Quality Chess Blog

Hi guys,

When you reach more than 100 comments to a post about a flooded office, including e-books and hot air balloons, it is time for a new post.

We have decided not to delay Chess Tactics from Scratch to wait for the Suba book, but just put it out alone. So, the current publishing schedule looks like this:

Last Wednesday we had a power cut at noon, leaving all of us with no other place to go than home. Yesterday things were a bit worse as we had flooding!

Unpleasantly it landed on top of our selection of hardcover books and on my desk!

I have rarely seen a piece trapped so nicely as in this little game I just played on PlayChess with Black.

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 c5 4. cxd5 exd5 5. g3 Nc6 6. Bg2 Nf6 7. O-O Be7 8. Nc3 O-O 9. dxc5 Bxc5 10. Na4 Be7 11. Be3 Bg4 12. Rc1 Re8 13. Re1 Rc8 14. Bc5 Bxc5 15. Nxc5 Qb6 16. Qb3 Bxf3 17. Bxf3 Nd4 18. Qxb6 axb6 19. Nxb7 Rb8 20. Nd6 Red8
0-1

A few weeks ago we finally sent Grandmaster Repertoire 10 – The Tarrasch Defence to the printer. They will finish printing it on Friday and we will have it on the way to everybody about a week thereafter, with the 12th being the day they are posted from Glasgow. You can find the excerpt here.

At the moment we are finishing Chess Evolution 5/2011 – the November issue. Printing will start on Thursday and will take about 10 working days. With close to 50 topical games, 24 puzzles and a nice article by Etienne Bacrot, this will be a terrific issue.

After this we will spread from all five working on the same project to doing a bit each. Colin will continue the work on Mihai Suba’s Positional Chess Sacrifices. Andrew will work on The Alterman Gambit Guide – Black Gambits 2, as well as help Jacob and Lubomir Ftacnik with Grandmaster Repertoire 6 – The Sicilian Defence 2nd edition. But before Jacob will be ready for this, he needs to finish Martin Weteschnik’s book Chess Tactics from Scratch, which is a totally reworked 2nd edition of the modern classic Understanding Chess Tactics, which is now hard to get hold of. But don’t worry, the second edition will be worth the wait. John will help Jacob, and in turn Jacob will help with John’s nemesis, The King’s Gambit, which would have been out a long time ago, had we not been so busy publishing other people’s books.

In the horizon we also have the last two volumes of Artur Yusupov’s monumental series (forever placing him among the great chess instructors of all time, we think), Jacob’s suicide mission with five volumes of Grandmaster Repertoire with 1.e4 for White, Grandmaster Repertoire – Beating the 1.d4 deviations (basically where White does not play c2-c4) by Boris Avrukh, Soviet Middlegame Technique by Romanovsky and at least a few complete surprises…

Here is the updated (but as always COMPLETELY UNRELIABLE) publishing schedule:

The long road leading to Grandmaster Repertoire 10 – The Tarrasch Defence seems to be coming to an end. The boys will upload the book tomorrow or maybe even today. Meanwhile I have been testing the lines in the European Team Championship in Greece. So far two draws, against strong opposition. As I have managed to win both of my white games, this has been a great success. Today awaits Armenia and either Akopian or Sargissian. Chances are the Tarrasch – and especially my memory – will be seriously tested.

Update from Scotland: We reckon Jacob has White against Akopian. Live games can be watched here.

It has been very interesting to read your top 3s in opening books over the last few days, as well as your explanations. If you did not add your personal top 3, please do so. Everyone is interested!

Now it is time to add your top 3 for non-opening books. Here is my two lists:

Non-Quality Chess

1. The Dvoretsky Endgame Manual (Dvoretsky)

2. Imagination in Chess (Gaprindashvili)

3. The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal

From Quality Chess

1. Attacking Manual 1+2 (sorry, this is my honest opinion)

2. Learn from the Legends

3. Chess Lessons

A bit surprising maybe that I don’t include San Luis 2005, which many (and probably correctly) put down as the best chess book ever. I agree with this in principle and beyond, the other books just fit better with my character.

The same can be said about Yusupov’s nine books. They are a monument and will last beyond the time we are here (I hope). But they don’t speak to me personally. In the same way that I personally like Jo Nesbo novels better than Julian Barnes, despite what the Booker committee might think :-).

Today I saw NIC Yearbook 100 for the first time. It had some very interesting stuff and is far beyond what you normally can expect from this aging publication. Even if you have been wondering in the past why you bought one of them, please do get this one.

Interesting for us is the article by Glenn Flear on 23 interesting opening books from the last decade or so. I was a bit surprised that there was no space for Rogozenko’s THE SVESHNIKOV SICILIAN RELOADED or John Cox’ THE BERLIN WALL, especially as there was space for some books I don’t rate highly (no, I will not comment on that part). However, most enjoyable Glenn did credit Boris Avrukh with the most influencial opening book in what I figure must be this millennium for GRANDMASTER REPERTOIRE1-  1.d4 VOLUME ONE.

So, I was wondering: what are your top 3s? Please speak freely; we shall not judge you – unless John Shaw: THE KING’S GAMBIT is on your list, in which case we shall put our considerable resources into tracking you down and donating you a 400 page draft for internal use…

Anyway, back to the studio. My top 3 opening books in the 21st century is:

1. Avrukh: GM1 – 1.d4 Vol 1

2. Marin: GM3 – 1.c4 vol 1

3. Hillarp-Persson: Tiger’s Modern

I honestly stood in front of our considerable selection of opening books, and did not find a book from another company I liked as much as our 10 best books. The main reason is probably that I have considerable influence on how our books look, so they are made the way I like it, but I also genuinely think that at their time, these three books were something special. I look forward to hear other people’s opinions. I know that John would probably go Marin, Avrukh, Hillarp-Persson, but keep the same list :-).

We are publishing a few titles at the end of next week. We are also re-organising the company. John is taking over as Managing Director while I am becoming Creative Director (basically I make things up, but don’t have any real responsibilities) and Colin becomes Operational Manager (meaning he tells us when we have forgotten things) as well as staying an editor. I don’t think the rest of the world will notice, but to us it is quite a shift in focus, and most likely a very good one. The reason is quite simple: we need a change for many reasons, not the least because it will continue to make us more dynamic. And personally I am quite excited about working on the 1.e4 project as well as other ideas, rather than doing sales projections and talking to business contacts all over the world.

I will however still be active on the blog and answer questions, I just don’t have any weight to back my answers up with anymore :-). Here is the recent publishing schedule.