Sergei Tkachenko, a member of the Ukrainian team that won the 5th World Chess Composition Tournament in 1997 and which came second in 2000, 2004, 2013, and 2017, has collected 100 studies whose common theme is that white ends up with just one pawn in the finale, yet manages to win or draw.
International Master Tibor Karolyi and FIDE Master Tigran Gyozalyan have written a comprehensive two-volume treatise on the life and games of Tigran Petrosian, who was world champion from 1963-1969. The present Volume I takes the reader on a journey from Tigran’s childhood, through the war years, successes in Georgian and Armenian national championships, his emergence as an elite player winning the Soviet championship and Olympic gold, and victory at the famous 1962 Candidates Tournament in Curacao. Karolyi and Gyozalyan provide deep modern analysis of 148 full games and fragments, and summarise almost all known games played by Petrosian in the period. They also provide considerable background colour on each game, with round-by-round analysis of tournaments and matches in which they were played. Very few of these games have previously been analysed in detail in modern books, and those that were have nevertheless been subjected to considerably improved analysis. Petrosian’s opponents in Volume I include world champions and challengers Fischer, Tal, Spassky, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Euwe, Korchnoi, and Bronstein, as well as leading players such as Keres, Geller, Benko, Polugaevsky, Reshevsky, Taimanov, Kotov, Gligoric, and many others. There is a special focus on his coaches Ebralidze, Lilienthal and Boleslavsky. An added bonus is the inclusion of rare photos taken from private collections in Georgia and Armenia, many of which have never before been published in the West. With a foreword by the greatest Armenian chess player of modern times Levon Aronian.
International Master Tibor Karolyi and FIDE Master Tigran Gyozalyan have written a comprehensive two-volume treatise on the life and games of Tigran Petrosian, who was world champion from 1963-1969. The present Volume II takes the reader on a journey from Tigran’s victory in the 1963 world title match against Mikhail Botvinnik, when he firmly established himself as the best player in the world, through his next two title matches against Boris Spassky in 1966 and 1969 and subsequent candidates matches against Bobby Fischer, Victor Korchnoi and other world-class players of the era. It covers all his tournaments and matches of the second half of his career, ending with his final games in 1983.
Karolyi and Gyozalyan provide deep modern analysis of 175 full games and fragments, and summarise almost all known games played by Petrosian in the period. They also provide considerable background colour on each game, with round-by-round analysis of tournaments and matches in which they were played. Many of these games have not previously been analysed in detail in modern books, and those that were have nevertheless been subjected to considerably improved analysis.
Petrosian’s opponents in Volume II include world champions and challengers Kasparov, Karpov, Fischer, Spassky, Tal, Smyslov, Botvinnik, Korchnoi, and Bronstein, as well as leading players such as Timman, Larsen, Reshevsky, Beliavsky, Polugaevsky, Portisch, Romanishin, and many others. There is a special focus on his coaches Suetin and Zaitsev.
An added bonus is the inclusion of rare photos taken from private collections in Georgia and Armenia, many of which have never before been published in the West.
Are you ready for new strategic insights about thirty-five of the most fascinating and complex chess games ever played by World Champions and other top grandmasters? Grandmaster Matthew Sadler and renowned chess writer Steve Giddins take a fresh look at some classic games ranging from Anderssen-Dufresne, played in 1852, to Botvinnik-Bronstein (1951) and Geller-Euwe (1953). They unleashed the collective power of Leela, Komodo and Stockfish to help us humans understand what happened in games of fan favourites such as Boris Spassky, Mikhail Tal, Bent Larsen and Bobby Fischer.
The first chess engines improved our appreciation of the classic games by pointing out the tactical mistakes in the original, contemporary game notes. But the expertise of Matthew Sadler is to uncover the positional course of a game with the help of the second generation of chess engines that emerged after 2018.
This book will change your perception of these games’ strategic and technical patterns. You will, for example, learn to appreciate and understand a classic Capablanca endgame. And a classic Petrosian exchange sacrifice. And a winning, and then losing, king-hunt endgame between Spassky and Tal. You will see how Larsen already understood the strength of the h-pawn march far before AlphaZero’s revelation. The engines offer new strategic ideas and plans that human players have yet to consider. Even the ‘the best ever anti- King’s Indian player’, Viktor Korchnoi, would be amazed by the engine’s unique ideas about White’s breakthroughs on the queenside.
The most instructive games are often those which are more strategic and technical. Using modern engines, the authors have re-engineered a wonderful collection of classic games, generating dozens of positional chess lessons that will help every club player and expert to improve their game.
GM Matthew Sadler is the world’s strongest amateur chess player, a New In Chess magazine contributor, and co-author of the prize-winning books Game Changer: AlphaZero’s Groundbreaking Chess Strategies and the Promise of AI and Chess for Life.
FM Steve Giddins is a prolific chess writer and journalist. He compiled and edited The New In Chess Book of Chess Improvement, wrote books on Nimzowitsch, Alekhine and Bronstein, and co-authored The Lasker Method.
Four hundred years ago, an Italian chess master, Gioachino Greco, discovered an extraordinary bishop sacrifice on h7 that often leads to checkmate or a significant material advantage. More amazing still, he recorded the idea! This book chronicles the history of that idea, what many have come to call the Classic Bishop sacrifice, from its discovery and formative years through its remarkably complex uses in modern chess. During the past century, several annotators have attempted to explain the circumstances under which the sacrifice works, and when it doesnt. Edwards reviews their efforts and, in a spectacular ninth chapter, provides a modern classification. His taxonomy of the sacrifice is comprehensive and full of pleasant surprises for beginners and even accomplished masters. This book represents a thematic approach to chess tactics and strategy. Careful readers will suddenly discover that they are able, quickly and accurately, to see 5-10 moves or more ahead in these lines. Here you will find hundreds of carefully annotated games. Learn from brilliant moves and strategies; and take full advantage of others instructive mistakes.
This book contains games from every single female World Champion, as well as young up and comers, top seasoned professionals, streamers, and even a section at Beth Harmon from the recent famed Queen’s Gambit hit show.
This book is not just for girls and women, however. Any chess player can learn from these games and discover female chess history, both from the famous players in the past right up to the present day.
How have these games been selected?
It is at this point I can mention the real reason - my UK Girls chess project called ‘She Plays To Win’ (SPTW).
This group has officially been going since April 11 th 2020. I had the idea even a few years before, but I was not sure how it could be set up. The unfortunate events of worldwide lockdown provided the answer, as the switch to being online allowed me to offer zoom lessons for UK girls as well as weekly girls tournaments on the Lichess server. I do this for free and parents have never paid anything to get involved.
Each week I cover a top female player and we analyse the game. Over the past year I have built up a large collection of games and tactics, which I felt could be published. It is the most up to date collection about women’s chess covering a variety of ages and levels.
After nearly two years, I have nearly 500 girls across the UK signed up, and a further 200 girls in our new beginners programme. I hope this is just the beginning.
After all, on our official website www.sheplaystowin.co.uk the tagline reads ‘Every Girl in the UK should play and learn chess - the educational benefits are huge’.
I can announce that I personally will not take a penny from this book, as 10% of the proceeds from sales will go directly to the She Plays To Win charity in order to further the SPTW UK girls chess projects.
So not only can you benefit a lot from this book personally, your purchase will benefit UK girls chess immensely.
Levenfish describes in vivid detail the atmosphere of pre- and post-revolutionary Russia, giving first-hand impressions of some of the most famous names in early-twentieth-century chess, such as Lasker, Rubinstein, Alekhine and Capablanca – all of whom were personally known to him. Some of the stories stay long in the memory: descriptions of the hardships endured by players in the first USSR Championship that took place in the difficult years of the Civil War; of idyllic trips to the Caucasus and Crimea; of grim struggles for survival in the winter of 1941.
Soviet Outcast comprises Levenfish’s annotations to 79 of his finest games, translated from his Russian autobiography, plus extensive bonus material including several games compiled from other sources, mostly with annotations by Levenfish himself, as well as a 30-page Afterword by GM Jacob Aagaard. This is the first time Levenfish’s memoir has been published in English.
This ebook is a part of Bundle: Chess Classics
Tired of being recommended to study chess tactics but the tactics in the books do not look anything like what could arise in the openings you play? So am I! Well, here is the answer: opening specific tactical exercises split up by variation from actual games. In this book, you will face hundreds of tactical positions, not only combinations but positions with tactical elements for you to solve and familiarize yourself with. This will help you be extra tactically alert when you are playing your games in this opening. This book covers all the variations of the exciting Budapest (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 Ng4) and Fajarowicz Gambits (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 Ne4). With well more than 200 positions and annotated solutions you are bound to improve your tactical eye in typical positions of these openings and learn a ton about the openings when you study the solutions.