Tell us a little bit about yourself and your chess career

I learned chess in my 20s! That’s really late if someone wants to become a strong chess player. Also, at that point, I had a very demanding university school and I had to work to make a living. So, naturally, it wasn’t possible for me to dedicate a lot of my time to chess.

In a way, I was back then what today is known as an “adult chess improver”. Today, there is an awesome internet community for these improvers, and a lot of resources to help them, but back in the start of the 00s, the possibilities were far more limited. 

Still, I was lucky to have met great people who became longtime friends and helped me improve by playing local friendly games and analyzing my tournament games. I soon reached 1900 FIDE. Something not incredible of course, but I still feel proud I was able to achieve it.

I soon discovered that what really fascinated me, was the interconnection between computer science (the topic I was studying on) and chess. So, I decided to spend more time understanding chess engines and even programming my own chess apps. 

Around 2011, I became a correspondence player. A natural evolution for people who are fascinated by computer chess. I managed to become an ICCF IM. I currently play at the finals of the European Championship and the semi-finals of the World Championship. 

With the rise of new chess engines, it has become nearly impossible to win correspondence games, but I’ll still ask you to cross your fingers for me to get one of these two titles.

A computer chess geek spends a lot of time analyzing chess openings. So, this became my area of expertise. I was soon approached by GMs and other ambitious players who realized that someone with my skill set could help them get an edge in their opening play.

And that’s where my chess career has been more successful. Helping GMs and other ambitious titled players win national championships, norms or play in important tournaments like Olympiads, top tournaments and World Championships.

What is your favorite chess game that you’ve played?

I still remember this game that I played after about a year that I started playing chess. Unfortunately, I have lost the name of my opponent. I remember that it was a 1300 FIDE-rated young player. I was so enthusiastic about this game that what mattered to me was how I played in the following position:

That’s not my best game, or my best result, but I don’t think that any other game will beat this one in my mind. It is my favorite game!

What is your favorite chess opening?

The Spanish Opening (or the Ruy Lopez). It arises after  1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5. It has a remarkable history. All the World Champions have played it for both colors and it is still an incredibly rich opening to study for both colors.

What inspired you to write chess books?

This happened due to tragic incident.

In 2009, my coach (who was also a best friend) and I, FM Nikos Karapanos were planning to create a chess school. I was responsible for the openings we would teach to the young students of the school.

FM Karapanos, had already many successful students in many cities in Greece. One of his biggest successes was coaching a school from a small Greek city (Amfissa, with a population of a bit more than 6,000) to end up 3rd in the team school championships. This was considered an impossible feat at that time. 

Unfortunately, my coach died during a chess game. And his death was also dramatic. He was playing this position against the now GM Dan Zoler from Israel:

Zoler’s last move was 36…Nc5. He was essentially waiting to resign, after the obvious 37.Rxf7+

Karapanos had played an incredible game, true to his attacking style, sacrificing a queen for the attack. He now had 2 minutes on the clock and was walking around the playing hall, feeling certain that he will soon finish the game. He saw his opponent’s move. He came on the board. He had two minutes on his clock. More than enough time of course, as he already knew what was his threat. 

But, this is when something weird happened. He wasn’t making a move. Half a minute passed. Then a minute… His opponent, a doctor, realized that something was wrong with his opponent. Karapanos soon fell from his chair, suffering a heart attack. He received immediate help from his opponent and was transferred to the hospital within minutes of the incident.

Alas, he didn’t make it… He was 42 years old.

This was a shock for me. I tried to keep his memory alive by attempting to publish the work we had done together on one of his favorite openings, the Tarrasch Defence. An opening that the great Efim Geller had taught to him when Karapanos was a junior, as Geller served for a brief period as the coach of the Greek national team.

There was one publication house that got excited to publish my work. Quality Chess, with Jacob Aagaard as a co-author. I am fortunate to have Jacob believe in me back then. This was the start of a life-long friendship with Jacob.

By the way, a bit before Karapanos left to play in the tournament where he played his last game, he told me that he was certain that one day I’d surpass his coaching achievements.

In 2017, I helped Sabina Foisor to win the US Women’s championship and I helped the school from the small city of Poligiros (population of 10,000) to win second place in the Greek school team championships.

It was only then, that I felt that I fulfilled Karapanos’ prophecy.

Rest in peace my friend. I owe you everything.

At Forward Chess, we have your books; Playing 1.d4 d5, A Classical Repertoire, Playing 1.e4 e5 – A Classical Repertoire, Playing the English, Playing the French, and The Tarrasch Defence. You have told us about Playing the English,  can you briefly tell us about the other books?

I already told you the origin story of my first book, on the Tarrasch Defence which was published in 2011.

Not long after that, I started working as a coach for the National team of Denmark. My work on the French and on 1.e4 e5, was based on the work that I did for a number of GMs. They are essentially my co-authors, as they were constantly testing my lines and offered me feedback.

My 1.d4 d5 book was meant to be a companion volume for the extremely successful 1.e4 e5 book. This was the first book where I started offering more strategic explanations in the chapters before the theory was presented. The readers loved the book and loved the introductory chapters. So, my publication house, Quality Chess, asked me to do the same for the book for White this time. You may have read the rest of the story here.

Since you have written so many successful opening books, what advice do you have with regard to learning a new opening?

Work on the lines on your own. Don’t trust the author. Build your own files, think critically, test and re-work your lines. An opening book is just a starting point for a journey of learning a new opening. 

Do you have a favorite chess book or do you have a must-read book list that you would recommend?

My favorite book is “Learn for the Legends” by Mihail Marin. I am always fascinated by books that cover the history of the game. The great players and what they tought to us. Books like Kasparov’s “My Great Predecessors” and  Karoliy’s books on Karpov, Tal and Fischer are my favorite types of books.

I believe that (and I am not the only one who shares this opinion) the best chess books of all time, are Aaggard’s series on “Grandmaster Preparation” (Calculation, Positional Play, Strategic Play, Attack and Defence and Thinking Inside the Box). Jacob managed to beat the legendary series of Dvoretsky’s books on the most important and essential books a serious chess player needs to work on. I hope Jacob will surpass these books with his new series, which I think is called “A Matter of Technique” or something like that. 

Jacob is my good friend and I am biased, but I also think that I am fair. If you are serious about your game, go get these books and start working on them. It is what modern chess is about. 

What do you think about Forward Chess?

I am happy to have known Forward Chess since its first beginning! I actually worked on a few of the books that they published. So, I love Forward Chess and I am also biased. I can only say good things about this company.

I think that you are playing an important role in making chess accessible to more people worldwide. And I love that you now enrich your content with diverse topics, videos, articles, reviews etc.

I would love to see Quality Chess and Forward Chess dominate the chess world. As I said, I am biased, but you asked my opinion. So, here you go!

For a limited time, get Nikos’s books with a special 10% discount on www.forwardchess.com.

Nikolaos (aka “Nikos”) Ntirlis is a chess coach and an award-winning author. He has been working with top-level players since 2004 and has written five books and many articles on chess openings. He is an International Master in correspondence chess and is currently playing in the European and World Championships finals. He is active on Twitter, where he posts instructive and fresh chess ideas. Nikos is also a Revenue Operations Manager at Databox, a business analytics app. His motto: “Inform all your decisions based on data” reflects his approach to both his work in business and his chess. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn to learn more about his chess and business insights.

This is Davorin Kuljasevic, a Croatian Grandmaster, chess author, and coach. My first two books ‘Beyond Material’ and ‘How to Study Chess on Your Own’ have already been featured on this blog, and today, I’d like to give a preview of my newest book, ‘The How to Study Chess on Your Own Workbook, Volume 2.’

This workbook is the second of the three-volume series that allows players of various levels to test their skills in three major areas of the game: tactics, middlegame, and endgame. I designed this volume specifically for players in the 1500-1800 Elo range, although a broader 1200-2000 Elo reader base could have a go at it. In other words, it is a training book for club players.

As its name suggests, the workbook material follows training methods previously introduced in my book ‘How to Study Chess on Your Own.’ That means I provided a more varied study schedule instead of giving generic puzzles for solving. The exercises will often require deeper reflection and a more analytical approach than you might be used to. These include blindfold chess exercises to improve your visualization, ‘Find a hidden tactic’ exercises to sharpen your tactical awareness, ‘Find the Best Move’ middlegame and endgame exercises, and more.

The introductory chapter, ‘Typical Mistakes of Club Players,’ is the book’s backbone. There, you will find examples of the most common calculation/tactical, positional, and endgame errors players at this level make. Let me show you a few typical cases:

Tactics Example

Middlegame Examples

Endgame Example

The training exercises I designed for this Workbook aim to address these and other typical shortcomings of club players, as shown in the table below.

This workbook volume emphasizes visualization training more than the previous one. That is because many club players cannot always see chess positions in their minds accurately, particularly in longer or more complex lines. Therefore, I added 20 ‘Dynamic visualization’ exercises, such as the following one, into the mix.

Dynamic Visualization Example

A notable feature of the Workbook is that virtually all material comes from club players’ games. This way, I wanted to avoid a somewhat absurd yet fairly common situation in chess books where a club player has to calculate a line or find an idea a grandmaster missed in their game. Instead, if you are not a chess professional, in this Workbook, you will solve exercises appropriate for your current level.

I’ve aimed for this training material to be instructive just as much as to serve the readers’ practical needs. Therefore, I provide insights that could help you solve the tasks and learn in the process. In the Visualization chapter, I introduce the essential concepts of status change and moving parts. In the Tactics Training chapter, you will discover the importance of tactical triggers and a proper analytical technique to become a sharper tactician and calculator. Finally, I explain particular positional, strategic, or technical decisions in the Middlegame and Endgame Training chapters and sum up salient points as Middlegame and Endgame lessons. Here are a couple of examples:

Piece Trade Decision Example

Endgame Analysis Example

As in Volume 1, you can evaluate your work with the help of the scoring system at the end of each exercise, training set, and chapter. The grading scale at the end of the respective chapters indicates how well you did according to an approximate Elo rating range. For example, a 50-69% score corresponds to 1500-1700 Elo, 70-84% to 1700-1900 Elo, while the excellent 85%+ score means you are probably ready to tackle the 1800-2100 Volume 1 of the Workbook or even the upcoming Volume 3 aimed at 2100+ Elo players!

In my work with club players, I have noticed that they sometimes underestimate the utility of working with skill-building chess exercises. Instead, many prefer to structure their chess training around relatively more passive ways of learning, such as reading chess books, studying opening courses, or doing tactics puzzles on autopilot. ‘The How to Study Chess on Your Own Workbook’ asks you to leave your comfort zone and attempt training methods you may not have tried before. If you would like to work on a broad range of chess skills and reduce mistakes in the key areas of your game, then this is just the book for you!

Read more about Davorin and his books on his Author Spotlight blog feature.

Davorin Kuljasevic is a Croatian Grandmaster, FIDE trainer, and author.

He has trained many talented youths worldwide and has an extensive record of instructive chess content publications. Some of his top achievements include 4th place in World Youth U16 in 2002, and gold in many international tournaments including; SPICE Spring 2011, Zupanja 2011, Mediteran 2011, Split 2013, and Castelfranco 2014. Besides chess, he also graduated with a Masters’s degree in Finance from Texas Tech University in 2011.

Born in Moscow on 6 October 1923, Neishtadt was a Soviet and Israeli chess player and author. He worked as an editor for multiple chess publications, played strong competitive correspondence chess (including correspondence chess olympiads), and wrote many chess books on an array of topics.

One such book that I have personally grown quite fond of is Improve Your Chess Tactics – a book packed with hundreds of tactical positions sourced from actual games. These positions cover a wide array of themes, from the most basic pins and forks to more intricate combinations.

“Improve Your Chess Tactics” is structured in a way that eases the reader into increasingly complex tactical scenarios. The positions are grouped by themes and also by difficulty, making it suitable for players of all levels. Neishtadt starts each chapter with an examination of a theme, along with example positions, and then test exercises. The themed chapters are followed by a big chapter called “Combining Themes” which, as the name suggests, combines different themes into positions.

After all of this, you get to test your knowledge on examination positions, which are a smidge tougher as you don’t get any clue about the theme(s) in the positions. This makes sense of course, as during a game you won’t have someone whispering over your shoulder about what you should be looking for.

Themes range from pins to deflection to interference – but do not be fooled, although a theme titled “pinning” may seem rather elementary, some positions are not that at all (remember, the chapter positions become increasingly difficult). For example, the “Pinning and Unpinning” chapter starts off with a basic position:

It only requires basic tactical knowledge to see the solution: 1.Bd4 Kb6 2.b4 picking up the rook.

But let’s fast forward to a few more complicated positions:

The rook on h8 is out of play, and White realizes the advantage by means of a combinative blow: 1.Qa3+ Qe7 (1…Kg8 2.Bxh7+) 2.Bc6! Black resigned.

So as you can see, there is a wide range of difficulty and moreover, each position is followed by a solution, often accompanied by insightful explanations that don’t just show the right moves but also delve into the reasons behind them.

Try out a few of these Examination Exercises from the book:

Exercise 384

View Solution

Exercise 388

View Solution

Exercise 473

View Solution

Exercise 563

View Solution

Exercise 563

View Solution

Exercise 684

View Solution

On Forward Chess, this book is Tactics Trainer enabled, which makes it easier to really focus on the position without peeking at the solutions.

Have any thoughts or questions? Let us know in the comments!

Solution

Exercise 384

Exercise 388

Exercise 473

Exercise 563

Exercise 625

Exercise 684

Ntirlis – Elyoseph, ICCF 2020

White is ready to play b4-b5! Black managed to defend after 25…Nd7!

Ntirlis- Almeida, ICCF 2016

It is White’s move. I got a winning position with the typical 17.Na5!

Ntirlis – Hassan, IECC 2005.

Black just played 13…d4 and I went 14.Qb5!

Ntirlis – Keber, ICCF 2021

I played 19.c5! And followed it up with Bd2 and b4 with a nice edge.

Did you feel comfortable in White’s shoes? If yes, read on.  

A Common Question

Almost every other day, I hear the question:

Which opening should I play next?

I usually follow up by asking something like “What do you want to accomplish with your opening choice?”

Typically, the answer contains most (or all!) of the following:

• I want the opening to be sound
• Easy to learn
• To give me winning chances in every game
• To be easy to maintain. Not having to work hard if a novelty appears.
• The chess engine to like it in all lines

Any reasonable chess player knows that there cannot be an opening that satisfies all the above criteria. But that’s fine. If there was, everyone would play this one particular opening and we will soon get bored to death.

But I claim, that there is one opening that comes close. That’s 1.c4, the English Opening.

In the rest of this article, I will do my best to convince you.

Why Play the English?

The English Opening is one of the most versatile openings in modern chess. It allows you to safely control the center, create imbalances, stay flexible, and avoid the most analyzed main lines that everyone else studies day and night.

White starts with the move 1.c4, which immediately stakes a claim in the center and poses a challenge to Black. How will they free up their pieces? Many times, Black feels obliged at some point to play their pawn to d5. Ending up with a structure like the one in the diagram.

That’s what is commonly known as the  “Central Pawn Majority”, and it has a VERY important characteristic: It is more sensitive for Black, rather than White!

What does this mean?

• White is safe, even after a few small mistakes.
• Black is in trouble after a few small mistakes.

And… guess what? In games between humans, small mistakes happen all the time!

That’s why I think that the English is sound, practical, and gives winning chances. White has the center and the easier position to understand and play, as the typical piece maneuvers are only a bunch. Also, it is the easiest opening to create imbalances.

What’s the issue, then? Why doesn’t everyone just play 1.c4? 

The Problem With the Chess Engines

This is what IM John Bartholomew recently shared on Twitter:

I couldn’t put that better than him! Chess engines don’t love 1.c4. They quickly show 0.00 or very near to that pretty early. But this shouldn’t be a problem for a practical player, even at the top level.

Do you remember the positions at the start of this article? I asked you how you felt thinking about them. I bet that most of you felt that White is much better, or at least comfortably better in most of them. I asked the same-titled players, even GMs. They all agreed. White should be better and in a practical game between humans, White should be expected to have a decent plus score playing these positions.

The reason is simple. White has a bit more control over the center, doesn’t have any weaknesses and it is easy to see which will be the next few moves.

The chess engines have a different opinion, though. Except for one position (my win against Almeida) the engine evaluation is close to 0.00. And this introduces a huge deal of bias into people’s minds. 

So, I invite you to a world where the engine output shouldn’t matter that much. It can be there, and it can provide information and guidance, but what should matter the most are practical considerations: statistics of human games, sound structures, typical plans, ease of play etc.

What Now?

Conclusion: the English Opening is a great choice for players who want to play for an edge starting from a sound position, without memorizing massive amounts of theory. 

If you want to learn more about the English Opening and get a complete and practical repertoire after 1.c4, check out my new book, Playing the English – A World-Class Repertoire. It’s available as an e-book from Forward Chess.

Nikolaos (aka “Nikos”) Ntirlis is a chess coach and an award-winning author. He has been working with top-level players since 2004 and has written five books and many articles on chess openings. He is an International Master in correspondence chess and is currently playing in the European and World Championships finals. He is active on Twitter, where he posts instructive and fresh chess ideas. Nikos is also a Revenue Operations Manager at Databox, a business analytics app. His motto: “Inform all your decisions based on data” reflects his approach to both his work in business and his chess. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn to learn more about his chess and business insights.

Have any thoughts or questions? Let us know in the comments below!

Matthew Sadler

My career as a chess player can be divided neatly into 2 parts. I left school at 16 and became a professional player, retiring at the age of 25. After a break of some 10 years, I came back to chess – this time as an amateur – and I don’t think I’ll manage to escape from chess ever again (nor want to!)

Somewhat to my surprise, the long break away from the game seemed to do no harm to my chess! I was madly keen to play and I won 2 big international opens in the latter part of 2011. However at the beginning of 2012, my form faltered and I had a terrible performance at Wijk Aan Zee, losing 29 ELO points (it felt like more!) I was bitterly disappointed of course, but more than that I was intrigued. What had caused such a difference in level in just a couple of months?

This soul-searching led to “Study Chess with Matthew Sadler” (Everyman) in which I tried to describe all the good and bad things I had done, and explain why things had gone as they had! It’s a very personal book, full of games you won’t find in the databases and unusual insights and tips for improvement. My favorite game from the book features the most offbeat opening I have ever played: 1…a6 and 2…h6 with which I defeated a young Dutch International Master in 22 moves as Black!

My next book “Chess for Life” (Gambit) was written together with English women’s player Natasha Regan and it was a very enjoyable collaboration. The idea for the book was heavily influenced by the English Grandmaster Keith Arkell’s success at the senior level. Having turned 50, he seemed to have found a new lease of energy and motivation, winning the European Seniors title and sharing first in the World Seniors (silver on tie-break) Natasha and I started talking about the players who had managed to keep their high playing strength despite advancing years and we wondered what their secret was. Was it playing style, opening repertoire, or a certain attitude to chess and life? We decided to find out! Through interviews and chess analysis of 13 players such as John Nunn, Nigel Short, Judit Polgar, Sergei Tiviakov, Jon Speelman and of course Keith Arkell, we attempted to distil the essence of their longevity and I think we did a pretty good job! The most memorable parts of the book for me are the interviews with English amateur Terry Chapman and English Grandmaster Jon Speelman. We interviewed them on the same day and the contrast between Terry’s rigorous and structured approach and Jon’s chaotic whirlwind of ideas was fascinating to witness! 

In the past few years, my name has become indelibly associated with engine chess, and this all began with “Game Changer” (New in Chess) also written together with Natasha Regan. It is the biography of a player of the future: DeepMind’s self-learning AI algorithm AlphaZero, which evolved to a superhuman level of chess by playing 44 million lightning-fast games against itself in 8 hours!  Through interviews with Demis Hassabis (the DeepMind CEO, a very promising player in his youth and still a strong and keen chess player nowadays) and many of the engineers involved in AlphaZero’s development, “Game Changer” demonstrates how AlphaZero trains, thinks and plays.

The chess core of the book is a detailed thematic analysis of AlphaZero’s play, building a complete picture of AlphaZero’s “chess personality”. The analytical work involved was simply enormous, but it was without a doubt the most thrilling chess work I have ever done! I think that no one expected AlphaZero’s training to result in games of such staggering beauty, replete with long-term sacrifices, wild attacks, and subtle positional maneuvers. The emotional impact of playing through a few hundred of AlphaZero’s games for the first time at the DeepMind offices in early 2018 will never leave me – I couldn’t believe that chess could be this beautiful when played by a machine! My all-time favorite is the breathtaking game we called “Exactly How to Attack!” which features no less than 7(!) pawn sacrifices from AlphaZero! 

Exactly How to Attack:

Analysing AlphaZero games soon got me interested in websites where engine games were played and I particularly loved the TCEC website (https://tcec-chess.com/) where many different chess engines confront each other 24/7, 365 days a year at slow time controls. I was extremely fortunate to start following engine chess passionately at a moment when amazing developments were taking place. The Leela Zero open-source project looked first to replicate and then surpass AlphaZero’s achievements, while the Stockfish open-source project went into overdrive producing significant strength improvements at a furious pace. A new “neural net” technology called NNUE – different from AlphaZero’s and Leela Zero’s technology but also based on the principle of self-learning – heralded a further enormous jump in strength, first for early adopter Stockfish and then for many other engines after.

Before you knew it, the average engine game at the TCEC was a riot of pawn sacrifices, wild attacks, and deep strategy! This feast of glorious chess stimulated me to write “The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement“ (New in Chess) in which I shared my love of engine chess in 2 ways. The first section of “The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement“ was all about training with engines: how can you turn your engine into a real training partner instead of something that just criticizes your play when you press the spacebar? I’m very proud of this section as I’ve never seen anything like it in any other book and I truly believe that using the techniques I demonstrate will benefit anyone’s game enormously.

I used these same techniques to write “Game Changer”, “The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement“ and “Re-Engineering the Chess Classics” as well as all the videos on my YouTube site (https://www.youtube.com/@SiliconRoadChess) so I can definitely prove that I believe in them! The second section of “The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement“ was a thematic analysis of a series of spectacular TCEC engine games, drawing lessons from their play that could be used by human players in their games. This section is simply the highest-quality games collection you will ever find and the thrills-per-game ratio is unbelievably high! The fabulous game Stockfish Classical – Leela Zero from Season 18 of the TCEC is probably the most outrageous tactical exhibition I have ever seen! 

My most recent book is “Re-Engineering the Chess Classics” (New in Chess) written together with my childhood coach Steve Giddins and it brings together my biggest chess passions: chess engines and the great players of the past. We analysed 35 classic games in depth using the innovative engine analysis techniques which I first described and demonstrated in “The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement“ and I truly believe that we produced an exceptionally beautiful and instructive games collection. It seems contradictory to love both engine chess and classic chess, but perhaps that’s just a demonstration of how rich our game is! I think I truly fell in love with chess after reading and re-reading Edward Lasker’s wonderful “Chess Secrets I Learned from the Masters” as a young boy.  Lasker’s fond and lively descriptions of the brilliance and the strangeness of the pioneers of chess such as Emanuel Lasker, Alekhine and Capablanca bound me emotionally to the history of our game and I have felt this connection strongly ever since. Analysing classic games has always been a way of reconnecting with the feeling that first fueled my chess obsession and it’s been wonderful to discover that chess engines only enrich that process.

While writing “Re-Engineering the Chess Classics” there were moments of amazement and deep respect as it emerged that classic players had intuitively found a path through complex problems in a way that could not be bettered by the engines. At the same time, there were many moments of discovery when positions I had seen as a child and learned to view in a certain way, turned out to be out to be much more multi-faceted and beautiful than anyone had ever realized before – most notably in endgames and strategical positions.

The analysis technique of playing engine matches from various positions taken from classic games – first explained and demonstrated in “The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement“ – also produced a series of absolutely brilliant games that would grace any Best Games collection! “Re-Engineering the Chess Classics” contains both well-known and lesser-known classic games but if I had to pick out a couple of favorites then it would be Euwe-Yates Hastings 1931 – an absolutely crazy Samisch King’s Indian of the type we associate with Bronstein in the 1950s! – and Tartakower-Bogolyubow London 1927, in which both of these optimistic and aggressive players continually outdo each other in setting fire to their opponent’s position! 

I’m extremely happy to be the August author of the month for Forward Chess as I can’t think of a better way to read chess books than with Forward Chess: whether it’s following the games easily without a physical chess board, calling up an engine to quickly answer any questions or being able to skip past or zoom into variations as the mood takes you! 

Have any thoughts or questions? Let us know in the comments below!

For a limited time, Forward Chess is offering a special sale on all of Matthew Sadler’s computer-related books.

Chess has been part of my life since my grandfather taught me the moves at the age of 7. I became an International Master at the age of 14, a Grandmaster at the age of 19 and won the British Championship twice, establishing myself as the England No.3 behind Michael Adams and Nigel Short.

After retiring in 1999, normal life began as I moved to Holland and started work as an IT Consultant. In 2010, I got the urge to start playing chess again, and my very first tournament back – a strong rapid tournament in Wageningen – ended in victory with a 100% score. From that point on, my spare time just hasn’t been safe from chess!

Throughout my career I’ve loved writing about chess. I’ve reviewed books for New in Chess for many years, recorded a series of chess videos for Chess24.com and Chessable, and written 9 books, the most recent of which – Re-Engineering the Chess Classics, co-authored with my childhood coach Steve Giddins – appeared in May 2023. A previous book – Game Changer, co-authored with WIM Natasha Regan – won the ECF Book of the Year prize and the FIDE Book of the Year prize.”

Zenón Franco

Chess training

I have 38 books published in seven languages, they are different kinds of books, but two with similar themes are the majority; they involve self-training.

“Guessing” the moves

I learned to play chess in Buenos Aires, where chess was, and still is, very popular. When I was a teenager there were activities eagerly awaited by the fans such as blitz tournaments and contests involving the ‘guessing’ of moves.

The latter particularly appealed to me; together with the impact of seeing an exercise by Bent Larsen in the Argentinean magazine Ajedrez, those contests were probably the reason why years later I started to write similar tests for the now-demised Argentinean magazine El Rey. It is not an exaggeration to say that I wrote my first book, Chess Self Training published by Gambit, nearly 20 years ago, in part as a result of all those events!

The basic idea of this kind of training is to play the role of ‘teacher at home’ by often suggesting main alternatives – even some ‘tricky’ suggestions – and then explaining the reasons, and giving points for the best moves.

The idea of my new book, Attacking Chess in the 21st Century, is to provide training, and thus improve your game. 

Motivation

A few years ago, it gave me great pleasure to read that the Spanish scientific populariser Eduard Punset believed that it was very important for the student to take an active part in the lesson since in this way his or her learning would be enhanced. 

That is precisely the idea behind this type of book.

During my coaching period, I was able to witness how motivating it is for kids to receive points for the right answers as their ‘lives are at stake’ when they try to find the answers, and it is a challenge much appreciated by them. 

Later I also noticed a similar effect with adults although, unlike the kids, the older students try to hide it.

Attacking Chess in the 21^st Century

Some years ago, I wrote a book called “The Art of Attacking Chess”; the present book is also about attacking, but the games are only from this century, and additional focus has been provided in the annotated games.

Attention has been paid not only to what happens on the board but also, wherever possible, to the influence of the analysis engines not only on a player’s preparation for the game, something that has become more important in these early years of the new century, but also on the practical context of the game.

It was enlightening to read that the five-time world champion, Magnus Carlsen, mentioned that the difficulty involved in playing a position is a factor to take into consideration and that in such cases the engine’s assessment is not that useful. Magnus talks about the practical side of the game, and in the book, I also tried to put special emphasis on the practical side of the game.

In wanting to shed light on this growing influence I was helped by the invaluable information given by the players themselves, whenever I was able to obtain it.

The influence of the engines can be seen in the attack itself but much more so in the player’s preparation in the openings, which now, in games played at the highest level, have a depth unthinkable in the last century.

About attacking play

With regard to attacking play, as I commented in my previous book on this subject, you don’t need to be Tal to be able to go into a game knowing that you’re going to be able to attack.

Nevertheless, there needs to be factors in the position that justify and, according to Steinitz, even oblige a player to attack. As the first World Champion advised:

“When a sufficient advantage has been obtained, a player must attack or the advantage will be dissipated”.

There are some truly excellent attacking players, but in modern chess, we see more multifaceted styles, and players who are capable of playing all types of positions equally well. This is the so-called ‘universal style’, a term most associated in the past with Boris Spassky and nowadays with Magnus Carlsen, among many others.

Mastering attacking play in chess is a dream that we all long to achieve, but of course the art of attack does not arise by itself. Constructing positions that favor the attack is the most difficult task. In this book we shall see games with brilliant finishes, but we shall also draw attention to the different phases through which the struggle passes, in order to make such finishes possible.

Exercises and questions

The book is similar to “Guess the move” type, the difference is that there are no points involved, and there are exercises, as in those books, the difference is that here there are also questions from the reader to the writer.

This method, like “guessing the moves”, is also useful for personal training and learning as well as for teaching.

Of course, it is also possible to treat these simply as annotated games, without testing yourself, but the training benefit is greater if you take an active part in the ‘lesson’.

Once again, I should like to say that, as always happens to me, every stage in the production of this book has been a great pleasure, from the beginning, when there is no set course, then the phase in which the book seems to take on a life of its own and plot its own course, and finally the stage of checking and correcting; the whole process has been a source of great pleasure to me. 

The structure of the book

The book consists of 36 games divided into four chapters. The games are prefaced by brief biographical information and a short description of the events of the game. After each game some lessons are highlighted.

Chapter 1

The King in the center

This chapter contains ten games, in each of which at least one of the kings is in the center, which influences the course of the struggle.

Chapter 2

Kings castled on the same side

In this chapter, we view twelve attacking games in which both sides have castled on the same side.

In the last two games that we shall see, the queens are soon exchanged but nevertheless, positions arise in which the kings come under attack.

Chapter 3

Kings castled on opposite sides

This chapter contains six games in which the attack develops against kings castled on opposite wings.

Chapter 4

Attack, defense, and counterattack

In the final chapter, there are eight games in which the roles of attacker and defender are not permanent, giving rise to counterattacks.

Have any thoughts or questions? Let us know in the comments below!

For a limited time, Forward Chess is offering a special sale on all of Zenón Franco’s books.

Zenon Franco Ocampos was born in Asuncion, Paraguay, May 12, 1956. From there he moved to Buenos Aires until 1990. Since 1990 he has lived in Spain.

Zenon authored 38 chess books which have been published in seven languages and is a respected Grandmaster and FIDE Senior Trainer.  He has participated in 11 chess Olympiads and will be part of the Paraguay team during the Budapest Olympiad 2024. His most successful pupils include Grandmaster Francisco Vallejo Pons and IM David Martinez Martin.

He received the 2016 Isaac Boleslavsky book of the year award from the FIDE Trainers Commission and his book “Miguel Najdorf El Viejo”, was the runner-up as the best book of 2021 according to FIDE. In 2016, Zenon was granted an award by the Paraguayan parliament “in recognition for his invaluable and meritorious contribution to Paraguayan sport”: for his chess career and for his help in the development of chess in Paraguay.

International Master

Dvoretsky had a very promising career as a chess player. He attained the International Master title in 1975 and had many tournament successes such as winning the 1973 Moscow championship in the field of International Masters and Grandmasters. The following is a game from the tournament against GM Anatoly Lein:

Other tournament successes include placing fifth in the 1974 Soviet Championships (which included names such as Alexander Beliavsky and Mikhail Tal), and winning the 1975 Wijk aan Zee Masters tournament.

Dvoretsky’s most notable game was his victory against Vasily Smyslov, the 7th World Chess Champion, in 1974:

Chess Trainer

Despite his successes as a player, Dvoretsky opted to retire from serious tournaments and instead focus his attention on becoming a chess trainer. He reached incredible heights in his career as a coach – which includes training multiple chess superstars such as Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, Veselin Topalov, Loek van Wely, Aleksey Dreev, Ernesto Inarkiev, Nana Alexandria, and Alexander Motylev, amongst many others. A few of his students; Valery Chekhov, Artur Yusupov, Sergei Dolmatov, and Maxim Dlugy would even go on to become World Junior Champions after Dvoretsky’s training! It is widely known that Dvoretsky was able to take semi-strong 2000+ rated players and work with them to transform them into grandmasters.

Artur Yusupov worked with Dvoretsky for many years, and even reached the peak of number three in the world rankings behind Karpov and Kasparov. Yusupov was not only Dvoretsky’s student, as they also published books together, and still do to this day with the latest collaborative release, Technique in Chess.

Chess Author

Dvoretsky’s name is firmly situated in the list of most prolific chess authors. He has written multiple books on a wide range of topics within all phases of the game. His book, Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual, is considered by many top players as a must-have endgame book.

Technique in Chess

The new release Technique in Chess is a collaboration between Mark Dvoretsky and his former student, GM Artur Yusupov. A couple of years after his passing (in 2016), Yusupov, worked with Dvoretsky’s son and combed through his chess archives, discovering material that had not been shown to the world yet. This is where the book was born – a compilation of Dvoretsky’s material, put together by Yusupov, with some of his own reflections included, all under the theme of technique.

So what exactly is technique? The book defines it as the following:

According to Yusupov, technique was always a central theme for Dvoretsky, which he taught in his books and to his students. This book teaches technique to gain an advantage in all areas of the game – opening, middlegame, and endgame.

The first part is theoretical, explaining and demonstrating ideas under the following topics:

Technique in Chess: Part 1

1. The Concept of Technique
2. Endgame Technique and Realizing an Advantage 
3. A Player’s Behavior in Better Positions
4. Full Concentration
5. Time Management
6. Realizing a Material Advantage
7. General Principles of the Endgame
8. Realizing an Advantage in the Endgame
9. Realizing a Positional Advantage and the Four Golden Principles of Technique
10. Do Not Allow Counterplay!
11. Do Not Hurry!
12. The Principle of Two Weaknesses
13. Correct Exchanging 
14. The Transformation of an Advantage 
15. Concrete Play in Realizing an Advantage

The second part of the book comprises of 102 practice exercises, increasing in difficulty, where the positions are taken from practical games and studies. The exercise solutions are quite detailed, and Yusupov took the time to help the reader understand all possible variations to assist in decision-making at the board.

Here is an exercise from the book:

Exercise 35

It is Black to play. Recognize White’s threat of Kf2-e3 and find the best continuation.

You can view the solution in the book’s free sample.

Ultimately, Technique in Chess is a book that enables the reader to learn from the world’s best chess coach and his best student.

Have any thoughts or questions? Let us know in the comments below!

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your chess career!

I learned the basics of chess at the age of five from my sister and became a GM at the age of 21. Although I treated the game mostly as an entertaining hobby for most of my life (I have been professionally active as an attorney-at-law until my early thirties), just a couple of years ago I decided that it is exactly playing, teaching, and writing about chess that makes me truly happy. So one day I just terminated my employment contract with a big bank nearly overnight and embarked on an adventure that I have never once regretted!

2. What is your favorite chess game that you’ve played?

I have played many memorable games during my already 30-year-long career, but the one that stands out as a trademark for my playing style over the course of recent years is Moranda-Wojtaszek, Bydgoszcz 2021.

It is certainly not an everyday type of occurrence for me to beat an opponent as strong as Radek in such a tactical slugfest, but on that day literally every element of the game worked for me like a charm. Whenever I am in a bad mood, revisiting that game always cheers me up!

3. What inspired you to write chess books?

I think it is a question of legacy, that is the desire to positively affect other people during our lifetime. As a player and coach, I have many times complained about the scarcity of high-quality material that could be used to better myself or my more advanced students. And as they say – if you want something to be done right, you need to do it yourself! The success of my first book led to the proposition to write another one, and before I noticed it, I happen to have the manuscript of a third one almost ready too!

4. At Forward Chess, we have two of your books; Supreme Chess Understanding and Universal Chess Training. What does each book teach the reader?

My first book titled ‘Universal Chess Training’ constituted an attempt to enable players to improve at strategic play sometimes even without the need to possess extensive and concrete knowledge in this regard. ‘Supreme Chess Understanding: Statics & Dynamics’, on the other hand, is supposed to fill in a niche that I have discovered in the publishing market.

What I have namely understood lately is that authors are often very fond of flashy examples highlighting dynamic resources being utilized in games, but tend to forget about the existence of the other side of the coin, that is statics. The key to becoming a strong chess player lies however not in a one-sided preference for dynamic solutions, but rather finding that subtle equilibrium between the two mentioned forces and applying it in one’s games depending on the specific needs of the position. 

5. Do you have a favorite chess book or do you have a must-read book list that you would recommend?

Every major publishing house has something great to offer. Quality Chess, for example, has been spoiling us for many years now with excellent puzzle books, with the ‘Grandmaster Preparation’ series being the ones that I come back to very often. New In Chess, on the other hand, has also been a publishing powerhouse for decades now, with ‘Improve Your Chess Calculation’ by RB Ramesh representing one of my favorite ‘training tools of torture’. Finally, I cannot help but mention Thinkers Publishing with whom I have been affiliated during the last three years. Their opening books authored by Dariusz Swiercz are a must-have for every ambitious player who wishes to stay up-to-date with the latest opening trends.

6. In your opinion, what is the best way to study chess?

There is no better way to train chess than to play as many tournament games as much as possible and to have them analyzed afterward. This way a chess player gains invaluable experience, but also learns about their mistakes afterward and becomes stronger by fixing them. Naturally, solving carefully-selected puzzles and analytical work on openings is indispensable for the modern player, but practice beats theory every single time.

7. What is your advice for aspiring chess players, particularly with regard to self-training?

As a person who is essentially self-taught, my best advice for aspiring players would be to nonetheless get some support from a professional coach before initiating even the toughest of individual training. A good coach can namely cut the learning curve quite significantly in many cases. Even just ten hours of training with an expert can make a huge difference in the long haul. The coach is supposed to indicate the player’s strengths and weaknesses, create a customized training program as well as present the player with respective resources aimed at making the whole training process as efficient as possible.

8. What do you think about Forward Chess?

I think Forward Chess is a great platform for all professional players traveling from tournament to tournament who need to have access to the most important sources of information, but do not wish to carry an additional piece of luggage with them just for this purpose. Forward Chess has almost all the necessary books in one place, many of them being available at bargain prices on top of this. The only thing that upsets me about it is that I have not discovered your service sooner!

Wojciech Moranda (1988), Grandmaster since 2009, highest FIDE rating 2636, and Poland’s TOP 3 player (August 2022). His most notable recent results include i.a. silver at the Polish Individuals (Bydgoszcz 2021) as well as team bronze at the European Teams (Catez 2021), together with individual silver on Board 4 at the very same event.
Professional chess coach training students all over the world focused on helping talented juniors and adult improvers ascend past their previous limitations. In his work as a trainer, GM Moranda puts special emphasis on deep strategic understanding of the game, improving his students’ thought process, proper calculation techniques as well as flawless opening preparation.

Tricks, Traps, and Tips In The Chess Opening is geared toward players becoming familiar with the basic opening principles and common tricks. This book includes many of the most important instructive games used in my classes and is designed to ensure that players have a strong foundation from the beginning of the game.

Topics include:

• Early f-pawn moves,
• Early queen moves,
• Different attacks and sacrifices on weak spots.

Special attention is given to the most common and important traps such as the Center Fork Trick and the Fried Liver Attack.

Sample #1

Most of the common and dangerous traps (and mistakes) in the opening have something to do with the f-pawn. This is easy to understand, as that is the spot that is defended only by the king. Apart from simple mistakes and how to take advantage of them, the book is filled with practical examples from games that involve tactics that involve a sacrifice against the f-pawn.

The following example is taken directly from a class and involves a typical trick that all tournament players should be familiar with:

After 5…dxc3? White has a typical two-move double attack.

Question: Can you find it?

6.Bxf7+! Kxf7 7.Qd5+ Kf8

One of my students once won a game at nationals instantly after 7…Kg6? 8.Qf5#.

Back to the game: 8.Qxc5+ d6 9.Qxc3 Nf6

Trying to trade queens with 9…Qf6 was best, though of course, White doesn’t need to allow the exchange. Black instead threatens White’s pawn on e4.

10.0-0

Defending the e4-pawn with 10.Nbd2 just defending was safer with a nice edge.

Sample #2

One of the most common tricks in the opening is the Center Fork Trick. Due to how often it occurs at all levels, I have dedicated an entire chapter to the subject. First of all, here is the most common position where the trap occurs.
4.Bc4

Question: What is Black’s best move?

4…Nxe4!  

Here is the Center Fork Trick! 4…Bc5 allows White to get away with an inaccurate move order which leads to a normal Four Knights position.

In chess as in life, small changes often greatly affect whether a decision is good or bad. One of the factors that I have always tried to highlight with students is that patterns are important. However, one cannot simply assume that because a pattern has worked in one position will mean that it will work in a nearly identical one.

Consider the two following similar positions:

White has the opportunity to use the Center Fork Trick in both positions with the move 5.Nxe5. In one position, it is the best move. In the other, it is a losing move, played many times even by strong Grandmasters. Can you find which is which? 

Answer:

The first position is basically the same exact trick that Black used in the initial position. Here, the pawn being on a3 changes nothing. In the second though, the pawn on g3 changes everything.

5.Nxe5??  Nxe5 6.d4        

It looks like all is in order except for one thing…       

6…Bxd4! 

Oops. White resigned because he realized he loses the queen if 7.Qxd4 Nf3+ with a double attack.

The right thought process is important, and in itself leads to a huge increase in playing strength, regardless of knowledge. Simply knowing that a difference may exist gives one the opportunity to discover it.

The book gives many similar examples, designed not only to increase knowledge but drive home the idea of the proper thought process.

Sample #3

A very detailed chapter covers the Fried Liver Attack, one that is essential for all tournament players. It is not just the idea of attacking the weak spot in this specific case, but the idea of attacking the weak spot in similar positions that should be understood. There are many typical mating attacks and patterns that appear over and over. Games from scholastic players all the way to world-class players highlight the themes. 

Here is one of my favorite instructive games played by a student:

C. Wu – A. Shen, NJ K-3 Championship 2005

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Nxd5 6.Nxf7 Kxf7 7.Qf3+ Ke6 8.Nc3 Ncb4 

9.d4!?

White simply ignores Black’s threat while trying to open the black king.

Either 9.Bb3 (defending c2); or 9.0–0 followed by 10.d4 may be the absolute best ways to play, but anyone who finds themself in the same situation as Black surely will not know the best chance.

9…Nxc2+

9…exd4 loses to 10.Nxd5 Nxd5 11.Qe4+ and White will pick up the knight on the next move.

10.Kd1 Nxa1??

Black goes for a win of material, but this leads to a quick defeat. 

10…Nxd4 was best but after 11.Bxd5+, Black’s king is still in trouble.  After 11…Kd6 12.Qf7 threatens 13.Ne4#. Black can defend with (White could also play 12.Qg3 with a big mess. This doesn’t take anything away from this way of playing, as players who allow 6.Nxf7! are unlikely to defend perfectly. Additionally, 9.Bb3 or 9.0–0 are simply good for White.) 12…Qe7! and on 13.Ne4+ Kd7 14.Nc5+ Kd6 seems like a draw by perpetual check.

11.Bxd5+ Kd7

The only way to avoid mate was to sacrifice the queen, but that was hardly a good option. 

Question: Find the mate in 3.

The answer is trivial if one remembers the rule that diagonal queen checks are often more dangerous than linear ones since they are less easily blocked.

12.Qf5+

Diagonal queen checks are often the best checks as they are more difficult to block. 12.Qf7+?? Qe7 and Black escapes.

12…Ke7

12…Kd6 13.Qxe5+ Kd7 14.Qe6#; 12…Ke8 13.Qf7#

13.Qf7+

13.Qxe5+ is also checkmate in 2: 13…Kd7 (13…Be6 14.Qxe6#) 14.Qe6#

13…Kd6 14.Ne4# 1–0

14.Nb5# was also checkmate. This was a very nice game for a 6–year-old to win the state championship for players up to 3rd grade (age 9).

Wojo’s Weapons

The Wojo’s Weapons series is based on the very solid, practical opening repertoire used by the late Grandmaster Alexander Wojtkiewicz as White. This repertoire helped him to become one of the most successful open tournament players in the United States for years. The themes and ideas are easy to understand, and stand the test of time in an increasingly engine-reliant chess world. Very little will be changed by an upgraded engine, and the theory is based more on understanding rather than pure memorization. For that reason, club players through to Grandmasters have used the book for many years. 

Dean Ippolito

Dean Ippolito has been regarded as one of the top scholastic chess coaches for well over two decades. He has personally worked with over 30,000 students and has taught many of the youngest national champions in the US. He is the author of six books, including the popular ‘Wojo’s Weapons’ Trilogy as well as his latest ‘Tricks Traps and Tips In The Chess Opening‘. As a player, Dean was a 10-time All-America Team member with 12 national championships. He was awarded the Frank J. Marshall Ambassador of Chess Award for his contributions to the chess world in 2011. Though his focus is mainly on coaching future champions, Dean remains active as a player and is continuing his pursuit of the Grandmaster title. 

In the years 2003-2007 I was teaching chess at the University of Tarapacá in Arica, Chile. Its director Emilio Rodríguez was (still is!) a big chess enthusiast and at some moment he asked me what material I was using in my lessons. I told him that I liked to elaborate my own material instead of just using available books and other publications. That process started back in 2002 – collecting instructive material from different sources and organizing it in different chess databases.

I showed Emilio some printouts, and he reacted spontaneously with “Johan, you should write a book!”. I think that was in 2005, and I started working on a book, to be published by the university thanks to Emilio’s interest. I thought it would take just a month, but it took about half a year in the end, or even more! It got the name “Ajedrez Conceptual” and was published in May 2006.

Later that year I went to the Chess Olympiad in Turin, Italy, and on the way back Catalan GM Jordi Magem happened to be in the same airport line. I showed him the book, and he told me that he had an editorial in Andorra. One thing led to the other, and next year an improved version of the same book, under the name “Descubriendo los Conceptos en Ajedrez” was published by Esfera Editorial.

At around the same time English GM John Emms had suggested me to write a book about the Sicilian Kan for Everyman Chess. That happened in 2008, and since the Kan book did rather well on the market, he went on to ask me whether I had some other book project. I told him about the other book, and if I remember correctly, it was his idea to focus just on middlegame strategy, leaving out the opening and endgame content, adding more examples to the existing structure etc. The result of this work turned into Mastering Chess Strategy, published by Everyman in 2010.

Also this book apparently sold well, got positive reviews etc, so John suggested that now I’d write a similar book but on opening strategy. His point was that there were already many endgame books on the market, so it would be better to leave the endgame part to the very end and first see how the other books went. Mastering Opening Strategy was published in 2012 and it got a positive reception as well.

Soon John told me to “finish off” the trilogy by writing the endgame book. Mastering Endgame Strategy was published in 2013, and with it, a heavy weight was off my shoulders! Over the coming years, the printed versions of the three works became rather popular, and were even translated to some other languages. Electronic versions were published both by Forward Chess and Everyman itself, while Chessable versions were published in 2021.

I’d say the books have clear similarities as for the structure, format and origin. Chapters are numerous but rather small, and they all have an exercises part linked to them. The game comments are rather word-based – no Chess Informant symbols, endless variations trees etc. On occasion I wished I had added some more words and variations, on the other hand physical space was an issue at the time they were printed. I still remembered the case of my Kan book where I had to leave out the last chapter because the book got “too” big!

The examples are mostly taken from high level games played between 1980 and 2010 approximately, but some older classics were also included. I used a lot of my own games and also some students’ games. One merit of these books is that most of the material was “tested” on students, whose reactions and suggestions would often be reflected in the contents.

Of the three, I’d say Mastering Chess Strategy feels like the heaviest one – it is really filled with important ideas, but packaged in a (hopefully!) rather practical way, easily digested etc. Mastering Opening Strategy is probably the most entertaining one of the three. Mastering Endgame Strategy gave me a special kind of satisfaction since I felt that I had managed to present endgame material in a way that would not bore the student.

Interestingly, a decade has passed since these books were published, but I am still keeping the same structure in my databases, adding new examples each week etc. I think it was famous Russian trainer and writer IM Mark Dvoretsky who first suggested organizing chess material according to certain labels or classifiers, an idea that I definitely approve of! Hope you will enjoy the books, happy to see the Forward Chess version being available for the convenience of its students.

Johan Hellsten

Have any thoughts or questions? Let us know in the comments below!

Born in 1975 in Malmo, Sweden. Learnt chess at 6 from his father. Swedish U13 Champion in 1988, Swedish U20 Champion in 1991. IM in 1995, GM in 2004. Best achievements include 1st place at Copa Entel (Santiago, Chile) in 2005 and Swedish Champion in 2006, alongside a gold medal in the European Team Championship (Pula, Croatia) in 1997 and a bronze medal in the same event (Gothenburg, Sweden) in 2005. Represented Sweden in 3 Olympiads. Worked as a coach at Universidad de Tarapacá (Arica, Chile) in the years 2003-2007 and at Federación Deportiva de Chimborazo (Riobamba, Ecuador) in the years 2008-2022. A number of books published, collaborator at the US Chess School and at Magnus Chess Academy. Involved in training projects with the Swedish Chess Federation.