Updated Publishing Schedule

Unfortunately it seems that Boris Avrukh is falling a bit behind his own and our expectations to what he would be able to do with Grandmaster Repertoire 2 here in the autumn. The book is close to being done, but there are many lines such as 1.d4 g6, 1.d4 e6 2.c4 f5 3.g3 Bb4+ that needs to be covered as well, and the grandmaster does not seem to be able to do everything before he is faced with tournament commitments. So, the book is pushed a bit down the list, with the updated publishing schedule looking like this:

Marin/Garrett Reggio Emilia 2007/2008 28 October 2009
Tibor Karolyi Genius in the Background 28 October 2009
Jacob Aagaard Attacking Manual Volume 1 18 November 2009
Jacob Aagaard Attacking Manual Volume 2 18 November 2009
John Shaw Quality Chess Puzzle Book 02 December 2009
Artur Yusupov Boost your Chess 1 02 December 2009
Boris Avrukh Grandmaster Repertoire 2 09 December 2009

2010

Boris Alterman The Alterman Gambit Guide – White 27 January 2010
John Shaw The King’s Gambit 27 January 2010
Lubomir Ftacnik Grandmaster Repertoire 5 – The Sicilian 03 February 2010
Mihail Marin Grandmaster Repertoire 4 – The English 2 17 February 2010
Lars Schandorff Grandmaster Repertoire 6 – The Caro-Kann 17 February 2010
Tibor Karolyi Karpov’s Strategic Wins 1 – 1961-1985 03 March 2010
Tibor Karolyi Karpov’s Strategic Wins 2 – 1986 – 2009 03 March 2010
Boris Alterman The Alterman Gambit Guide – Black 17 March 2010
Artur Yusupov Boost your Chess 2 01 May 2010

As always, this is a prediction, not a promise!

60 thoughts on “Updated Publishing Schedule”

  1. Speaking of GM Repertoire 2, the description suggests the Nimzo-Indian and Queen’s Indian will not be covered. Will they be covered in another volume? Just wondering.

  2. The Nimzo-Indian and Queen’s Indian don’t need to be covered because he uses the Catalan to avoid these openings. The only thing he needs to cover is this Bogo-Catalan hybrid line.

    I’m really excited about these Tibor Karolyi Karpov’s Strategic Wins books.

  3. The delays on GMR 2 are becoming very annoying. I switched to 1.d4 and still only have half a repertoire! I can’t imagine how also to take up the English having only half the lines covered. By the time these second halves are out, the first halves will be outdated!

    Since switching many of my games are 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 and I am still lost as to how Avrukh will suggest I play….don’t need much about 1.d4 g6 or bad Dutch lines, is he recommending the fianchetto KID and Gruenfeld and if so which lines?

  4. Too bad about Avrukh #2 getting moved back some more, but so long as Boris does the job right, I won’t complain. 🙂

  5. Boris is working hard. There will be improvements on every page, from what I have seen, and often more than one. A tremendous amount of work has gone into the book already, and we are just getting into action.

    The thing is, we try to check many sources for our authors, and in this way alert them to lines they have missed. I just sent away a file with three minor lines Boris had missed in the Modern Benoni. We do not want a situation like volume one, where we missed the Bd6-Catalan.

    And yes, 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 is the move order. We will cover 3…c5, 3…Bb4+ and 3…b6?! in this volume.

  6. I’m looking forward to Avrukh’s companion volume and while I hope to get it sooner, what really matters to me is to have a high-quality, reliable repertoire with some bite. Good things take time and I’m sure it will be time well-spent. These books may become classics in their niche as they are so different from typical opening books.

    Also, what do you think about printing an updated version (it will have been a year by the time GM Rep. 2 is released) of GM Repertoire 1? There were quite a few errors listed on ChessPub and here http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/blog/?p=38#comments (especially p. 128) as well as some missing lines like 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. b3 c5!? and potential improvements (theory changes). I’d prefer to have it all with me and up-to-date so would be happy to buy it again even for just such corrections.

  7. chess players are very similar to software developers : “Ask the most experienced software developer in your team when the software is finished…Then at least double that time” i think humans have to accept that there are things who cannot be planned 😉 what i like at chesspublishing.com is that they at least inform about changes (and if you see aagaard as the most experienced in the quality chess team you know what to do with the times given *g*)

  8. Maybe I can sue quality chess due to the delay of Avrukhs book? I mean , I have no repertoire against the Kingsindian and Gruenfeld , so I am loosing rating points, cannot win prizes etc… Someone living in the US who can check this for me? Is 2 Million Us-Dollar ok?

    Joking of course. The first Volume was excellent, and the second will be also excellent for shure, but you just need time to write a good, and more time to write a very good book.
    Many authors produce several books a year, what can you expect from such a bokk written in a few weeks?
    It ist difficult to be patient, but i am shure it will pay off.

    Keep up the excellent work

  9. Hey Jacob, can you give us any clue into what you will be recommending in the 1.e4 repertiore books? Please just a few sneaky hints (especially on the Sicilian variations and 1…e5!)! K

  10. I am in the early stages of working on these books. Basically it will be main lines, meaning maybe the English attack against the Najdorf, 3.Nc3 against the French, Ruy Lopez and so on. This is why it will take up to a year of my life to write these books…

    In the meantime I am working a bit on another book I have collected material for in the last 6 years. It is a book with positional exercises that I use with Sabino and other students.

  11. @AL
    Yes of course but that update is still incomplete and doesn’t include corrections or improvements. I’m talking about something more substantial. See the link for example or one of the lines I listed.

  12. If you are seriously talking about us doing a 2nd edition of GM1 I invite you to find the tread on CP on Beating the Open Games 2nd edition, and all the abuse we received for doing exactly what you are suggesting. As we don’t have the time and don’t want to offend any readers again, we will focus on producing new books.

  13. Jacob Aagaard :
    In the meantime I am working a bit on another book I have collected material for in the last 6 years. It is a book with positional exercises that I use with Sabino and other students.

    sounds interesting. can you tell more about this? and when can we expect this “Quality Chess Puzzle Bock – Positional Style”… AFTER “1. e4” will not be accepted 😉

  14. I will see if my editor will print the book at all! I will finish the book this year, in between other jobs. I have worked on it for a very long time, and I feel that I have to unload it. When we will print it is another matter.

    And as usual, I have too much material.

  15. “In the meantime I am working a bit on another book I have collected
    material for in the last 6 years. It is a book with positional exercises
    that I use with Sabino and other students.”

    Since Euwe “Das Mittelspiel” we don’t have any good book on chess strategy, omiitng here Dvoretsky’s book which are top notch.

  16. @Jacob Aagaard

    Refusing to do second editions on opening books which by nature are transient, seems a bit absurd to me regardless of whatever abuse you may have received (if it was really the concept that was the problem). Plus, I didn’t even ask for a full second-edition, but rather more like a second printing with some updates. For example. The dxc4… 7. Nc3 line has developed a lot and Avrukh’s Bf4 novelty is under some pressure (see MyBook 17.1 on the Computer Chess section of the Rybka forum).

  17. Boris did finish the Leningrad, but still has to do a lot of minor lines. Also, there is a good deal of editing needed. We are still 2 months away from publication, I fear.

  18. Jacob, here’s an example of an important line that isn’t covered: 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e3 e5 4. Bxc4 exd4 5. exd4 Bb4+ 6. Nc3 Nf6 7. Nf3 O-O 8. O-O Bg4!! I find this line really annoying and I don’t know how to get any real advantage against it. There are many examples like this and if there won’t be a second printing with corrections and new lines, there should at least be another update. There is already so much feedback though that I think a second printing or even second edition will have more than enough changes.

  19. Just so you know, I’m not the only one who feels this way. To quote Markovich from ChessPub:


    Re: A hole in Avrukhs Semi-Slav repertoire?
    Reply #4 – 06/04/09 at 15:09:04 Quote
    I mentioned before, but it was scarcely noticed, that a fairly major hole in Avrukh’s anti-Meran repertoire is 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.b3 c5. Someone brought up a couple of games that Bacrot lost on the White side of this. To me 5…c5 looks like a pretty good answer to 5.b3. Maybe the GM knows better and has some antidote, but he should have treated this in his book.

    If Jacob Aagaard encounters this, I wish he would ask Avrukh to put up, alongside the other hole-plugging material that he’s put up already on Quality’s website, what his idea is for dealing 5…c5.
    http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1244101482

    A second printing or second edition would be justified in the not so distant future. QualityChess may have other projects to get to first, but as good as Avrukh’s book is, it still has errors and omissions – plus, theory changes.

  20. I think the purchasers of the book should fix any holes that are cropping up with their own analysis. This book is targeted at a high enough level that the readers should be able to do a little work on their own. I did this with the …a6 Slav with …dxc4 before I realized that there was already an update on the website. ChessPublishing posters seem to be discussing this and fixing things already so I don’t really see a problem.

  21. I think both points of view are valid. I cannot say that I have a hollistic approach to this issue, rather I do what is practical for us. Although our business model is far from “show me the money”, we still do need to make a profit to continue working with advancing chess literature, which is our real goal.

    Something we cannot effort is to publish a second edition while we still have physical 1st edition copies left. For that reason alone, a second edition is not likely in the next half year. However, we are contemplating a second edition of some of the first books we did, but they would not really be updated, rather rewritten works.

  22. Get real everybody. For the very low price I get an very large, well written book. What you see is what you get. I do not expect the publisher has some sort of “free-of-charge maintenance obligation” in this time when theory advances daily. Anything they offer extra is customer service.
    If I wanted a maintenance contract, I would expect to pay a periodic fee for that. And that’s the business model Chesspublishing is offering.

    And of course I would like to have Avrukh part 2 yesterday. All my opponents seem to be playing Dutch, Budapest, KI, Benoni, …

  23. I do not think it is unreal to ask the publishers to do better. It is our intention, and as long as it is done within a respectful and realistic frame, I actually appreciate it. I want to know what people really think.

  24. OK, let me propose a compromise. What about if the readers of the GM Rep 1 simply collect some missing or inaccurate material, updated material too, or even refuted lines if there are. Then we can send them to the publisher and they can produce a new update for the readers if they decide to do so (PGN file or a small PDF). Thus we will complete half if not more than that of the work and publisher eventually in cooperation by the author will do the rest for us;)
    Of course this may be done for other books too. For example I found on the net games in quite an interesting line which is even not mentioned by Brunello in his chapters on Gajewski and this line seems to create a lot of troubles for Black for now.
    For me it sounds like a fair solution for book updates. Of course we need to hear what the publisher think about this.

  25. Milen, that has already been partially done. I’ve submitted some omissions (5. …c5 in e6 Semi-Slav for example) in this thread and referred to inaccuracies as a link (for example: http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/blog/?p=38#comments)… and of course there is that ChessPub thread too… The information is available, it just isn’t centralized. I’m sure that if one made a thread on ChessPub asking for clear and specific omissions, errors, inaccuracies in GM1, there would be plenty of people with good feedback. I’ve got my own feedback and I haven’t even gone over most of the lines yet.

    Anyway, this is the first opening book I’m actually trying to adopt so that’s why I’m so interested in making this book even better. I actually wouldn’t even mind to pay a small fee ($5 or less) for updates every few months. However, I understand that a second edition is not practical now if there are still many copies of the 1st edition.

  26. It is most likely impractical to have Avrukh perform more updates to GM Rep 1 as of present. Most who intended to have both GM Rep 1 and GM Rep 2 are more eager to actually have a filling repertoire (KI, Grünfeld, Benoni, Dutch, etc.) than to have very minor updates to lines that already are presented in a book that purchasers possess. It seems to make sense to allow Avrukh to have less work to do so he can concentrate on the completion of GM Rep 2. I think most GM Rep 1 purchasers would want to see GM Rep 2 more than these updates to GM Rep 1.

  27. Are most of the lines in GM Repertoire Volume 2 going to be compatible with a 1 Nf3 move order like in the first book?

  28. I do not see how they can, since Avrukh’s repertoire does not involve the Queen’s Indian, viz. 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 (not 3. Nf3).

  29. I’m frustrated by the delay to gmr2 too…I learn’t the Catalan but have too many repetoire holes to play it against the nimzo move order.

    I guess everyone is learning, but maybe splitting it up would have been a better way. I really liked gmr1, and would have bought gmr2 in 2 or 3 200 page chunks.

  30. I’m wondering if the Fianchetto Grunfeld and Fianchetto KID lines are going to be 1 Nf3 compatible. I have Opening for White According to Kramnik.

  31. Here’s a variation that is making great difficulties for me: [Event “?”]

    1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. g3 dxc4 5. Bg2 Nc6 6. Qa4 Bb4+ 7. Bd2 Nd5 8.
    Bxb4 Ndxb4 9. O-O Rb8 10. Na3 a6 11. Ne5 O-O 12. Nxc6 Nxc6 13. Bxc6 bxc6 14.
    Nxc4 Qxd4 15. Rfd1 Qe4 16. Rd2 Rb5 17. Rc1 e5 18. b3 Qg4 19. Qa3 Qe6 20. Na5
    Bd7 21. Rcd1 Be8!!! Avrukh does not see this move at all.

    and it may continue 22. Nc4 f5 23. Rd8 f4 24. e4 Qf6 25. Qb2 h5 26. Qe2 h4 27.
    R1d3 hxg3 28. hxg3 fxg3 29. fxg3 a5 30. Ra8 a4. See MyBook 17.2 for more information. Basically, I can’t find a way for White to deviate with advantage and the current line is simply equal. All the moves (up to Be8) seem to be best and so I can’t find a way to an edge. If there is really no radical improvement, this almost REFUTES THE CATALAN. Ok… not in the sense that it is bad for White, but in the sense that it leads to an equal position where White is under attack.

    Although there are other lines where White has alternatives that lead to a small edge but Avrukh’s move seems to no longer work. For example. 7. Nc3

    1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. g3 dxc4 5. Bg2 a6 6. O-O Nc6 7. Nc3 Rb8 8. e4
    Be7 9. Qe2 b5 10. Rd1 O-O 11. d5 exd5 12. e5 d4 13. exf6 Bxf6 14. Qe4 Bb7 15.
    Nd5 Nb4 16. Nxf6+ Qxf6 17. Qf4 c5 18. Qxf6 gxf6 19. Bf4 Rbd8 20. Bc7 Rc8! a move not considered in the book

    after: 21.Bd6 Rfd8 22. Be7 Re8 23. Bxf6 Nd3 24. Rd2 Bc6 25. Bh4 Kg7 26. Rad1 f6 27. a3 a5 Black is already better.

    On p. 182, at the bottom right 19. …Re8 is a known improvement over …cxb4 but it is not covered. I’m not sure Black’s position is really equal, but I couldn’t make progress.

    I really hope there will be some updates. I can no longer play some of these lines in correspondence chess.

  32. Abramov Anjuhin

    Jacob, last year you asked for combinations for new puzzle book.

    Can you now disclose whose combinations are in the book.

    Please fulfill your promise.

  33. I am very interested in The Caro-Kann work.
    Is it possible to have some news on its developing, and on what main line it will be based upon?
    Thanks.

  34. I checked my database (all 2008 included) and didn’t see many recent games (surely I’m not up to date).
    For the most part i saw games with Bf5 variation and just some with Nd7, so I suppose the book will be based upon Bf5.
    Thanks for help.

  35. To prepare, what exactly are the lines Avrukh will propose in GM Rep 2? I assume it is:

    Fianchetto vs. KID
    Fianchetto vs. Grünfeld
    Fianchetto against 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6
    Fianchetto vs. Dutch
    ??? vs. Benoni
    ??? vs. Benko and 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5
    ??? vs. Budapest

    Looking forward to it though.

  36. Well, it’s rather clear that versus Benoni he’ll recommend fianchetto line. No other way. And against Benko it’ll be accepted line with fianchetto (I asked him on his blog). But about Budapest I’ve no clear idea, but I think it’ll be main line (there’re not many in this particular opening).

  37. Ok, I’ve spent countless hours trying to revive the 4. e3 Bg4 line. I’ve considered every move in the database and many others. My conclusion is that White is certainly no better and if he tries for an edge, he’s probably worse. It’s pathetic. I really like all the other lines for White, but this Bg4 move is essentially a refutation of 4. e3. I get just as much advantage from a Colle lol.

  38. I looked to Palliser’s book Play 1. d4! for help, but to no avail. His line: 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 Bg4 5. Qb3 Qb6 6. Ne5 Bf5 7. cxd5 Qxb3 8. axb3 Nxd5 9. Nd2 isn’t that appealing given the doubled pawns and threat of Nb4.

    Still, I’m not a titled player so hopefully I’m just wrong.

  39. Al

    I think it is okay for White, I have played it with success. But if you are not happy with the positions play something more suited to your style. I think it is a bit of a bold statement to ay that Bg4 refutes the e3 Slav!

  40. I only mean that in the sense that it seems pretty equal. White may get a tiny something in some lines, but nothing more than in the exchange Slav for instance. At least that’s my impression. I’m hoping bold statements will lead to updates. 😀

  41. I live in two different cities in two different countries (UK being one), but have pre-ordered GM Rep 2. The shipping address I submitted in the order I will depart from 14/12/09-02/01/10. I’m not sure if I should change the shipping address, in case the book arrives and I am not there to receive it.

  42. I am living in two countries and have pre-ordered GM Rep 2. However, I will be gone to my other residence from 14/12/09-02/01/09 from the shipping address I submitted. I don’t know if I should change the shipping address in case GM Rep 2 is released around then and I am not present to receive the book.

  43. I don’t see where Avrukh mentions Black’s attempt to bring play into a QID with 6…b6 in the Closed Catalan.

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