and a fight for space, which together with material and time are key elements of chess strategy.
How we fight for extra space and exploit it once conquered is the topic of this volume in the Winning Chess Strategies series, Exploiting a Space Advantage. Cyrus Lakdawala explains how to squeeze your opponents into submission, when a space advantage leads to an attack, why we should be careful not to overextend, as well as many more concepts that can help you better understand the elusive concept of space.
Get ready to stop feeling cramped and start grabbing some space!
Cyrus Lakdawala is an International Master, a former National Open and American Open Champion, and six-time State Champion. He has been teaching chess for over 40 years, and coaches top US juniors.
All chess players have heard about the power of the bishop pair – but many have no understanding of when the two bishops are superior, nor why they are superior, when they are, and least of all, what to do with the advantage of the two bishops, when achieved.
Questions like these are at the epicentre of this refreshing new project, headlined by prolific and well-established author Cyrus Lakdawala. Keeping variations to a bear minimum, but using extensive explanations combined with his trademark prose, the American International Master dissects this well-known but rarely understood theme, in terms that make it accessible to players on all levels of their chess development. Exploiting the Bishop Pair aims to be both an exciting and pleasant read, as well as a deeply instructive textbook, granting the ambitious player all they need to put in their arsenal an invaluable Winning Chess Strategy.
Chess games are won and lost in the fight to create, attack and exploit each other’s weaknesses. A weakness can be of pawns, pieces, squares, files, on colour complexes – and so on.
Pinpointing weaknesses and knowing how to exploit them is an integral part of building a Winning Chess Strategy. Hence, in this volume of our series, American author Cyrus Lakdawala tackles this multifaceted term, making it approachable for anyone wishing to learn how to find and exploit the soft spots in their opponent’s camps.
Dan Heisman has been teaching chess for over 50 years and has been doing so full-time since 1996. He therefore knows very well what kind of advice actually helps players improve. This book is a distillation of that advice.
The book is based around his X (twitter) column "Chess tip of the day" which has been running since 2009 and features over 4,000 tips. The most useful advice has been distilled into 164 tips that contain additional helpful material, including illustrative stories and many diagrams with instructive play.
These tips represent ways to highlight and address the most common problems experienced by chess enthusiasts of all levels. They also suggest ways to mitigate or even avoid these these problems entirely and by doing so improve their chess play and learn to study more effectively. The tips lean towards general improvement rather than focusing on specific positions.
The topics addressed include: general improvement, thought processes, psychology, tactics, safety, positional concepts, strategy, openings and endgames.
Many decently strong players aspire to become an international master. They see very clearly that the grandmaster title is most likely beyond them but the IM title is one they feel they could achieve, if only...
It's this "if only" bit that gets in the way. If only... what? Do they need to study the openings more? Should they focus on improving tactical skill? Do they need to study the classics? Should they concentrate on endgames? Would it help to play blindfold?
There are innumerable books on the openings, a decent number on strategy and plenty on the endgame. However, if you want a book that explains at length the steps needed to improve your skills from those of a very good player to one of IM strength, you will look long and hard and probably in vain. Until now.
In this book, highly prolific author Cyrus Lakdawala maps out a route to take you along this journey. He is well qualified to do so as this is a journey he made himself (he did not shine as a junior) and so knows exactly what to do. He is brutally honest about his failures along the way and this will help readers to avoid natural pitfalls.
Lakdawala identifies the key mental, physical and psychological processes that need to be mastered to achieve IM standard making this book the ultimate chess self-improvement tool.
One of the sharpest lines to meet 1 d4 is the Modern Benoni (1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 d5 e6 4 Nc3 exd5 5 cxd5 d6). The hallmark of this opening is that Black makes the positional concession of allowing White a central majority and in return hopes for counterchances via active piece play. However, there are many other weird and wonderful ways to handle these "Benoni structures" as the very experienced chess coach and author Andrew Martin demonstrates in this highly engaging book.
Martin introduces the reader to (amongst others) the Vulture (1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 d5 Ne4), the Clarendon Court (1 d4 c5 2 d5 f5) and the Snake Benoni (1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 d5 e6 4 Nc3 exd5 5 cxd5 Bd6!?). All of these are outlandish tries but nevertheless set White difficult problems to solve at the board.
In other systems Black plays "Nimzo-style" and jettisons the dark-squared bishop in order to inflict weaknesses on the white pawn structure. One typical line is 1 d4 g6 2 c4 Bg7 3 Nc3 c5 4 d5 and now 4 ... Bxc3+!? 5 bxc3. This is a line favoured by elite grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura who has used it frequently in blitz and rapid chess. An advantage of playing this way is that it will usually take well booked up White players outside their comfort zone and force them onto their own resources.
If you want to inject a big dose of dynamism into your play with Black, the create some mayhem in the Benoni.
The London System, reached after 1.d4 and 2.Bf4, has grown from a quiet sideline into a main-road opening played at every level up to the World Championship. In Chess Opening Repertoire: The London System, Cyrus Lakdawala presents a complete White repertoire built on the pure 2.Bf4 move order (covering every major Black setup, from the Classical ...d5 and ...e6 structures to the King's Indian, Grünfeld, Benoni and Dutch), with a question-and-answer format that tests the reader's understanding throughout.
What's Covered?
About the Author:
Cyrus Lakdawala is an International Master, a former National Open and American Open Champion, and a six-time State Champion. He has taught chess for over 40 years, coaches top US juniors, and is one of the most prolific chess authors of his generation.
The Accelerated Dragon (1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 g6) has attracted the attention of many creative players. In the past these included Tigran Petrosian and Bent Larsen while modern aficionados include the dominant player of the era, Magnus Carlsen, as well as Viswanathan Anand, Veselin Topalov, Vassily Ivanchuk, Jan-Krzysztof Duda and many others.
The opening is characterised by the swift fianchetto of the dark-squared bishop on g7. It is a close relative of the "normal" Dragon (1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 g6) but with one crucial difference - Black delays committing the d-pawn to d6, a decision which complicates the play. If White does not respond accurately, Black will often gain the opportunity to play ...d7-d5 in one go. This can mimic the effect of a bomb going off as the white position is laid to waste.
The traditional reason why the accelerated version of the Dragon is viewed with a little suspicion is that with 5 c4 White can set up the Maroczy Bind - a potentially powerful clamp on Black's game. However, there are good ways to fight against this plan and they are examined in detail.
– A strong aggressive line where "natural" moves can be disastrous for White.
– A complete repertoire for Black against 1 e4.
– The question and answer method continually tests the reader's understanding.
Nigel Davies is an International Grandmaster and FIDE Senior Trainer. He is the author of numerous books and DVDs on the game and is known for the clarity of his explanations. Davies was part of the victorious England over-50 side at the recent European Senior Team Chess Championships, winning team gold, as well as an individual silver medal for his performance on board four.
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