Quality Chess Blog

At the moment I am helping John a little bit with his two 1.e4 books (they are happening, I promise you!). We are quite a far way with Playing 1.e4 – Caro-Kann, 1…e5 & Minor Lines, and I have begun working on a few lines that I have some experience with. Obviously this is just a sneaky way to slip one or two of my own games into the book, though I think John will be efficient and delete them when he gets his hand on the files!

Anyway, I was looking at the competition in this process. We always do – with the hope that you will use our discoveries to win a game against one of their suggestions!

In the process I saw a distinct difference between two types of books. For example: I really liked two books on the Caro-Kann, Houska’s new book from Everyman and Dreev’s “Attacking the Caro-Kann” from Chess Stars. Jovanka and I play in the same team at the 4NCL and I know how much work has gone into that book. Dreev has probably been less diligent, but he has such a range of knowledge that although he missed a big, big line (John’s main suggestion) it was in a footnote on something he did not recommend and not what you would buy the book for anyway.

But there are other books – and here I shall not mention any names – where you are wondering where your €25 went. One book is word for word reprinting of articles the author has published elsewhere – without updating them in regard to other works out on the subject, even when rather important things have happened. And in a training video I saw, the author had clearly spent less time researching the line than he spent recording the thing. I really felt less informed afterwards, though I did learn 1-2 small tricks I did not know before, though arguably, I will never find any use for them, I fear.

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We hope we have a solid publication date for Positional Decision Making in Chess, Python Strategy and Learn from the Legends – 10th Year Anniversary Edition. June 17th.

The books will now be available for sale. Also, PDMiC will be available on Forward Chess from June the 10th.

As said earlier, holidays and general busyness with the printer is the main reason for the delay.

Excerpts should be up now.

A new publishing schedule will be up in 1-2 weeks.

We were away for the weekend, playing in the 4NCL. Back in the office today. Colin is sorting out all the websales and so that came Friday-Monday. So the delay is minimal.

Worse is that our printer in Estonia has fallen behind schedule. The publication date for Python Strategy, Learn from the Legends 10 Year Celebratory Edition and Positional Decision Making in Chess will therefore be pushed a bit, till the 17th of June. We are very sorry; it is outside of our control.

We are not behind with the other books we are working (at least no more than previously so!) and will follow up with quite a few additional publications over the summer. There are some books we have already announced, as well as 1-2 surprises.

I was part of a ridiculous game on Saturday. Let me tell you the story just to amuse you.

I played really poorly against Keti Arakhamia-Grant with Black and was quickly dead lost. For some reason she spent a lot of time and when we passed move 30 she was down to maybe 20 seconds. At move 34 she was down to 6 seconds for the last six moves. When I hit the clock here, something bizarre happened. The clock reset itself. The arbiter fumbled with the clock, taking about three minutes to set it back to where we were, only to realise he had reversed the times. Another minute and the clock was set correctly.

At this moment, my phone, which I had handed over to the arbiter, started ringing! I thought I had turned it off, but chances are that I didn’t.

The whole thing was bizarre and I asked if we could have a chat. Keti, myself and the two arbiters went to an adjacent room and talk it through. Keti had calmed down and it seemed to me that basically all of my chances had evaporated with this. Unfair as it was, my chances had dropped from maybe 15% to 1.5% or so.

One of the arbiters suggested that I had just lost, because my phone went off. I disagreed. The game was not ongoing at the time and the phone was not in my possession. What if it had rang at home? Yes, everyone heard it, but what if it had rang in my car and a window had been open? I see the arguments the other way, but I did not find it as clear cut as he indicated at first.

I realised that there was no good solution to the situation. Except one. I resigned on the merits of my position.

We lost the match 5-3. If I had won on time, we would have won the championship, but as our only win was on time in an equal position against Keti’s husband, this would certainly have been rather ridiculous. The best team won.

The discussion

This evening I was chatting to a friend, an old GM like myself. He was telling me about games where he had been tied to the board for hours, living on 30 second increments for thirty, forty, fifty moves. He was contemplating ending a long career – because of the time control.

When I talked to Keti after the game, she complained about the time control (2 hours for 40 moves) and said that increments were much better.

I disagree. I think that it is her own fault that she could not organise her time consumption better. This is a sport after all. Maybe we have fewer ridiculous blunders with increments, but I do not want to protect anyone against their own inadequacy. What is next? Blunder check?

I see increments as something that has mainly been good for the arbiters. They do not risk having to make decisions in complicated circumstances.

What is your opinion? I will leave this open for discussion for a few days and then we will have a vote.

In the recent 4NCL I had the honour of playing first board for Wood Green with Black in two games. As I am entirely out of shape and blunder in more or less every rare game I play, my goal was to make draws, eliminate their best players and hope that the team would win on the other boards. This all went to plan and I gladly donated 1-2 rating points to the well-being of the team. Besides, I hope I will be allowed three white games in the final weekend!

My game on the Saturday was quite interesting at one moment, just after I blundered (always happens!) and I had to decide how best to deal with the defence. I think my considerations at the board were quite interesting and worth a minor discussion.

James Cobb – Jacob Aagaard

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 d5 4.e3 e6 5.b3 Bd6 6.Bb2 Nbd7 7.d4 0–0 8.Be2 Re8 9.0–0 Qe7 10.Qc2 dxc4 11.Bxc4
11.bxc4 e5 12.Nh4 Nf8 13.Nf5 Bxf5 14.Qxf5 exd4 15.exd4 Ne6 looks OK for Black. During the game I was slightly less sure, but I was going to play this way and that is what counts.

11…h6 12.Ne4 Nxe4 13.Qxe4 e5 14.dxe5 Nxe5 15.Nxe5 Bxe5 16.Qxe5 Qxe5 17.Bxe5 Rxe5 18.Rfd1 Kf8 19.Rd8+ Re8 20.Rad1 a5 21.a4 Rb8 22.R8d4 b5 23.axb5 cxb5 24.Bd5 Rd8 25.Kf1 Ke7

This is my blunder. I really had no clue that this was coming. As usual when this happens, I smiled. Life has lots of surprises for us; not all will be positive.

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It was our intention to publish Python Strategy together with Grandmaster Repertoire 1A – The Catalan on the 29th of April. Unfortunately we did not manage to finish it in time and we have had to leave it for the next publication date, which is the 27th of May. It is an advantage for the smaller chess retailers when we publish 2-3 books together, there are some possible savings on postage and admin and just time saved, which means that we do not want to publish a new book every two weeks.

On the other hand it does not make sense to hold back on a brand new opening book like GM1A on behalf of a book in the classics series.

To the publication plans for the near future looks like this:

It is with a heavy heart that we have come to the realisation that John will not be able to complete his work on the 1.e4 books. He is half way through the first book, but overburdened by managerial work and the responsibility to our authors, who deliver on time, to get their books out quickly and efficiently.

We apologise to everyone who were looking forward to these books. At least we have the Negi-books for you 1.e4 guys…

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Apparently it is another intelligent marketing ploy to call an, as yet, untitled book in our publishing schedule Hoolabaloo in the draft of the last blog post I wrote. As Colin had edited something incorrectly in a previous blog post, he thought it was a cute way of drawing extra attention to the book. What can I say? Can’t keep raw talent down?!

The book is a small book – probably 128 pages – in the Classics series by one of the true greats of chess writing, Yuri Razuvaev. It is about various ideas in the opening, mainly gambits, written in 2003. A nice light read. The Russian title does not translate well, so we are looking for a cool idea for a title.

Obviously there is a prize – a free copy of the book and your name on page two will be awarded for the best title – the one we use that is. Suggestions below. We will make a decision at our editorial meeting on Monday.