The words in the review are not overpowering, but then you get to the evaluation. In my opinion the reviewer is entirely right; it was a good book the first time around and the second time we made it at least twice as good. I am very proud of this book.
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review851.pdf
Quality Chess
Please consider publishing a book of positions containing most of the “Essential Chess Knowledge/Patterns”, for easy review of the fundamental chess blocks in strategy, tactics, endgames and so on, basically an improved version of Alburt’s “Chess Training Pocket Book”.
You could take positions and ideas from already published books like “Chess Tactics From Scratch”, The Yusupov Series, Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual, Attacking Manuals, etc, but the main point is to have “all” of the most important ones in one place for constant refreshment.
I think such a book would be a must for all club players and a sales success.
I agree, this is a wonderful book. Instructive and entertaining. I have the hardcover and its much better than the paperback.
@FM To Be
I have been thinking about how to do this right for over 10 years. I might feel brave enough to do this book when I am done with the current two high level serieses I am working on. So, it would be another 18 months before I start writing on this at least.
One series is Grandmaster Preparation, and the other?
@LE BRUIT QUI COURT
GM Repertoire 1.e4
@Jacob Aagaard
Good luck then! Hard days are awaiting you. Luckily I switched to 1.d4 after Avrukh and Schandorff.
Do you have thoughts about GM Guide for Black versus 1.d4 and especially against 1.e4? I konow that “Play the French” will cover Black cause, but how about 1…e5?
I mean 1…e5 in one book covered Open Games and some simple but attacking line versus Spanish game? How about Schlieman, Steinitz lines or you name it?
We are all welcoming such book, me and 1….e5 fans 🙂 So?
@LE BRUIT QUI COURT
We have the Open Spanish coming. We already did Sabino Brunello’s book, which was rather good I think. Beyond this we have a lot of other things coming we have to finish before dreaming of more!
HAHAHA.. How about a book of the best comments to this blog? Please make sure it is in hardcover. Also, where is that guy who complains about the missing chapter in Ftacnik’s Najdorf book?
Jacob, following on from @FM_to_be’s suggestion, I think the book should be: not just the essential positions, but also how to play them. You could also show variants of the same position with analysis to show the approach works across them.
A good example is the first chapter of Endgame Tactics (I’ve yet to read the rest as it just arrived a few days ago) which showed the base position of pushing your pawn out towards an enemy roller on the same file. The enemy king then has to go after it, at which point your king gains opposition and the opponent cannot promote.
I’ve been collecting these little gems for a while now. For example in Marin’s book “Learn from the Legends’ there is a chapter on Alekhine and the heavy pieces. He shows how Alekhine gives up his a-pawn to displace Capablnaca’s rook and thus win the game. I saw (basically) the same position from another game in the book ‘Heavy Pieces in Action’. A collection of these motifs/strategies could be very useful indeed.
Absolutely. When you have a comprehensive list we will get working 🙂