The company which runs the servers for our website and e-mails tells us we have had intermittent server outages during the past week. It is possible e-mails we have sent have not been received. Or maybe e-mails you sent to us have not reached us. It’s all a mystery. Apologies if there are any resulting mix-ups. This is beyond our control, but we shall sort it out as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, Andrew is back from the British Championship. No GM norm and he was rather off-form early on, but a storming finish got Andrew into the prizes at 3rd=.
Jacob returns today from the Politiken Cup in Copenhagen. In the Danish league Jacob is a team-mate of our author GM Lars Schandorff. Jacob and Lars had agreed that the team’s board order would be decided by their Tournament Performance Rating in the Politiken Cup. Lars 2478, Jacob 2479. A clear victory.
Guys, enough of the silly stuff (playing in tournaments), and get cracking on those Bauer and Marin books.
What books? I am off too Thailand to acclimate for the 2011 Bangkok Open!
Pushy, are we, pawn to a6? 🙂
Just some general comments about Quality Chess, the site, etc.
– The only negative is the level of secrecy on the site. A lot of preaching for the desire of books on the QGD for Black, Nimzo-Indian for Black, King’s Indian for Black, has had to be made just to get the word out that a 2-book series on the KID and another 2-book series on the NID are in the works. Let the readers know what is coming in the next couple of years. Don’t need to know the dates, just what’s coming (more on why later).
– Otherwise, everything about Quality Chess gets two thumbs up!
Anyway, the reason I say books should be announced early is simple. You’ll notice, unlike others, I never push for a publishing date, or question why something isn’t out by the date announced. I’d rather see something of quality that is a couple of months late than some slap job just to get it out, like Windows Vista.
Opening books in particuar by Quality Chess are excellent in the sense that they cover in such intricate detail what a player needs to know to be able to elevate themselves over that “hump” that for many people is somewhere in the 1800 – 2100 range (for me personally, it’s around 2025).
That said, they are NOT good for someone who is first learning an opening, that doesn’t even understand the reason for playing say, the Nimzo-Indian and Queen’s Indian, and that it’s specifically to prevent e4 (The pin to the King in the Nimzo prevents 4.e4 and 3.Nf3 does nothing to threaten 4.e4, so Black has time with 3…b6 and 4…Bb7 to cover e4). That said, there are at least 2 players in the area I live in that think the Queen’s Indian Defense can be used all the time, and obviously don’t understand the reason for it, and often see the sequence 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 b6 4.e4 in their games (and they usually lose). If you are going to allow e4, play the English Defense so that …f5 is still an option.
Therefore, this is why I find it a good thing to find out what is coming in the following 2 years. Everyman has its proper audience. The Starting Out series and the “Play the” series are excellent for learning the basics of an opening. These books will get anyone to 2000 that is willing to put in the effort. However, they explain the basics, and show a game or 2 for each line, but they aren’t good for what to do when the opponent deviates, or explaining the reason behind that big novelty on move 13. They just make the 13th move, and go on without explanation due to their constant preach of “space limitations”.
Therefore, the answer is simple. Get the “Starting Out” book, or one of the others published (I have “Starting out: The Scandinavian”, and both editions of Emms’s books on the Scandinavian), study it for a year or so (I’ve studied it off and on since 2001, but now I’m putting pretty much all my focus on defending against 1.e4 towards 1…d5), play a bunch of games, AND THEN get the book from here. This is why knowing well in advance what is getting published is extremely helpful.
I did exactly that with the English Opening. I’ve read a couple of books from Cadogan, Everyman, etc, and got the basic foundation of the English. This book I’m reading now from the GM Repertoire series dealing with 1.c4 e5, I’m seeing all kinds of stuff I never saw in the past, and my results as White have gone up astronomically in the past couple of months. Now once I fix Black, hopefully my rating will go up and stay up this time.
I’ve got the other 2 books on the English on order when they come out (and again, whether they come out August, September, October, etc, doesn’t matter, quality is what matters), and I’ll be getting the Scandinavian book shortly.
With the anticipated 2-book series on the Nimzo, looks like I’ll be pulling out Dearing’s book, along with my QID books, and will be going through them to “prepare” for what will hopefully be published in 2011 or 2012.
Jacob, good luck in the Bangkok Open.
I would not say that it is secretive to say that something is in the works. What I don’t want to do is to tell people that it is an interesting idea, but we have no plans, when we do have plans – but on the other hand I don’t want to say that it is going to happen – definitely – when I am really only 90% sure that it will.
Finally, I don’t think there is a Bangkok Open 2012; the tournament moves and is in Bangkok again in 2012 :-).
Few hours ago I received HARDCOVERS of “Quality Chess Puzzle Book” (my game is there also, thanks) and “GM Rep Najdorf”.
Excellent, fantastic, good-looking, stocky, for collectors …
From now on, Jacob, I will not buy ANY SOFTCOVER of your company if there’ll be hardcovers available.
Unfortunately I was forced to buy Avrukh’s GM Rep 1&2 in softcover, sadly … 🙂
My apologies…
I am very excited about Grandmaster Repertoire 6 – The Sicilian Defense by Lubomir Ftacnik. I am looking for a soft-copy and do not want to wait until amazon.com gets one in stock. Would it be possible to get a list of suppliers in the United States who have a soft-copy of Grandmaster Repertoire 6 – The Sicilian Defense?
Kevin, I learned about chess4less through this blog and am very happy with the speed and accuracy of their service. Pretty sure they have any Quality Chess stuff you’d want.
ChessCafe as well. And USCF Chess Sales for those not wanting the hardbacks (they did not want them for some reason)…