Slowly getting there

We have been battling a bit with ill health, tax returns (and an inept, now fired, accountant), commas and the usual Scottish autumn weather. As a result everything has slided a bit.

Reggio Emilia 2007/2008 is printed, and can be ordered from our webshop, but we are not releasing it for wider distribution until Genius In the Background is ready. The concern is that of the smaller bookshops, who prefers to keep quantities higher, and thus postage costs low. For this reason we prefer to publish books two at a time.

The manuscripts to the two Attacking Manuals are written and are being edited and typeset. Boost your Chess 1 is also essentially done, while so some stuff needs to be done to Boris Avrukh’s book from our side, just as Boris needs to finish the last chapter. This is the one I worry about at the moment.

The puzzle book is a mess at the moment, but a very promising mess. The selection is 99% new positions, many of them from 2006-2009, and only a very limited number from before 2000, and only in cases where we have found something new, or are particularly in love with them. The book is officially done by John, but in reality it is a team effort.

Marin is busy coaching and playing, but hope to finish GM4 by the end of January. Ftacnik has churned out a lot of stuff for GM5, but some big main chapters still need to be worked out. However, we can now start to see the end of these three GM Repertoire books. Also GM6 is not too far away into the distance…

Here is the latest projection of coming publications.

author title expected
Marin/Garrett Reggio Emilia 2007/2008 25 November 2009
Tibor Karolyi Genius in the Background 25 November 2009
Artur Yusupov Boost your Chess 1 16 December 2009
Boris Avrukh Grandmaster Repertoire 2 – 1.d4 volume 2 16 December 2009
Jacob Aagaard Attacking Manual Volume 1 04 January 2010
Jacob Aagaard Attacking Manual Volume 2 04 January 2010
John Shaw Quality Chess Puzzle Book 18 January 2010
OTHER PLANNED PUBLICATIONS
Boris Alterman The Alterman Gambit Guide – White
John Shaw The King’s Gambit
Lubomir Ftacnik Grandmaster Repertoire 5 – The Sicilian
Mihail Marin Grandmaster Repertoire 4 – The English 2
Lars Schandorff Grandmaster Repertoire 6 – The Caro-Kann
Tibor Karolyi Karpov’s Strategic Wins 1 – 1961-1985
Tibor Karolyi Karpov’s Strategic Wins 2 – 1986 – 2009
Boris Alterman The Alterman Gambit Guide – Black
Artur Yusupov Boost your Chess 2

49 thoughts on “Slowly getting there”

  1. For when are planed books about Karpov’s positional style?

    I’m looking forward to those book cause I expect to learn a lot from Karpov’s play. Hopefully this book will also be a STRATEGY MANUAL.

    Can you produce STRATEGY MANUAL just like Dvoretsky’s “Endgame manual”.

    Unfortunately you do not have single book about STRATEGY!!!

    This is not good.

  2. Wondering if I should hold out for GM REP 6 Caro Kann or look elsewhere. Is Schandorff recommending 4…Nd7 or 4…Bf5?

  3. For pre-orders, do you bill at the time of shipping or when the order is placed?

    With the tumble of the US dollar having no end in sight, I wonder if I should preorder all of my books from Quality Chess as a hedge.

  4. @L

    L,

    The way our website is set up, we bill at the time the order is placed.

    Volatile exchange rates do make things interesting for everyone.

  5. If GM Rep 2 is going to be released on 16 December, I will need to change my shipping address since I will be in a different residence from 11/12-01/01 then. Would this be advisable? I do not want to change shipping address and then have to change it again in case of delay.

  6. Hi I was just wondering what the length of the GM Rep 2 will be…will it be about the same as GM 1 of about 450+?

    Thank you in advance, sorry if you have answered this question already somewhere else.

  7. PDF excerpt when we have typeset and proofed the book. This is still some time off. The book looks to be quite long too, yes.

  8. May we have a book (GM repertoire) about the French Defence ? One of the major opening not cover yet … and who takes the challenge ?

  9. If you can get Watson to do it (or maybe it should be written ‘If you want to get Watson to do it’), I think that’s a pretty obvious and strong choice. Maybe you’ll have to change the name of the series to “IM Repertoire: The French Defense” though.

  10. Gurevich, Bareev, Uhlmann and Watson. Thanks, interesting suggestions (for the most part). We have plans but any book is a long way off. No announcement yet, as we want to wait until nearer the finish (avoiding making promises we cannot guarantee keeping).

  11. I would personally not have a problem with including Watson in the GM-Repertoire series, as a single exception. However, I would not want to offend him, and I fear asking him would do so. Besides, there are other candidates.

  12. @Jacob

    I am not fond of Watson’s books (probably i’m the only one, I find them superficial, in a way), but I remember a good book of Gurevich of the Queens Indian (Kasparov system).

  13. I am not sure about a CT book. The problem is that it is a daily (I write for it too, occasionally) and thus cannot be as deep as we would expect of a book. They do find a number of nice combinations, but some recent books have simply copied from them, so this is not too relevant either.

    But please do get your friends to subscribe to CT!

  14. Do you guys have any plans to do a book on the London System? There hasn’t been that much written on the London System.

  15. No plans for a London System book. That kind of openings are covered sufficiently by Gambit and Everyman, and I think they do a better job of it than we would. I agree that the London is not a great system for long term improvement, but it can also be played for a short time for various reasons. You can find games with me in the database with the London, but basically just for fun. Black is at least equal after 2…c5.

    We do have some plans on the French, but I am not sure if anything is going to come of it. However, we have put a lot of energy into it so far, and will continue to do so – but not everything works out as you wish.

  16. As a King’s Gambiteer, I’m looking forward to John Shaw’s book in January. Is this going to be a repertoire book or will it aim to cover all lines? In the KGA, does John recommend 3.Nf3 or 3.Bc4?

  17. @James Toon

    James,

    The book is planned as giving more lines than a repertoire book so closer to “complete” style, except I intend to weed out lines I judge to be irrelevant for practical players (I think too many books waste space analysing inferior replies to inferior lines).

    I plan to cover both 3.Nf3 and 3.Bc4. I would especially like 3.Nf3 to work, but naturally then 3…g5 is a challenge. I have some ideas there and am also gathering new ideas from a broad range of friends and colleagues.

  18. It’s interesting to me that Schandorff wants top go with Bf5 instead of the Steinitz, which to my mind gives more winning chances. Bf5 is much too passive and recent GM results seem to confirm this, but boy are these guys LOYAL to Bf5.

  19. @Ghenghisclown

    Ghenghisclown,

    The Steinitz line (1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7) is interesting to me (Svidler won a nice game recently), but I think the majority GM view would be that 4…Bf5 is more active than 4…Nd7. Naturally White has a big say in how active a position Black can get, but that applies to every opening, not just the Caro.

  20. Thomas Johansson

    Any plans for a repertoire book for Black?

    Against 1.d4 it would be interesting with a mixed opening bag picking the raisins from different openings as many GMs do in practice, instead of the usual ‘one opening one book’.

    So, something like: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 and if 3.Nc3 Bb4! and 3.Nf3 d5! going for a Vienna/Ragozin QG with Bb4 and a QGA vs e3. And a QI set-up vs Colle/Torre etc. The Catalan might be a problem though, maybe offering a Modern Benoni?

  21. I completely agree with Thomas. The Nimzo Indian with Vienna is very trendy at the moment and something I think would be VERY popular with a lot of people, something for the team to consider as something like this has never been done before! I would suggest NID systems with d5 as it is similar to the 3.Nf3 d5 stuff

  22. Count me as one more customer very excited about all these books. To tell the truth, you could publish a book on 1.e4 g5 and I’d probably buy it, but my vote is yes, please, a book on the French.

    Also maybe another work from Jacob on the Grünfeld?

    Regardless, keep up the good work. I enjoy it tremendously.

  23. Oh no! I think people have been had enough the first time around! Back when I wrote Starting Out in the Grunfeld, I accepted whatever, as long as there was a paycheck. Now I will only write about things I am truly interested in, or have expertise in. This is the reason why we made this company – to get away from the anything goes philosophy which rules our business in general.

  24. How about a book on the Exchange QGD which has never been properly done by a GM? (Schandorff’s coverage is very good to get started but is a bit skimpy considering all the other 1.d4 d5 defences he had to cover!)
    The Benoni has suffered from neglect too

  25. Hi David,

    The latest guess for the King’s Gambit is sometime in the summer: July or August maybe. Depends how the analysis develops and, especially, how smoothly things go with the other projects that have to be completed first.

  26. Hi John,

    speaking about King’s Gambit – at which levels,
    do you think, is it playable today?
    I found Jacob using it at the Danish Championship…
    Thanks
    Werner

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