The author presents a full opening repertory for the club player, which is analysed in seven volumes. In the books you will find many novelties for both sides, with a full move-to-move presentation. Furthermore, the reader will get access to middlegame strategies, endgame techniques and common tactical motifs, which are patterning the proposed variations.
In the fifth volume the openings of the Chigorin Defence, the Queen's Gambit Declined, the Tarrasch Defence, and the Semi-Tarrasch Defence are presented.
This ebook is a part of Bundle: Grivas Opening Laboratory
The ambition of many chess players at various levels is to build a full and reliable repertoire against White’s major starting moves. This book is designed to provide exactly that: a complete list of variations needed to know in order to confidently meet 1.d4. The goal is to lift the burden of line selection and research off your shoulders and show you exactly what you need to know to get out of the 1.d4 openings at least equal with the black pieces.
I base the repertoire on the Nimzo-Indian and Bogo-Indian Defenses. The spirit of Indian Defenses is based on flexibility and harmony. As you will notice during the course of reading the book, the lines recommended here rarely end with huge imbalances or clear weaknesses for Black. Quite often White will get the bishop pair but will have to suffer pawn weaknesses or Black’s greater piece activity in return.
Most of the lines are positional, not tactical in character. That means that stepping out of the path outlined in the book should not get you in too much trouble, as long as your moves have solid positional foundations. While playing Black, you have to accept that occasionally you will not equalize, or get surprised or out-prepared. Learning the material from this book should sharply limit the extent of such instances, thus improving your overall results.
Finally, I have an important piece of advice: remember about color strategy! The Bogo-Indian is mainly based on dark-squared control, while the Nimzo-Indian does so on the light squares. In case you forget what to do, this may prove a very useful guideline when choosing a move.
I wish you pleasant reading and great results against 1.d4!
In this book, Grandmaster Neil McDonald studies one of the most important openings of all, the Ruy Lopez. This famous opening enjoys a long and distinguished history and is still widely regarded as White's strongest choice after 1.e4 e5. McDonald shares his experience and knowledge of the Lopez, examines the main ideas for both sides and offers answers to the key questions.
Fred Reinfeld’s timeless Attack and Counterattack in Chess starts with the basic premise that White plays to build on the natural initiative that is inherent in having the first move, while Black plays to sap White’s divine right to this initiative, only to take it over the moment it is possible. The book is neatly divided into two sections: How White manages to make good use of his right to the first move by taking advantage of typical mistakes by Black, and how Black succeeds in challenging that right and taking over the initiative by jumping on blunders by White. There are several points to keep in mind as you peruse the games involved. The first is that this is not an opening book. The examples of play are all built around a complete chess game that came to a logical conclusion based on one player’s muffs and the other player’s exploitation of those errors. The other point is that the poor moves that are taken advantage of were to some extent based on carelessness or inattention or lack of knowledge but were also set up on purpose by the winning player.
The French Defence is a classical opening that has featured in the repertoire of many elite grandmasters. Black generally concedes a slight spacial disadvantage early but in return gains a sound structure and middlegame opportunities to undermine the white centre. A close study of the French Defence can be very rewarding for all players as the structures and themes that arise are found in numerous other openings. In this book grandmaster Damian Lemos guides the reader through the complexities of this dynamic opening and explores all the important variations.
It is hard to understate the importance of tactic ability to overall chess proficiency. Of course other elements such as a knowledge of opening play and an understanding of strategy are also important. However, it is undoubtedly the case that 99% of games are won or lost because one player either spots or overlooks a tactic. Consider your own games and just imagine how much stronger you would be if you never overlooked a tactical idea.
The good news is that your tactical ability is not some genetically-acquired unalterable trait. Tactical ability can always be improved through the application of diligent practice. Tactical themes are repetitive. The same arrangements of pieces occur again and again and a continual study of the subtle interactions between the forces will inevitably lead to a greater sharpness in actual play.
In Tactical Training, experienced chess coach and prolific author Cyrus Lakdawala guides the reader through numerous tactical themes. Topics include:
– Checkmating patterns,
– The 32 major combinational concepts,
– Numerous positions ranked in terms of level of difficulty.
The final chapter focuses on a 2020 online match between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, currently the top two ranked players in blitz, the form of chess where tactics predominate.
Pawn Play Bundle
In Coaching Kasparov, Year by Year and Move by Move Garry Kasparov's long-term coach, second and mentor Alexander Nikitin tells the story of how he trained Kasparov from a brilliant but raw junior into becoming and then remaining the world champion.Volume II , the present work, covers the period 1982-1990, including the first four world championship matches against Karpov and the candidates matches against Smyslov, Korchnoi and Beliavsky. The present volume contains 39 fully annotated games. These include 20 secret training games that Kasparov played against his grandmaster coaches Evgeny Vladimirov and Gennady Timoshchenko in 1982-83 that have never before been published and which are annotated by Grandmaster Dorian Rogozenco, national coach of the German Chess Federation and captain of the German national team. These games are provided by the Kasparov family specially for the 2020 edition of this book. The reader has a unique opportunity to gain an insight into Kasparov's secret preparation in those years, which were a new starting point in his career: he had to adjust his openings. Rogozenco is a big expert on Kasparov's games, having helped FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov prepare for his planned match against Kasparov in 2003. Kasparov's legendary opening repertoire, which was to define trends in chess theory for decades, was created not just through deep analysis, but also via training games. The never previously published material in this book consists of 16 games with classical time control and 4 rapid thematic games. Testing the Catalan for the first time with white, searching for ideas in the King's Indian with black, preparing the Queen's Gambit with both colors, playing typical Sicilian positions and trying new openings (for instance the Tarrasch as the big surprise for his candidates match versus Beliavsky) - all this can be found in these games. Further, the time records on most of Kasparov's original scoresheets (all of them pictured in this book) show that Kasparov and his coaches paid serious attention to such an important training aspect as the distribution of time during the game. From intuitive positional sacrifices to precisely calculated combinations and instructive play in typical pawn structures - the training games provide a lot of interesting material for both players and coaches. The other games, annotated by Nikitin, are well known, but Nikitin explains many of Kasparov's decisions in those games from the point of view of the world champion's coach, providing the context of his pupil's thought process and mistakes and tracing his progress as they together gradually out-thought Korchnoi and then Karpov. He also uses these games to illustrate and expand upon his coaching advice. His many insights include the preparation of the “cross-fire” strategy (playing the same opening against the same opponent with both colors) and a systematic approach to maintaining time discipline during games based on chronometric analysis. This makes his commentary quite unique and instructive, of formidable practical use to budding players, coaches and parents.
In the second volume of the Kotronias on the King’s Indian series, grandmaster Vassilios Kotronias turns his attention to the main line of the famous Mar del Plata variation, which arises after the opening moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0–0 6.Be2 e5 7.0–0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Ne1. This leads to some of the most complicated and theoretically challenging positions in the King’s Indian, but Kotronias provides a world-class repertoire for Black, including a wealth of original ideas and analysis.
This ebook is a part of Bundle: Kotronias KID