Rook endgames are the most frequently recurring endgames and also one of the most exciting areas of chess, with mind bending tactical opportunities and dizzying nuances available. They have unsurprisingly been a big topic in endgame literature, with a heavy focus on the set theoretical positions and their logic and fixed conclusions (see the excellent Theoretical Rook Endgames by GM Sam Shankland, published as a sister volume to this book as the peak example of this).
Conceptual Rook Endgames goes in a different direction. Focused on two dozen major concepts, the book explains the mechanisms of rook endgames in a novel way, by building foundations with simple examples, which can be seen in the most complicated examples as well. Rook endgames will remain rich and surprising, as they are for the greats, but armed with this book, your comprehension of them will skyrocket.
Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard is the most talented chess writer of his generation. He won the British Championship in 2007, but is mostly known for his multi-award winning books and his work with students that have won club, country, state, national, continental and world championships, as well as Olympiad golds (board and overall), the World Cup and Candidates tournament.
Endgame Labyrinths presents the reader with 1002 challenging studies selected and truncated, with their usefulness for the practical player in mind. It is common for studies to be extended by less interesting manoeuvres or by incomprehensible sequences, before the main themes come into play. The studies in this book have been pruned to leave the reader with 1002 clear and solvable challenges.
A few years of extensive selection, analysis, reselection, reanalysis and refining have gone into putting together the study book for the practical player with the most value ever.
Steffen Nielsen is the reigning World Champion in endgame composition. His creativity and aesthetics in his compositions have had a massive influence on modern competition. He is a strong club player, with a good understanding of the difficulties practical players face over the board. Steffen is also a life-long supporter of the football club AaB, which is less successful...
GM Jacob Aagaard is one of the leading chess writers and trainers of his generation. His students have played successfully at all levels and continue to do so. His books are used all over the world, by top players and amateurs alike.
"Absolute Gold" – GM Anish Giri
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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.
Grandmaster Preparation
Positional chess remains a mystery to many and yet an understanding of the finer points of the game so often makes the difference between two equally matched players. Improve your positional play and you will see chess in a totally new dimension! In this unique book, International Master Jacob Aagaard selects many original examples of positional chess, the créme de la créme of those that he uses for training and study. Aagaard also delves deeply into the ideas of positional evaluation and analysis.
Being able to solve puzzles and combinations is one of the principal components of a successful chess player. But how can one improve on such an important skill? How can one acquire combinational vision? The answer lies within the pages of this book! Experienced chess writer Jacob Aagaard explains how tactical intuition and ability develops and uses pattern recognition to improve the readers tactical ammunition. Is also no secret that the continued practice of puzzles and combinations helps to sharpen the chess brain, and here there is a wealth of exercises and problems to solve accompanied by the full solutions and explanations. This book is a must for the serious competitive player.
There are many differing opinions amongst the top players in the world of chess, but there is one thing upon which World Champions, Grandmasters and other experts all agree: the art of chess calculation is the absolute key to the success of a player. Master this discipline and you can surely expect your results to improve dramatically. And yet there have been very few serious attempts in the past by chess authors to delve into this delicate topic, perhaps not surprisingly given its complexity and difficulty. In Excelling at Chess Calculation, Jacob Aagaard tackles the subject matter head on, unravelling the many secrets behind chess calculation and arming the reader with the necessary tools to be able to calculate effectively at the chessboard. Aagaard pays particular attention to the searching practical questions like "when should you calculate?", "how can you discover candidate moves?" and "how long should you spend on critical moves?" A thorough study of this book will enable you to calculate with confidence in future games.
Some players become good at chess, some very good, while others excel at the game. Jacob Aagaard identifies the key factors that separate the very strong players from the rest. He includes chapters on when to calculate, how to evaluate positions, how to study theory, how to study the endgame and when to force the position. Anyone who follows the advice in this book cannot fail to improve their feel for the game.
Jacob Aagaard shares his simple three-step tool of positional analysis that he has used with club players and famous grandmasters to improve their positional decision-making. Working from the starting point that all players who aspire to play at international level have a certain amount of positional understanding, Aagaard lays out an easy-to-follow training plan that will improve everyone’s intuition and positional decision-making.
This ebook is a part of Bundle: Grandmaster Preparation
How do we make better decisions on the chessboard? GM Jacob Aagaard, the author of Grandmaster Preparation: Thinking Inside the Box, will teach you just that.
The focus of this book is to break down the most important topics relating to chess improvement, many of which deal with the psychological aspects of the game, and to illustrate how to overcome critical thinking barriers that hinder progress.
The topics include the psychology of chess improvement, four types of decisions made during a game, calculation techniques, abstract thinking, strategic concepts, and more.
Thinking Inside the Box is the final volume of the award-winning Grandmaster Preparation series which consists of 5 exercise books: Calculation, Positional Play, Strategic Play, Attack & Defence, and Endgame Play. Each book focuses on specific ways of looking at various types of positions and includes exercises to enhance understanding and application of key concepts.
A thought-provoking read, this final book is meant to be a conversational piece, unifying concepts written in the previous five books. It is the ultimate self-improvement guide, catering to amateurs and world-class players alike aiming to overcome their plateau and achieve better results.
In the words of Aagard himself, “Improvement in chess is hard; knowing how it can be done should be easy.”
Jacob Aagaard digs deep into the most complex area of chess thinking. The games and exercises in this book transcend regular chess skills, such as pattern recognition, calculation and positional analysis.