In this book, aimed at strong tournament players (1900-2300 Elo or fast improving juniors) the author introduces a wider approach to developing endgame tactics skills that a formidable chess player needs. Specifically, he presents 101 positions from games of grandmasters played in 2019, including super-GMs such as Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren, Alireza Firouzja, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Alexander Grischuk, Wang Hao, Alexei Shirov, Samuel Shankland, Kirill Alekseenko, and Levon Aronian, in which he first explains the mistake made by one of the players in underestimating their opponent’s counterplay, then he analyzes how the game progressed where punishment for the mistake is meted out. After that, he returns to the starting position to demonstrate the correct or a more promising continuation. Therefore, the text is structured so that each challenge contains the starting diagram twice – before the moves in the actual game, and then, on the page overleaf, before the solution. Studying these key fragments from grandmaster games will help a player to develop their endgame approach. Firstly, the student analyzes why a move or series of moves by one of the players was erroneous. What counterplay by the opponent did the player making the mistake underestimate? Secondly, armed with this answer, the student can review the position to try and figure out the better move. If the student is working with a coach, then the coach should first set up the position on the board, demonstrate the erroneous move played, and ask the student to find the refutation to that bad move. After the refutation is found by the student, the coach should once again set up the critical position and ask the student to find the strongest continuation for the initial player. This may be one or more moves, depending on the position. Naturally, in the case of self-study the student can change their approach, either trying to figure out the refutation to the error by covering up the subsequent text, or simply studying the moves in the game before trying to find the better continuation, which is detailed overleaf together with the starting diagram.
This book aims to give you a wealth of self-study knowledge about handling different types of endings that occur frequently but on which there is not much literature analyzing recent games. Imbalanced material endgames involving rooks are a key focus of the book, covering three-fifths of the material, and all endings in the book feature at least one rook. The vast majority of games are taken from the last few years, including many from 2021-2022. Like the author’s previous endgame book published with Elk and Ruby, 101 Endgame Crimes and Punishments (2020), this one is aimed at strong tournament players (1900-2300 Elo) and fast improving juniors.
Specifically, this book covers the following endings: rook vs. minor piece (chapter 1), rook vs. a pair of minor pieces (chapter 2), rook and minor piece vs. rook and minor piece, rook and minor piece vs. rook, rook and minor piece vs. two minor pieces, rook and minor piece vs. a pair of rooks, and rook and minor piece vs. queen (all in chapter 3).
The material arrangement principles applied for this book are largely consistent with those adopted for the author’s books published earlier. He has selected examples only from games played over the board and in which at least one of the players is a grandmaster. Six of the included games were played by world champion Magnus Carlsen. Other examples come from games by top players such as former world champions Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik and Vishy Anand, as well as Ian Nepomniachtchi, Ding Liren, Hikaru Nakamura, Sam Shankland, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Judit Polgar, Gata Kamsky, Daniil Dubov and others. Eight of the 101 examples in this book come from the author’s own games.
Endgame positions have been selected so that a person studying the book can see the critical moments of play, such as a single or a series of errors that led to a loss or when one of the sides missed a winning move. Before playing through the correct continuation the reader is advised to try and work it out from the initial diagram.
In this book, aimed at strong tournament players (1900-2300 Elo or fast improving juniors) the authors introduce a wider approach to developing middlegame tactical and positional skills that a formidable chess player needs. Specifically, they present 111 positions from games of grandmasters played in 2019, including super-GMs such as Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Ding Liren, Anish Giri, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Daniil Dubov, Wesley So, Hikaru Nakamura, Levon Aronian, and Wang Hao, in which they first explain the mistake made by one of the players in underestimating their opponent’s counterplay, then they analyze how the game progressed where punishment for the mistake is meted out. After that, they return to the starting position to demonstrate the correct or a more promising continuation. Therefore, the text is structured so that each challenge contains the starting diagram twice – before the moves in the actual game, and then, on the page overleaf, before the solution. There are numerous elements that a chess player should keep in mind in the middlegame and the authors have designed this book to address specific middle-game thematic mistakes: unsound sacrifices, creating imaginary threats, imaginary defense against threats, pawn-grabbing, give check or attack material – which is best?, wrong evaluation of changes to the pawn structure, lack of vigilance in decision-making, replacing strategy with tactics and taking wrong positional decisions. Studying these key fragments from grandmaster games will help a player to develop their middlegame approach. Firstly, the student analyzes why a move or series of moves by one of the players was erroneous. What counterplay by the opponent did the player making the mistake underestimate? Secondly, armed with this answer, the student can review the position to try and figure out the better move. If the student is working with a coach, then the coach should first set up the position on the board, demonstrate the erroneous move played, and ask the student to find the refutation to that bad move. After the refutation is found by the student, the coach should once again set up the critical position and ask the student to find the strongest continuation for the initial player. This may be one or more moves, depending on the position. Naturally, in the case of self-study the student can change their approach, either trying to figure out the refutation to the error by covering up the subsequent text, or simply studying the moves in the game before trying to find the better continuation, which is detailed overleaf together with the starting diagram.
Jakov's new book focuses on a key element of tactics: forced mate. It contains 1500 positions rife with tactical resources; 1380 of them are presented as puzzles. The book is divided into 31 chapters, most of which are dedicated to a single tactical method, which is described in detail. This fundamental work systematizes the methods for delivering forced mate, which include sacrifices, pawn promotion, vacation, attraction, elimination, deflection, blocking, seizing the square, x-rays, pins, discovered checks, double checks, windmill and interference. The rest of the chapters are titled Combinations; they are used to consolidate the provided knowledge and test the acquired skills. They contain the theoretical basics of the combinations and cases studied, but to solve these puzzles the reader will also need to use techniques they studied in previous parts of the book, rather than in only the current chapter. Therefore, each new tactical method studied gradually increases the diversity of combinations used in the subsequent chapters. The puzzles in every chapter also gradually increase in difficulty. The last chapter makes the book useful even for top-level players, because it consists solely of difficult puzzles and can be used as a universal test to check forced mating skills. The greatest value of this book is in the learning system that can be used as a foundation for young chess players to study tactics. The author has used this system countless times when working with his pupils and it has proved to be highly successful. Together with the carefully crafted examples it turns this work into a universal textbook that can be used by both students and coaches. This book is accessible to beginners once they have learned to mate in one, and contains puzzles with mostly 2-move to 6-move solutions. Puzzles in the final chapter will challenge even grandmasters, with solutions often requiring 9-11 moves.
Sergei Tkachenko has written a fascinating account of Alexander Alekhine’s time spent in Odessa during World War I, the Russian Revolution and Civil War, as well as of the impact of Odessa on his later life. The book includes 24 complete games (some handicapped) with annotations from Alekhine, Sergei Tkachenko and Sergei Voronkov (co-author with David Bronstein of Secret Notes), as well as five puzzles and one fragment. Alekhine played in 22 of these games and the fragment and set three of the puzzles.
Woman International Master and experienced children’s coach Anastasiya Geller has written a textbook for beginners teaching them the very basics of attacking the enemy king. The reader will learn how to find a simple check and fully master one of the most important tactical elements in chess – checkmate in 1 move! The reader also learns how to choose the best defense against a check.
The book contains 2000 exercises, most of which are checkmates in 1 move – from the simplest mates with one piece to mating using several tactical techniques at once. The first part of the book introduces the concept of check and shows the reader how to recognize a safe check, before teaching discovered check. The second part gradually introduces different types of mate in a logical sequence by the different pieces, beginning with the rook and then progressing to the bishop, queen and knight. The third part of the book explains how to checkmate in one move using key techniques: checkmate with capturing, checkmate with a pawn promotion, checkmate with protection (including checkmate with a pawn), checkmate with pinning, checkmate with a discovered check, and checkmate with a double check.
Most of the positions to be solved have been selected from actual games of the strongest grandmasters of the present and the great masters of the past. For beginner chess players, their parents and coaches.
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 I, the present work, covers the period 1973-1981, until Kasparov reached the age of 18. The author goes to great lengths to describe his educational approach during the early period to raise Kasparov's theoretical knowledge and practical performance, covering both play and psychological training. The present volume contains 46 games fully annotated by Nikitin, including all 14 games of a blitz match played between the 15-year old Kasparov and ex-world champion Mikhail Tal on 26 December 1978 in Tbilisi that have never before been published and which are provided specially for the 2019 edition of this book. Most of the other games are well known, but Nikitin explains many of Kasparov's decisions in those games from the point of view of the future world champion's coach, providing the context of his young pupil's thought process and mistakes and tracing his progress. He also uses these games to illustrate and expand upon his coaching advice. This makes his commentary quite unique and instructive, of formidable practical use to budding players, coaches and parents.
The 2020-2021 FIDE Candidates Tournament held in Ekaterinburg, starring super-grandmasters Ian Nepomniachtchi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri, Fabiano Caruana, Ding Liren, Alexander Grischuk, Kirill Alekseenko and Wang Hao, delivered an awesome display of fighting chess. Grandmaster and FIDE Senior Trainer Dorian Rogozenco, coach of the German national team from 2014-2020, provides a comprehensive move by move analysis of all 56 games together with an assembled Dream Team of 13 super-class GM guest commentators including Garry Kasparov and Boris Gelfand. The commentary covers opening strategy and novelties, middlegame battles and instructive endgames, psychology and practical observations, together comprising a swathe of learning material valuable to players from club level to titled masters. The book is illustrated with a selection of official FIDE photographer Lennart Ootes’s best shots from both halves of the event.
Born in Bakhmut, Ukraine, and brought up in Odessa, Boris Verlinsky (1888-1950) was the first holder of the grandmaster title in the Soviet Union, and he was consistently one of the top Soviet players in the 1920s.
He earned the master’s title at the 1924 Soviet Championship and won fourth prize at the 1925 Championship, defeating the tournament winner Bogoljubov along the way. Verlinsky then crushed Capablanca at the 1925 Moscow International Tournament, where he finished twelfth equal with Rubinstein and Spielmann, both of whom he also beat. He won the Soviet Championship in 1929, for which he was awarded the grandmaster title, and came third in 1931 despite poor health. Verlinsky played in five Soviet Championship finals in total. He also won a number of other major Tsarist and Soviet-era tournaments, including the Southern Russia Championship, Odessa Championship, Ukrainian Championship, Moscow Championship and others. Moreover, he achieved all this despite being profoundly deaf.
According to the Chessmetrics website, Verlinsky’s highest world ranking was #15 in 1926, and that year he achieved his highest rating of 2627.
Verlinsky possessed a sharp attacking style. As Grandmaster Dmitry Kryakvin highlights in his foreword, “I think that this great attacking player was way ahead of his time, and in his best years he played spectacular, beautiful, dynamic and modern chess more characteristic of the famous players of the second half of the twentieth century. As you study Verlinsky’s brilliant victories, you think of the masterpieces of Mikhail Tal, Leonid Stein, Viktor Kupreichik, Alexei Shirov, and other modern successors of the ‘Fire-On-Board’ dynasty.”
Ukrainian historian and former world champion at composing chess studies Sergei Tkachenko presents a comprehensive biography of this unique player. This book analyzes 130 games and fragments, in which opponents include Capablanca, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Bronstein, Bogoljubov, Spielmann and other stars. The games are frequently annotated by Verlinsky or his opponents and contemporaries, and they have all been reviewed using modern engines by grandmasters or international masters especially for this work.