Improve Your Chess Now is a modern chess classic and one of the most inspiring chess improvement manuals. Adult improvers frequently name this book as one of their primary sources in the popular Perpetual Chess Podcast of Ben Johnson.
The author is an American grandmaster now living in Norway. With infectious enthusiasm, Tisdall covers a wide range of topics, including visualization and calculation, pattern recognition, the psychological aspects of chess, the art of defence and the wisdom of blindfold chess – all still relevant more than 25 years later.
The 1997 classic is reprinted with a modern design and a new foreword by the author.
Jonathan Tisdall (1958 in Buffalo, New York) is an American-Norwegian Grandmaster and experienced international journalist, covering many World Championship matches, and is a regular contributor to New In Chess magazine.
The Fearsome Fascination of Kingwalks! Marching your king across the board – at times right through or into enemy lines – may be both exhilarating and terrifying. Nothing may be quite as satisfying as a majestic kingwalk across the board which brings you glorious victory. And nothing as tragicomic as a needless journey ending in epic failure. Chessplayers are fascinated by kingwalks, perhaps because of their inherent contradiction and even implausibility. The most important – and vulnerable – chess piece does something other than trying to remain safe. Topics include: Kingwalks to Prepare an Attack; Kingwalks in Anticipation of an Endgame; Kingwalks to Defend Key Points; Kingwalks to Attack Key Points or Pieces; Mating Attacks; Escaping to Safety Across the Board; Escaping to Safety Up the Board; Kingwalks in the Opening; Kingwalks in the Endgame; Double Kingwalks; and Unsuccessful Kingwalks. For sheer entertainment as well as instructive value, the kingwalk is transcendent!
Bent Larsen is one of the most celebrated chess players of the twentieth century. Larsen is the man who pushed Bobby Fischer down to Board 2 on the Rest of the World team in 1970. The Danish grandmaster had spectacular results, but chess fans appreciated even more his creativity and fighting spirit. For Larsen, a drawish-looking position was no reason to halt a game, as he had the ability to create magic out of thin air.
Learn from Bent Larsen is a labour of love by award-winning author Mihail Marin. This project was originally planned as one chapter in a book about several players, but as ever more gems emerged, it became clear that Bent Larsen deserved a book of his own.
Mihail Marin is a grandmaster from Romania. His books for Quality Chess have established him as one of the world’s finest chess authors.
Imagine you are a club player who has been given the opportunity to talk at length with a famous grandmaster. How would you make the most of this opportunity? Club players are unaware of the subtleties in Grandmaster chess. Great players can analyze chess at a depth that is unfathomable to amateurs. However, having reached such a high level can make it difficult to understand what is lacking in the mind of the amateur. Lessons with a Grandmaster bridges this gap between grandmaster and amateur through a series of conversations between teacher, the renowned Grandmaster Boris Gulko, and student Dr. Joel R. Sneed, a professor of psychology and amateur chess player. The lessons are based on Gulko's own battles against fellow grandmasters, and there is particular focus on strategy, tactics and the role of psychology in chess competition.
Magnus Carlsen’s mastery of the middlegame is astonishing, even by the standards of World Champions. But how did this power develop, and what can the rest of us learn from it? To explain the mysteries requires another elite grandmaster, and Ivan Sokolov is perfectly qualified for this role. Magnus Carlsen’s Middlegame Evolution allows the reader to celebrate the brilliance of the highest-rated chess player in history while learning from his example. With insightfully annotated games, Sokolov takes us inside the mind of a chess genius.
What exactly makes the greatest players of all time, such as Magnus Carlsen, Bobby Fischer, and Garry Kasparov stand out from the rest? The basic aspects of chess (calculation, study of opening theory, and technical endgame ability) are of course of great importance. However, the more mysterious part of chess ability lies within the thought process.
In particular:
• How does one evaluate certain moves to be better than others?
• How does one improve their feel of the game?
This book will tackle this woefully underexplored aspect of chess: the logic behind the game. It will explain how chess works at a fundamental level.
Topics include:
• What to think about when evaluating a position.
• How to formulate and execute plans.
• How to generate and make use of the initiative.
The reader also has plenty of opportunities to test their decision-making by attempting 270 practical exercises. These are mostly designed to develop understanding, as the justification of the moves is more important than the actual correct answer.
The engine has become the “Holy Cow” to which all chess players now pray regardless of their religious convictions or rating. Far from being a foe or rival it has become an invaluable helper, consultant and the highest of authorities. Since the highest of all oracles is soulless and cynical it is ready to help anyone ignoring opinions and preferences. Therefore, the task before each player is to use this dominant and universally accessible power to their particular advantage.
I may be old-fashioned, but I keep using for my inspiration the treasure of the past. It does not make sense to speculate whether, for instance, Carlsen is stronger than Fischer or Korchnoi, as matches between players separated in time by so many decades are impossible. But this book aims to prove that some of the basic aspects of our game did not change over the generations. The same kind of brilliant ideas and mistakes are played again and again in specific situations. I actually launch an invitation to examine the games of the classics, featuring ideas thought over only by human brains, and by no means less deep than those used today. We all use computer assistance when preparing or writing, but at the chess board we are all alone with our opponent, so educating our mind to work along the classical values is essential.It is virtually impossible to write a "complete" chess course, as the general themes and examples to each of them are practically inexhaustible. But I hope that after studying the book the reader will feel enriched, technically and aesthetically. I remember my enthusiasm when receiving my first original copy of the Chess informant in 1987 (number 43) after having annotated some of my games from the Warsaw zonal tournament, ending in my first qualification to the Interzonal. Almost a third of a century has passed since then, but I am looking forward to hold this new book in my hands with no less excitement.