Quality Chess Blog

Here it is, I am going to make some accurate predictions about a few future publications. Accurate, in the sense that I will give dates when I believe these books will be out. How accurate this turns out to be only time will tell. So here are my predictions:

29th April
Boris Avrukh’s book Grandmaster Repertoire 1A – The Catalan will be our big release of course. Let me underline again (and again) that this is a new book. Yes, there is a small overlap with the first volume and a few lines that are repeated. But Boris has done the work and fans of the first book should be happy with this book as well.
The other release is a book in the Classics series, Python Strategy (in our opinion a better title than “The Strategy of Soundness”) with collected writings by Tigran Petrosian. We are very happy with this book and we hope you will be too.

20th May
A triple release date. First of all, there is Boris Gelfand’s Positional Decision Making in Chess, which in my honest opinion is a great release. But then I am biased.
Then there is Learn from the Legends – 10th Anniversary Edition by Mihail Marin. This is our most popular book from the first ten years of our company. I hope this new version will find an audience. It deserves it.
Finally, there is a little book by Razuvaev on gambits, called HOOLABALOO in the Classics series.

June somewhere
Another triple publication! Lars Schandorff’s Grandmaster Repertoire 20 – The Semi-Slav, Tibor Karolyi’s Tal’s Best Games 2 – The World Champion and John Shaw’s Playing 1.e4 – Caro-Kann, 1…e5 & Minor Lines.

John has been referring to some of my recent blogs as “self-help” posts. He always has this nice biting irony that you only find warm if you have known him for 20 years… Well, when I say warm, I actually don’t really mean it, but never mind. Anyway, it is nice sometimes to talk about human traits, as they are so influential on our decisions at the board.

In a conversation with friends over dental practices, beauty salons and other businesses they are involved in, I incidentally thought about our imperfections. We all have them. I, for example, hoard things. I have about 1000 unread books in my flat. I do read a lot, but I cannot keep up with the number of books I buy. I used to feel that I should be able to control myself better – or that this was a serious character flaw. But I have known for about 20 years that I will never spend more money than I have – partly because of the laws of physics – and I accept now that some of this is outright squandered on books I will never read.

So what? Publishing is a business under threat and my support for it is a good thing. Even if it is given for reasons that can best be explained by evolutionary psychology.

Actually I believe that this approach is the right way. Some “flaws” are not as much flaws as a part of an imperfect construction, called “a human”. We should learn to accept that they are what we are. We are our strengths and we are our weaknesses. Some things do not need explaining or understanding, all we need to do is to accept that they are the way they are. There is nothing more to it.

To assist with this Sam Shankland kindly provided a blitz game he played recently in a tournament in the San Francisco area.  Sam was White.

White to play

Here he wanted to play 1.Ne7+, which is mate in 19 according to Komodo 8. Instead he played 1.Ne3, which loses more or less on the spot.

These things are not explainable in chess terms. I am not sure any explanation given will ever satisfy us, whether right or wrong. All I know is that it would be useless. The game is lost and there is nothing to learn from this I fear.

After this game Sam and his opponent were in a shared lead. But as it was double round, Sam got another chance. He won with Black and took first prize. Because this is also a part of what Sam is – a champion who plays on, even after having entered the twilight zone…

Accept yourself for the good and the bad is today’s message. And change as much of the bad as seems possible – and the way to do this is to crowd it out with good stuff.

In Scotland we have an official blitz championship, held in June usually (and hopefully again this year!). It is an open Championship held in Edinburgh and is usually very well organised. Importantly, it is open to players from all nations. Last year it was won by Matthew Sadler in front of Arkadij Naiditsch. English GM Matthew Turner became Scottish Champion, as he is a member of FIDE through the Scottish Federation, although he would not be allowed to play for Scotland according to the selection rules. I would, but am a member of FIDE through the Danish Federation and thus had to console myself with third place.

As I have recently moved to a new flat, I invited the guys from the office and my teammates from Edinburgh Chess Club to a blitz tournament. Original invitee Danny could not make it so John was forced to play. True to his recent change of style, he sacrificed queens and rooks and lost equal rook endings…

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Usually I write mainly about what we are doing as a team in the office, write a few more complicated posts about things I am thinking about and so on. But I have not written much about what I have been doing personally the last year – for a simple reason – I have not been doing much…

Most of the people I know at the age of 40-42 seem to be going through a rough path. I alluded to this recently with my very subtly titled post “midlife crisis”.

Last year I would have rejected the idea that it is a moment where you take stock and decide what you want to do for the rest of your life. I would have said that it was an energy question; your body no longer renews itself and you have all these pressures of work, children and depleting energy reserves on top. It just becomes too much and you feel it on a level where you cannot put words on it.

I still like this way of explaining what happens, but I have definitely taken stock and I have made some big changes in my life. All of them for the better. The most positive was to buy one luxury product to go with my IKEA furniture and general discount lifestyle (I am the 2-for-1 king and the reduced aisle stalker…). I bought a BMW 318d Sport. Used of course, but still. It is a really nice car.

But back to what I really wanted to write about: what I am writing.

Boris Gelfand: Positional Decision Making in Chess

I am getting close to the end. This book has really caused me a lot of resistance. Boris has been great – it has been all me and probably this is where I have suffered most in my midlife crisis. Lack of energy to do difficult work. Thus lots of blog posts and a bulking archive of exercises.

I hope to finish the writing of this book in 14 days from now.

Playing 1.e4: Caro-Kann, 1…e5 and Minor Lines by John Shaw

John is getting close to the end, but I will help him a bit with finishing the first book. As always, the name John Shaw on a book means that it is a team effort, with Nikos and I helping a lot (well, mainly Nikos of course!).

No one will believe this, but we will finish this book in March and maybe have it out in April.

Thinking Inside the Box

This will take a long time and be very challenging. I know quite a lot of what I want to say. Keep in mind that no one can know everything before they start writing, so actually it is freakish how much I really know about what will be in this book. I have written a few chapters already and I have a nice synopsis. A clear run will be all it takes. I have no idea if it will take three weeks, three months or three years to write it. The book should be excellent if I do not screw it up, because I have some good things to say. So, let us call that a 50-50 percent chance that it will be as good as Attacking Manual 1 and Positional Play!? If you hated those books, obviously you do not like my style, so then it is 100% it will be crap!

“What has been interesting is seeing how much easier it is to work on a project once how it’s going is divorced from how I’m doing. It frees me up to experience all the ups and downs and swings and roundabouts of my emotional life while continuing to move forward step by step and day by day on my goals and projects.

And because attempting to control my own state of mind is no longer at the forefront of my thinking, the innate well-being of my essential nature rises to the surface more and more of the time. I’m doing better than ever, regardless of how things are going; things are going better than ever, regardless of how I am doing.”
– Michael Neill

I am in Athens licking my wounds and talking about chess. Friday-Sunday we had a three day training seminar, where we focused on Candidates (seeing what you do not see automatically) and The Three Questions (Where are the weaknesses? What is the opponent’s idea? Which is the worst placed piece?). Tonight I will talk for a few hours about the work with Boris Gelfand and the coming book.

Recent events in my private life have made me think a lot about who I am. At 41 years of age, this is a classic thing to do of course. 2014 was a very hard year for me in many ways. Not the least of it being that I was struggling a lot – and I really mean a lot – to get serious work done. I am truly blessed to have good friends like John and Boris and Nikos morally supporting me and understanding that this is a transitional phase that we all go through. I also think it is coming to an end, even though the beginning of 2015 has been as challenging as 2014 was.

I have learned a lot of things from this process, not all of which I have fully digested, but I wanted to share a few of them here.

1. I am a good person that means well. I have my insecurities and problems with communicating things clearly, but I really am happy with who I am.
2. I do not express enough how grateful I am for people’s company and friendship. I will try to rectify this in the future.
3. If there is a big problem in your life, you really need to address it. It will only grow and grow. Churchill said that if you refused to fight a battle when you could win easily, you would have to fight it later when you were fighting for your survival. I believe this is true. I just have not followed this advice as often as I should…
4. I really care about the work I do and this is a good thing.
5. I need to be kinder and more forgiving of my mistakes. Laugh at them, rather than judge myself. I was doing this already, but I am better at it now.
6. I needed to take better care of myself. I have started doing this and it has been a part of the solution to the midlife crisis.
7. Start following your own advice more!
8. When you are tired, go to sleep. Do not talk to people about important things.
9. My social skills are heavily impaired by my gender.
10. You are an adult once you have figured out that you need to give it your best shot and see where it lands. Everything else is just a waste of time…

I have at some point promised to put up monthly updates to our publishing schedule. Well, things never work out exactly as we intend, but I think I am in reasonable time with this one.

There are a few things to point out. First off, Moranda’s Race up the Rankings has been cancelled. We might use the title another time – as well as the cover – but the content will not be the same. This is bad news. Basically the author did not feel he was able to go through the rewriting process because of career responsibilities. Chess literature will be poorer for its absence.

We have four books coming out on the 4th of February: 1.e4 vs. the Sicilian I, Kotronias on the King’s Indian, Mar del Plata 1 & Mar del Plata 2 and Chess Structures – A Grandmaster Guide. We are very happy with these books and I hope you will be happy with them too.

Should you prefer your books on Forward Chess, you can buy now. In general we will release the books one week ahead of the paper books, if you buy them electronically. This might not be fair to those who prefer paper (as indeed John and I do), but Forward Chess is a new enterprise and we would like to see it do well, so those buying the books there will get this extra week’s access, when possible.

In that connection I can reveal that Kotronias on the King’s Indian – Fianchetto System will be available quite soon on Forward Chess at a reduced rate.

For those in the know, I can say that we are unable to control anything relating to the taxing of ebooks in France, Italy and Luxemburg. It will hit all of Europe soon enough and we are not able to control things, neither is Forward Chess. Apple and Google are not lightweight dance partners. They step on your toes and not only do they not say sorry, they see nothing wrong with it in the first place…

The following list is rather reliable.
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In 2010 I changed back to the Danish Federation after some disappointments with Chess Scotland (though certainly not the players). Federations are imperfect everywhere, but it did allow me to play the Danish Championship with a lot of friends from my early years with good conditions. And it did not stop me from becoming Scottish Champion in 2012!

Last week I played in two local team matches against members of the Scottish Team. On Tuesday I was sitting next to my good friend and colleague Andrew Greet, facing the 2013 Scottish Champion, who was a very strong player around the time I was born! Luckily I have developed more in the last 40 years and recently I have had a good score against Roddy.

Jacob Aagaard – Roddy McKay
Glasgow League, 20.01.2015

1.e4 c5 2.b3

Roddy’s theoretical knowledge ends somewhere in the 1980s, and I just wanted a game.

2…a6 3.Bb2 Nc6 4.f4?

This is an appalling move!

4.Nf3 e6 5.c4 would have made sense.

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I took the liberty of cutting these unedited paragraphs from the coming book Positional Decision Making in Chess by Boris Gelfand.

Levon Aronian is of course one of the greatest players of our time. However, in team events he is usually even stronger. Due not least to his spirit and leadership, the Armenian team managed to win the 2006, 2008 and 2012 Olympiads, the 2011 World Team Championship, as well as achieving a bronze in the 2007 European Team Championship and the 2004 Olympiad. Armenia also won bronze at the 1992 and 2002 Olympiads, but both times without Aronian on the team. But it was from 2006 where Aronian entered the elite and took over board 1 from Akopian that the team became the most successful team in the World. It would not be unfair to say that Aronian is the soul of the Armenian team.

I consider him to be the most creative player of our time, both over the board and in opening preparation. So far he has failed in the Candidates tournament, but I hope that Anand’s and my results in recent years will inspire him to keep on trying. He has so many qualities that I would not be surprised if he manages to become World Champion one day. I really feel that as long as one wants to work on chess and has the will to progress, there is a possibility to do so.

These days when you read older players complain about younger players that they only know how to push the space bar and have no culture, just think of Aronian. He has a great knowledge of music, literature, arts and culture in general. This is another reason why I would be happy if he kept on improving and reach the highest peak. What a World Champion he would be!

In a recent interview in New in Chess he said that whenever he plays me, he tries to impress me. It is friendly competition. We have warm personal relations and work on chess together. So, in every game we try to come with something new. If one player comes with a good novelty, it is great! This is one of the reasons why we have so many decisive games with each other. It is always an open game where both players want to win.

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