Congratulations to Quality Chess’s own IM Andrew Greet, who was first outright in the Dundee 150 international tournament. His 6/9 gained plenty of rating points, but was not quite enough for a GM norm. GM Colin McNab started well, but sadly faded to finish on 3/9. Full results here.
Congratulations also to 16-year-old Murad Abdulla who became Scottish Champion and looks to have gained enough in rating to become an FM. This makes Murad the second-youngest-ever Scottish Champion – GM Paul Motwani was also 16 when he first won, but a few months younger.
The Scottish Championship was held as part of an Open, so I will complete my congratulations by saying GM Andrei Maksimenko of Ukraine won the Open, but was of course not eligible to be Scottish Champion. Full results here.
Update: Dundee Chess Club have very helpfully put a link to a report that was broadcast on the Scottish TV programme ‘STV News’. It’s just 2 minutes and worth a watch. Spoiler: as Colin is on-screen, the reporter says: “If this was football, you’d be watching the equivalent of Cristiano Ronaldo.”
In 1867, Dundee in Scotland hosted a tournament that featured elite players such as Steinitz and Blackburne. One hundred years later, in 1967, the centenary event included Larsen and Gligoric. Now in 2017, it’s 150 years after the original event, and Dundee is again hosting an international tournament.
You can check out the full line up at the following link, but I will highlight the participation of two of the Quality Chess team: GM Colin McNab and IM Andrew Greet. And right now in Round 1 they are playing each other. Live coverage here.
On August 2nd we will publish two new books and make a third available in paperback for the first time.
e3 Poison is GM Axel Smith’s follow-up to Pump Up Your Rating. This new book is a White repertoire with a difference – based on the moves d4, Nf3, c4 and e3, but White has great flexibility in his move order. An excerpt can be found here.
Chess Behind Bars by Carl Portman offers a guide to chess in prisons that, we confidently claim, will instruct and entertain regardless of your situation. An excerpt can be found here.
Dynamic Decision Making in Chess by Boris Gelfand was an excellently-received book, and previously had only been available in hardcover. From August 2nd, a paperback version will also be available. An excerpt can be found here.
We are continuing our special offer – if you buy three books or more and live in the normal European Union zone (as defined by UPS – for example, they exclude some islands and remote areas) we will send you an extra book free.
Please note that if you buy a Special Offer and are in the EU zone, we will add one free book. For example, the Grandmaster Preparation Special Offer is 6 hardbacks for the price of 5. So if a European buys that, we send Jacob’s 6 GM Preparation hardbacks, plus one free extra book.
The previous default option on the free book was Grandmaster Battle Manual. For July and August we will switch the default option to Carlsen’s Assault on the Throne. But if you already have that book, or would prefer a different free book, then send us an email to salesgroup@qualitychess.co.uk with your order, asking to have it replaced with one of the following titles:
CHAMPIONS OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM
CARLSEN’S ASSAULT ON THE THRONE
POSITIONAL CHESS SACRIFICES
GRANDMASTER BATTLE MANUAL
GRANDMASTER VERSUS AMATEUR
REGGIO EMILIA 2007/2008
THE ALTERMAN GAMBIT GUIDE – WHITE GAMBITS
THE ALTERMAN GAMBIT GUIDE – BLACK GAMBITS VOLUME 1
THE ALTERMAN GAMBIT GUIDE – BLACK GAMBITS VOLUME 2
SAN LUIS 2005
TACTIMANIA
ATTACKING THE SPANISH
CUTTING EDGE 1: THE OPEN SICILIAN
CUTTING EDGE 2: SICILIAN NAJDORF 6.Be3
We have our heads down getting new books (and reprints) ready to go to the printer, so here’s a brief recap of what we’ve done and what we’re doing.
Earlier this month we published Sämisch and the Rest and Thinking Inside the Box. We already mentioned their excerpts in blog comments, but here are the links again just to make things easy to find: Sämisch and Box.
Carl Portman’s Chess Behind Bars is at the printer, and here is an excerpt. Towards the end of July/start of August, Carl plans to introduce the book in a special pre-publication event at the British Championship in Llandudno, Wales. If you can’t make that event, then the publication date is likely to be in August.
So what’s next?
The Invincible, the final volume in Tibor Karolyi’s superb trilogy on Mikhail Tal is typeset and being proofread.
And there’s more…
Read more…
We are delighted with the fifth and final volume of the Kotronias on the King’s Indian series: Sämisch and The Rest but… the printed book is missing three moves on page 21: the bolded line jumps from White’s move 6 to Black’s move 9. A typesetting slip combined with a proofreading miss. Sorry about that.
We fixed the Forward Chess version, but for those with the physical book, the linked pdf shows that page as it should be.
We are continuing our special offer – if you buy three books or more and live in the normal European Union zone (as defined by UPS – for example, they exclude some islands and remote areas) we will send you an extra book free.
Please note that if you buy a Special Offer and are in the EU zone, we will add one free book. For example, the Yusupov Special Offer is 9 hardbacks for the price of 7. So if a European buys that, we send the 9 Yusupov hardbacks, plus one free extra book.
The previous default option on the free book was Champions of the New Millennium. For March we will switch the default option to Grandmaster Battle Manual by Kotronias. But if you already have that book, or would prefer a different free book, then send us an email to salesgroup@qualitychess.co.uk with your order, asking to have it replaced with one of the following titles:
CHAMPIONS OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM
QUALITY CHESS PUZZLE BOOK
CARLSEN’S ASSAULT ON THE THRONE
POSITIONAL CHESS SACRIFICES
GRANDMASTER VERSUS AMATEUR
REGGIO EMILIA 2007/2008
THE ALTERMAN GAMBIT GUIDE – WHITE GAMBITS
THE ALTERMAN GAMBIT GUIDE – BLACK GAMBITS VOLUME 1
THE ALTERMAN GAMBIT GUIDE – BLACK GAMBITS VOLUME 2
SAN LUIS 2005
TACTIMANIA
ATTACKING THE SPANISH
CUTTING EDGE 1: THE OPEN SICILIAN
CUTTING EDGE 2: SICILIAN NAJDORF 6.Be3
The “What do you think about chessboxing?” poll ended sooner than planned due to server issues, but it lasted long enough to give a clear verdict. ‘Piece of nonsense’ won by a knockout.
A reminder of the ‘Who will win the 2017 US Championship?’ poll result, as Wesley So will face Alexander Onischuk in a play-off for the title this evening. Wesley So is still the favourite, but it was fine work by the one person who voted for “other”.
Normally I steer well clear of anything political, but there is at least a chance that recent FIDE manoeuvres could affect world chess. Today Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is still nominally FIDE President but the real power seems to belong to his deputy Mr Makropoulos. Maybe a less controversial leader than Kirsan could lead to bigger sponsorship opportunities for top-level chess? So it’s a good change, bad change or no real change at all?
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