Websales posting…

Our new books, Opening Simulator – KID by Lund and Hagen, and The Nemesis by Efim Geller are printed and being posted to those who have bought them on our website.

While we were printing, we took the chance to reprint some other books that had been out of stock in either paperback or hardcover. So The Catalan by Boris Avrukh and The King’s Gambit, by me, are now available again in both formats. Above is a photo of the newly reprinted, and ridiculously heavy, hardcover of The King’s Gambit. In case you are wondering, that seam along the middle of the spine is not damage – our hardbacks are wrapped in plastic so they arrive in pristine condition.

74 thoughts on “Websales posting…”

  1. Awesome! If a game is not working out for me, I can use the book and literally beat my opponent with The King’s Gambit!

  2. So I just read the text part (not the problems) of the sample PDF of the Opening Simulator. Will this book kill all sales at Quality Chess and put the publishing company out of business? I mean, think about it! What do you call all of these “Grandmaster Repertoire” and “Playing the” books? I’d say it’s “Reading and Nodding”!

    Makes you wonder if this is a one-time thing or if they intend to do it with other openings and form a series similar to the “Grandmaster Repertoire” or “Playing the” series. Luckily enough, the first one published just so happens to be my primary line of defense against 1.d4.

  3. It’s all part of the business strategy: having published GM Rep/Playing the XXX on almost every opening we could think of, we are just paving the way for Opening Simulator volumes 1-60!!

  4. Will Marin’s English vol 3 get a hardback reprint as well?
    I’ve been looking everywhere and no retailers have it 🙁

  5. Andrew Greet :
    Nah, nobody plays the Classical any more – especially not that Kozul rubbish.

    Sounds like you’re preparing a book on it.

    Magsoodloh played it. And Bacrot. and….

  6. Andrew, in response to your previous post on business strategy and marketing, here’s a marketing question for you. I typically buy books once a year, and how many I get depends on budget. I can afford three at this time. Two of the ones that I’ll be getting are Opening Simulator King’s Indian Defense and Small Steps to Giant Improvement.

    The third will be either Practical Chess Beauty, Under the Surface, or The Chess Toolbox (differrent publishing company). Practical Chess Beauty, based on the PDF, appears to be either a sequel or a rehash (not sure which) of Extreme Chess Tactics (Same author, Gambit Publications). Under the Surface appears to be similar to The Grandmaster Battle Manual, where each chapter is its own separate topic, but different topics than TGBM. Then there’s The Chess Toolbox.

    What marketing argument would you make that one should buy either Under the Surface or Practical Chess Beauty over the book from a competing publisher?

  7. Patrick :
    Practical Chess Beauty, based on the PDF, appears to be either a sequel or a rehash (not sure which) of Extreme Chess Tactics (Same author, Gambit Publications).

    No, not a ‘rehash’ – that is nowhere close to true. And not a sequel either. Same author, totally different book. To give one trivial example, ‘Extreme Chess Tactics’ is 144 pages, while ‘Practical Chess Beauty’ is 464 pages.

    To your next question, the correct answer is not to buy either ‘Under the Surface’ or ‘Practical Chess Beauty’. Buy both. They are two of the more interesting books we have ever produced.

    Sure, I’m biased, but the English Chess Forum awarded their Book of the Year prize to ‘Under the Surface’. And on both books’ webpages you will find plenty of ecstatic quotes from independent reviewers.

  8. @Patrick

    Firstly, just to make it clear, my marketing post about Opening Simulator 1-60 was tongue in cheek – although if the sales of the KID book justify further volumes on other openings, then obviously we will be delighted.

    John has answered the ‘rehash’ question so I will say no more about that!

    As for reasons to choose one of our books as your third title among those you mentioned, I can think of two excellent reasons. Firstly, as John has stated, ‘Under the Surface’ and ‘Practical Chess Beauty’ are two of the best and most interesting books we have ever published. And secondly, since you mention that you are on a budget and you plan to purchase the KID Simulator and Small Steps anyway, this gives you the opportunity to add a third title when ordering from our website in order to benefit from our free book offer; in which case you could consider ‘GM Battle Manual’ or any of the other titles on the free book list, thereby making your money go further.

  9. Andrew/John,

    Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, I am not eligible for the free book as I don’t live in the European Union. Actually, I’ve seen Jacob and Boris in person before, but not over there. It’s the two times that they have come to the Charlotte Chess Center in Charlotte, North Carolina in the United States, and so if I understand correctly, I wouldn’t be eligible for that, and if that’s true, I’d probably order from the US Retailer (Chess4Less) as shipping would be lower, unless I really am eligible for the free book, but again if I understand it right, I don’t believe I am.

  10. @Patrick
    Yes that’s correct: unfortunately the free book is for customers in the EU (as defined by UPS) only. In that case, we will just have to fall back on the first point that they are damn good books.

  11. Jacob Aagaard

    The free book and EU is because the shipping is pennies dearer for us. Outside, it’s many pounds…

  12. Hi Jacob
    There was a post few months ago about Brexit conséquences on QC. At that time you were quite optimistic. Are you still convinced that it will have no bad effect for EU customers ? prices, delay…

  13. Jacob,

    Just a thought, to maybe increase business possibly. People like myself in the United States that have a local distributor would still likely do best shopping locally, but for those in countries that don’t have a local distributor, do you think sales would go up if you offered the free book to everyone, but for those outside the EU, they have to pay the additional shipping. So if the shipping is say, 6 Euros per book, and their current order is 128 Euro including the 18 Euro in shipping, maybe give them the option of paying 128 Euro for the 3 books, or select from the free list and pay 134 Euro?

    Just an idea. Like I said, it would mostly be for countries that don’t have a local distrubutor, not countries like the United States that do.

  14. That’s interesting since you are not using UPS….you are using Parcel2go…which is a cheap and lousy delivery service..they measure their delivery times in weeks rather than days…it would be nice if Quality Chess would offer multiple delivery options to the customer as well as corresponding shipping prices

  15. @RWL

    Most of our packages go either UPS or Royal Mail, but it depends where the books are going.

    I believe Parcel2Go is a recent experiment for us in sending to North America. Posting books is not my area of expertise, but I think it was supposed to be 5 working days from Europe to North America, which doesn’t sound too bad. But if they do turn out to be slow (and/or lousy) then we will go a different way.

    Multiple delivery options: when we re-design our website (planned soon) getting such options to appear automatically will certainly be considered.

  16. Brexit will make the GBP much cheaper, especially now with the BoJo way. So I am delaying my purchases of british books which hits 4 QC-books so far and the new book of Gelfand and Aagaard will add to that list.

    In the short run british products will become cheaper in the EU and be higher priced in GB at the same time.

    How does a british entrepreneur evaluate this? I’m absolutly clueless.

  17. @@RYV

    With the QC books being printed in Europe and therefore paid in Euro and their authors probably paid in USD or Euro won’t their costs be pretty much the same…..so I would have thought that the price QC sell their books to outlets in Great Britain would have to increase to cover this…which would in turn mean the outlets would have to increase their sale price.

    So if the GBP does devalue against the Euro old stock might be cheaper but I would expect a jump in the GBP price of any new stock.

    That is of course assuming the EU without the British money to help prop the many basket case economies in the EU doesn’t itself collapse!

  18. I can easily end all this currency speculation for our European friends. We print in Estonia, we ship from Poland, with the exception of websales of 1-2 copies, where Polish post is punishingly expensive. When it is 3 books, we send by UPS (but I have to say that it is years since I have handled the details of these things, so John will give you better info.

    But we are a company that has always, from day one, been run as a euro-company. We have expenses in Sterling in the UK and we may face import taxes to the UK after a no-deal Brexit, but it should not affect our European Customer one bit. But of course no one knows what will happen.

    Except that I will take four months off from travelling and spend the time writing.

  19. @Jacob Aagaard
    Books have always been tariff and vat free in the UK, so you and your customers should feel relaxed. It would not surprise me for the invidious EU imposed VAT on electronic books to fall away in the UK as well, to the potential benefit of users of Forward Chess.

  20. @Paul H
    As said, you have to think of us as a European Company, rather than a British company. Only Britain is in danger of being hit with tariffs and the effect of a rate change. But what happens is anyone’s guess of course!

  21. Jacob, can you let us into the secret of who the author for the najdorf is likely to be?

    Re the UK leaving the EU, I can’t see much of an impact on QC sales in the EU and I suspect that many UK chess players will still buy your books as they are of high quality.

    There is no guarantee that the UK will be leaving the EU as the futility of such a move is becoming apparent.

  22. How far is the next Negi book from the editing stage? (I really care more about the Ruy Lopez volume, but I don’t suppose you’ll publish 6 before 5.)

    On the economic issue, I just looked up that the UK accounts for about 1/6 of the EU’s economic strength, second only to Germany. These numbers are old and may be a bit off, but I would think the EU needs every bit of help it can get to feed the pigs. Losing the UK would be worse than the US losing the economy of California.

    @KevHun
    Why is Brexit futile? Because the Powers That Be will never let the will of the people be effected?

  23. As a company we are a-political and only answer technical questions about Brexit. We all have personal opinions, but they have not been discussed in the work space and are not going to be discussed here. But others can think what they will.

    Of course Quality Chess is a Scottish company and it is the declared goal of the Scottish National Party to hold another independence referendum in 2020. No matter what we think, these are certainly eventful times.

  24. The Lurker :
    How far is the next Negi book from the editing stage? (I really care more about the Ruy Lopez volume, but I don’t suppose you’ll publish 6 before 5.)

    How about getting a different author to do the Negi 6- we’ll all be stuck in Ruy Lopez limbo. It’s no shame that Negi wrote 4 great e4 books but he doesn’t need to stick to his original plan now he is so busy. Or bring in a co-author. Now Mickey has won the British again and has time on his hands he could do with a new project- he’s been a lifelong Spanish player as white and couldn’t think of a better player to explain the positional niceties.

    A few pints of Cornish scrumpy and get him to sign a contract when worse for wear is the way to go!

  25. @Jacob Aagaard
    So people can make anti-Brexit pot shots, but nobody can make pro-Brexit ones, even when accompanied by facts? Got it.

    Care to answer my question about Negi 5?

    I agree with JB. If Negi has lost interest in chess, that’s fine. He should say so, and let somebody else finish the other 2 books in the series.

  26. @The Lurker

    According to Everyman’s website, Doknjas is releasing an Opening Repertoire: Ruy Lopez in October/November of this year. Perhaps there is your answer for some new Spanish stuff? Or, if you don’t like that, you could go back in time to King’s book, or perhaps Gary Lane’s Batsford book. Failing that how about Khalifman’s Anand book 2 (although I know there are some lines in there given by the author that are bad for white).

    James

  27. @James2
    You’re completely missing the point. Vol. 1 came out almost 4 years ago. Since then Negi has already earned his bachelor’s degree. It’s time for him to fulfill his obligation to QC, assuming there is one. If there is no obligation, then let somebody who still cares about chess finish the series.

    Negi, if you’re reading this, sh**, or get off the pot.

  28. @The Lurker
    Not really missing the point…. I was just interested to see what type of confrontational, aggressive response you’d come back with if I went on a fishing trip.

  29. @The Lurker
    I don’t think Jacob was directing his mail to you, but was making a general remark. At least that’s my interpretation of it. I’m also pro-Brexit (though for different reasons, because I’m also pro-EU), but didn’t feel offended.

  30. @James2
    Is Khalifman Anand book 2 in print again? I like Bellin and Ponzetto’s book on the Ruy. Alternatively, there is also Shaw’s book on the Scotch.

  31. @Ray I don’t know Ray. I was just looking at some books on my shelf and saw some of these. I got my Khalifman way over 15 years ago, if not longer.

    I am looking forward to Negi finishing off his series but sometimes life gets in the way.

    James

  32. @Ray
    If Brexit is the biggest problem on the East side of the pond, you guys have it easy, regardless of your views and which side you favor. Try being on the West side of the pond where a White Supremecist is leading your country and has driven the country to race-based domestic terrorism where innocent lives are being killed because of their skin color. Comparitively speaking, Brexit vs Anti-Brexit is a complete joke!

  33. James J Fisher

    What % of the nemesis book is not reproduced from application of chess theory? Is there any updates to his annotations ala Nunn with the Keres books?

  34. @John Shaw
    the latest update from parcel2go: Merchandise is missing UPS will notify the sender with additional details/all merchandise missing empty carton was discarded. Looks like the parcel2go gambit by quality chess turned out to be a blunder…any thoughts John?

  35. James J Fisher :
    What % of the nemesis book is not reproduced from application of chess theory? Is there any updates to his annotations ala Nunn with the Keres books?

    None of our book is reproduced from a previous English-language book. “The Nemesis” is a new translation from Russian (and the Russian-language book was from several sources, including Russian books and old magazines). But as Paul H said, some of the annotated games will have been seen before in “Application of Chess Theory”. But “The Nemesis” has significantly more games and in an all-new translation.

    Also in “The Nemesis” there are modern-day additions to the analysis by IM Maxim Notkin (not in every single game, but in most of the games). Geller’s original annotations are left as they were, but Notkin added (in italics) when he and his computer spot a significant improvement. I like this approach, as we can see what Geller thought, and also what he missed. Sometimes it’s Geller spotting a beautiful idea but overlooking some prosaic flaw.

  36. @RWL

    Hi RWL, your tracking update sounds as bad as it gets. Sorry. If you email me direct – john@qualitychess.co.uk – with the details of your order, we will see what’s happening.

    Maybe you are unlucky. Other packages on this method seem to have arrived quickly and safely, and that’s all over the world, from Australia to the USA. So we’ll need to see if it’s a one-off or a pattern. Of course, if a book is lost the first time, we send again.

  37. @Ray
    Luckily enough, I happen to be White/Caucasian, and so I at least don’t feel my own life is threatened. It’s the country as a whole that deserves the empathy, not myself. What eats the inside of people like myself is hearing stories on the news of kids and teens getting killed, or listening to a very young child ask “Where’s Mommy?” or “Where’s Daddy?” after their parent was shot.

    Trump recently said if foreign aid is available in the 2020 election, he’ll use it! I recall one of the European countries had a baby Trump float. If that clown is going to meddle with Russia, do the European countries want to help out the other side? (Tongue in cheek – Foreign aid for an election is illegal here on the West side of the pond)

  38. @James2
    John Doknjas is twenty years old. Even if he is a genius I would much prefer a Ruy Lopez book written by a grandmaster with far more experience in playing this open.

  39. @David Goggins

    Honestly, I have no idea who that is. I know that he wrote book on the Najdorf last year, but other than that I had never even heard of that name. The surname however sounds Croatian. But in terms of the person, I really do not know who the author is. Why would he write a book on Ruy López ¿

  40. @James2

    Well, guess what James, not everyone feels like David does. Do you have all the games of John Doknjas? Just because he wrote a Najdorf book, does that automatically mean he lacks expeerience in the Ruy Lopez? He could be 20 years old and have played over 500 games in the Ruy Lopez.

    These last few posts, lacking evidence, appear to be as bad as judging a book by its cover! Take any book that Eric Schiller did not co-write with another author. Now take Jacob Aagaard’s Practical Chess Defense. Let’s now change the covers of those books. Jacob’s book is solid Black. Schiller’s book is decorated with animals and flowers and chess pieces and clowns and everything else. Schiller’s book must be better because of what little you see on the surface, right?

    PA-LEEZ!

  41. @Patrick
    Yes I have all of Djoknjas’s games.

    Yes. I have deeply analysed every Spanish game he has played on the white side with many chess computers and top also GMS to guide me by email, Skype and OTB interactions.

    Since I have all of his games I know he has played well over 500.

    I just see the length of all of your posts and completely switch off. Every topic. Every time.

  42. Getting a bit testy in here…

    Personally I thought the Najdorf book was excellent and was happy to see that they’re both producing more material. Looking forward to seeing the book and will draw conclusions then.

  43. I actually have the Doknjas Najdorf book and have gone through it. It’s pretty good, probably equivalent to a GM Guide. It doesn’t have the depth and unique analysis that you see in a GM Rep book from someone like Avrukh, but the analysis looks accurate and the lines are well chosen.

  44. I’m intrigued to find out what it will recommend against 6 Bg5, which I get a lot! It’s what’s put me off playing the Najdorf. Everything I try I just can seem to get my head round.

    I have no interest in learning The Poisoned Pawn (I’m praying this is not given), I also struggle with 6…Nbd7 but maybe willing to take another look at this. I actually feel more comfortable in the Old Main Line positions, but this is never recommended in any Najdorf repertoire books.(Except Danny King’s old ‘Winning with the Najdorf’).

    Any other Najdorf players out there have any views on this upcoming book?

  45. When you say the Catalan and King’s Gambit books are reprinted, do you mean you updated it with some stuff and it is the 2th edition ¿ Or just simply reprinted with different paper ¿

  46. @Leon Trotsky
    When we say reprinting, the default assumption should be that the content will be the same as before. It’s not a new edition unless we explicitly say so.
    When reprinting, we do correct any typos, wrong diagrams etc. that we’ve become aware of, but this does not warrant calling it a new edition. There have only been a very few cases where we changed the chess content of a reprint. One noteworthy example was when reprinting the original GM 1; it became clear that one particular line was busted and so it was replaced by a new recommendation, but this was an extreme case.

  47. @The Doctor
    I was referring to the comment about the 6.Bg5 system – there will be no Poisoned Pawn followed by memorizing your way to a draw in 500 different ways. The author takes similar decisions in other parts of the book as well, rejecting certain lines which have been overanalysed in favour of options which are easier to learn, while still being theoretically sound of course.

  48. @Andrew Greet
    I see, I understand now.

    About the Najdorf book, I still wonder how it is possible to not have to memorise long lines of theory in 6. Ag5. When I uesd to play the Najdorf, I remember being dead lost before move 25 simply due to forgetting the right move 😀

  49. Well, David Vigorito is the author. I have few of his books including his book on the Chess Developments: Sicilian Dragon & The Attacking Chess KID books. I well really impressed by his through analysis and his writing style, so am really pleased by this news.

    Looking forward to the excerpt now. I’ll bet my mortgage he gives no Scheveningen lines all based on the typical Najdorf move…e5.

  50. Playing …e6 is technically not even the Najdorf. It is the Scheveningen Sicilian played via Najdorf move-order to avoid facing the Keres Attack (which nowadays I think is perfectly fine for Black). The actual Najdorf must be played with …e5, because that was what the man Najdorf himself played 5…a6 to prepare …e5 😀

    6. Ag5 Cbd7 seems like one of the only ways to avoid insane 50-move theory lines. At least in this line, Black only has to memorise up to move 30 😀

  51. I completely agree that 6…e6 transposes to a Scheveningen Sicilian.
    Well in GM Rep 6 by Ftacknik recommended 6…e6 against 6.Be2, 6.Be3 and 6.f4 so why not recommend this sort of thing again? I found it very refreshing that he decided to buck the trend and not recommend 6…e5 which is coveted a lot more in literature. I get the impression that DV will recommend offbeat/sound alternatives to the main lines. Something like 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Nc6 which is playable but not so theory intensive.

    I’ve have pretty much every Najdorf & Scheveningen book published in the last 30 years mainly Najdorf ones as Scheveningen books aren’t published so often) so I’m looking forward to what he’ll recommend.

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