For many chess-players, opening study is pure hard work. It is difficult to know what is important and what is not, and when specific knowledge is vital, or when a more general understanding is sufficient. Tragically once the opening is over, a player is puzzled what plan to follow, or even understand why his pieces are on the squares on which they sit.
Our author GM Dariusz Swiercz, continued in the second Volume of his series, and explains in a methodological way how to solve these issues when White proceeds with 3.Nf3 and g3.
He picked some aggressive options with the Ragozin and brings the ever popular Catalan to a stand still. Any chess player being Black would be much interested to find out how Dariusz decided on his final choices. We are convinced you won’t be disappointed with his second and final volume of this series.
"In this book Yuriy does not overwhelm you with variations, but instead he focuses a lot on the verbal explanations and understanding of the typical positions. At the same time, you can be confident that his recommendations are quite sound and have been thoroughly checked with extensive databases, strong engines as well as critically looked upon from the human perspective. I am entirely sure that studying the materials presented in this work will benefit players of all levels, from some relatively inexperienced club players to even strong players." ~ Susan Polgar
A highly adventurous repertoire designed to meet 1 e4 with 1...e5 and take the initiative!
The main problem Black faces in answering 1 e4 with 1...e5 is the plethora of opening systems available to White: the Ruy Lopez, Giuoco Piano, Scotch, Ponziani, King’s Gambit, Vienna, Bishop’s Opening and so on. Each is likely to be White’s pet line, which usually means conducting the chess battle on the opponent’s turf.
One solution is to study the main lines of all these openings and hope to remember what to do if they appear on the board. Another, more enterprising approach is to turn the tables and make White fight on your territory.
Adopting the latter course, CC-SIM Jonathan Tait shares their investigations into a myriad of disregarded, “disreputable” responses, which can set White thinking as early as move three. These lines are greatly under-estimated by contemporary theory and include weird and wonderful variations such as the Calabrese Counter-Gambit (1 e4 e5 2 Bc4 f5), the Wagenbach Defence to the King’s Gambit (1 e4 e5 2 f4 exf4 3 Nf3 h5), the Romanishin Three Knights (1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Nc3 Bc5), the Two Knights Ulvestad Variation (1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 Ng5 d5 5 exd5 b5) and ultra-sharp lines of the Jaenisch Gambit (1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 f5).
The theory of the variations in this book is generally poorly understood. This has made them successful at all forms of play, including against online computer-assisted assault.
This exceptional book completes the unique project where one of the greatest players of our time transforms her personal journey to the top into a roadmap for everyone who ever wanted to better themselves in the game of chess.
This ebook is a part of Bundle: Polgar Bundle
A Guide to Chess Improvement features the very best of Dan Heisman's multi-award winning chess column Novice Nook, which ran for over ten years at the popular website ChessCafe.com. This book is full of valuable instruction, insight and practical advice on a wide range of key subjects: general improvement, thought processes, planning and strategy, tactics, endgame play, technique, time management and much more besides.
Heisman has thoroughly revised, expanded and updated his work to produce an easy-to-navigate guide. He has also included brand new and exclusive columns. Any player from beginner to expert who is serious about improving their chess should read this book!
This ebook is a part of Bundle: Dan Heisman's Books
(WEBSTORE SPECIAL - You can purchase the book on our webstore and access it from all your Forward Chess apps. Pull down to refresh the "Books" tab in your mobile apps).
The most hated cliché in chess is: And the rest is a matter of technique. In A Matter of Endgame Technique Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard deals with one of the few things chessplayers hate even more – losing a winning position. No serious chessplayer is new to the misery of spoiling hours of hard work in a few minutes...
A Matter of Endgame Technique offers the second-best happiness – the misfortune of others – as well as deep explanation of the underlying patterns of how and why we misplay winning endgames. At just under 900 pages, this hardcover book is actually six books in one, explaining the technical and practical areas of chess endgames plainly, simply and deeply. Endgame theory is well covered elsewhere; this book is all about technique and devoid of material to memorise.
Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard won the British Championship at his first and only attempt. Aagaard has won more awards than any other chess author, and is co-founder of Quality Chess and the online academy killerchesstraining.com.
Aagaard’s students have won school tournaments, national titles, FM, IM and GM titles, international opens, the US Championship, the World Cup, the Candidates Tournament and Olympiad medals of all denominations.
TACTICS TRAINER AVAILABLE! In this guide International Master Vladimir Barsky teaches the method created by his mentor Viktor Khenkin (1923-2010). It’s based on an ingenious classification of the most frequently occurring mating schemes. A wide range of chess players will find it an extremely useful tool to recognize mating patterns and calculate the often narrow path to the kill. All the 1,000 examples (850 of them in exercise format) that Barsky presents are from games played in 21st century. He has carefully selected the most instructive combinations and lucidly explains the typical techniques to corner your opponent’s king. More often than you would expect, positions that look innocent at first sight, turn out to contain a mating pattern. This is not just another book full of chess puzzles. It’s a brilliantly organized course that has proven to be effective. Finding mate isn’t rocket science, but you need to know what to look for. Vladimir Barsky teaches you exactly that.
In addition to the Pirc, the first part of the book covers all possible set-ups in which White refrains from the moves 1.e4 and 1.d4, namely: 1.f4, 1.b3, 1.b4 (Chapter 1), 1.Nf3 (Chapter 2), 1.c4 (Chapters 3, 4). The second part of the book (Chapters 5-9) is devoted to opening schemes in which White does play 1.d4, but then he does not follow up with c2-c4. This is the Trompowsky Attack (d4, Bg5) and the London System (d4, Nf3, Bf4).”
In the second volume of this repertoire set GM Kornev analyzes Caro-Kann as well as openings where White doesn’t play 1.e4 or 1.d4
The combination of the Slav Defense and the Caro-Kann Defense enables Black to facilitate his defense in the opening and to avoid numerous unpleasant schemes for him. For example, after 1.c4, he can simply play 1…c6, without being afraid of 2.e4. In the above mentioned London System, after the moves 1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 c5 3.e3, Black has the resource 3…cxd4 4.exd4, after which there arises by transposition a variation from the Caro-Kann Defense which is practically harmless for Black.