Quality Chess Blog

Dear Quality Chess Reader,

We have two new books on the way – both would be aptly described as instructive and entertaining.

The title of Mihai Suba’s book is Positional Chess Sacrifices and that describes the lively content well – the Romanian GM has won the British Chess Federation’s Book of the Year prize for a previous book and we hope this one will be equally well received.

The Alterman Gambit Guide – Black Gambits 2 completes GM Boris Alterman’s 3-volume instructional series. Black Gambits 2 covers and explains various gambits that Black can unleash after 1.e4 e5. Lines covered include the Marshall Attack, Traxler variation and even the splendidly named Frankenstein-Dracula variation.

Both books will be sent from Quality Chess on the 16th of April, so shops will have them from the 17th and 18th.

Quality Chess has a new British Champion in our ranks – GM Colin McNab is the British Solving Champion. In second and third place were grandmasters Jonathan Mestel and John Nunn, who are both former World Champions in solving. A true-but-sounds-false story is that one of Colin’s first contributions to Quality Chess, while proofreading, was spotting a mate-in-one the editors had overlooked – presumably this was not much of a challenge for Colin.

Readers may be interested to follow some of our authors who are in action over-the-board. The immensely strong European Individual Championship features almost 200 GMs including “our” Vassilios Kotronias, Sabino Brunello, Matthieu Cornette and Mihail Marin.

At the end of this month Jacob will compete in the Danish Championship.

The chess file this month (pgn and pdf) contains analysis of topical openings, as usual, but also a couple of mind-bending puzzles from Colin’s solving victory.

Regards,
John Shaw
Chief Editor
Quality Chess

Dear Quality Chess Reader,

In the Quality Chess office we have had our heads down working to finish books and hiding from the winter storms. On February 17th we will publish Chess Tactics from Scratch by Martin Weteschnik. This is a fully revised and expanded second edition of Understanding Chess Tactics. The main changes are two completely new chapters and 300 new exercises/puzzles at the end of the book. An excerpt is available.

We also have a new format for an old classic – My System will be available as a hardcover, also from February 17th. Our hardcover editions and the 300 new exercises in Chess Tactics from Scratch have one thing in common – our readers asked for them. We do more than invite feedback and suggestions – we act on them.

Our games collection this month stretches to 25 games with most of the analysis by GM Keti Arakhamia-Grant. I recommend the ChessBase version which uses clever links and fancy features, but the material is also available in rough form in pgn or as a pdf.

Regards, John Shaw

Quality Chess

Dear Quality Chess Reader,

Since our last newsletter we have published several books:

The Alterman Gambit Guide: Black Gambits 1 explains dynamic chess using gambits as a vehicle. Compared to the previous volume in the series, White Gambits, the level of chess is a little higher and Black Gambits 1 could form the basis of an aggressive repertoire against 1.d4 and 1.c4. Gambit lines against 1.e4 will be covered in the concluding volume of the series, Black Gambits 2.

Advanced Chess Tactics by Lev Psakhis is, as the name suggests, about advanced chess tactics. Perhaps I should say a little more? Psakhis covers his topic by studying attacking chess and adds his own great wit and wisdom.

Grandmaster versus Amateur is written by seven grandmasters – Pavel Eljanov, Peter Heine Nielsen, Boris Avrukh, Mihail Marin, Tiger Hillarp Persson plus Jacob Aagaard and me. We told the authors the title and asked them to write a chapter on whatever that suggested to them. As we had hoped, the results were diverse, instructive and entertaining.

Grandmaster Repertoire 10: The Tarrasch Defence by Jacob Aagaard and Nikolaos Ntirlis will be available in early December. It covers an exciting opening that for too long has had a bad reputation. The Tarrasch deserves a revival and the original analysis in this book will spark that renaissance.

Chess Evolution 1 is the latest volume in GM Yusupov’s award-winning instructional series. This follows on from Build Up Your Chess 1 and Boost Your Chess 1 to complete the set of three books at The Fundamentals level.

This time our games collection covers a wide range. It is available in ChessBase or pdf format. I will not list everything, but the file includes a game each annotated by GMs Jonny Hector and Sabino Brunello. In the latter game Mihail Marin’s English repertoire is tested with great success. Boris Avrukh’s Grünfeld repertoire is also featured in several games where new ideas were tried. The rest I shall leave as a surprise.

Regards,
John Shaw
Chief Editor
Quality Chess

A short technical message – due to an essential software update, webshop users will need to reset their passwords before they can log in. If you have any problems, please let us know.

Not a new newsletter, yet. Instead at this pdf link you will find the same material in a more user-friendly layout. In fact, more like one of our books.

Also, a new version of the pgn. The only change in the pgn is making one of the puzzles slightly easier by giving the correct side to play (thanks to Adolfo for telling us).

Dear Quality Chess Reader,

In the long gap since our previous newsletter we have kept busy editing and publishing books. We also managed to move office; our fancy computers survived the trip, so we’ll call the move a success and forget the logistical chaos.

Our recent books include:

Boris Avrukh’s two volumes on the Grünfeld: Grandmaster Repertoire 8 and Grandmaster Repertoire 9. Avrukh’s previous books on 1.d4 were universally praised, so his latest efforts were highly anticipated. We believe Boris has at least matched and perhaps exceeded his earlier standard. See what you think.

Tibor Karolyi also has a new two-volume series. Karpov’s Strategic Wins 1 – The Making of a Champion and Karpov’s Strategic Wins 2 – The Prime Years. The reviews have been ecstatic.

The Grandmaster Battle Manual by Vassilios Kotronias is a profound exploration and explanation of the lessons the Greek GM has learned in his years as a professional player.

Tactimania by GM Glenn Flear is a fun and original puzzle book. The manga-style art on the cover and throughout seems to have misled some into thinking it’s a book for children. Not so. It’s for all those who want to test their tactical mettle. If you enjoy Japanese-style art, then that’s just a bonus.

Since it has been a while since our last missive, we have a bumper collection of games and analysis in pdf or pgn format. The pdf stretches to 50 pages, so it’s really a small book. There is so much analysis that it is tough to pick a highlight, but perhaps many will be interested in GM Boris Avrukh’s analysis of Giri-Swinkels, a recent game that is relevant to Boris’s Grünfeld repertoire.

Regards,
John Shaw
Chief Editor
Quality Chess

Arne Moll at the ChessVibes site reviewed two books in one column: our Experts on the anti-Sicilian and Bologan’s The Rossolimo Sicilian. The comparison went in our favour with quotes such as: “If you want to have fun with the Anti-Sicilians, The Rossolimo Variation and Experts on the Anti-Sicilian provide excellent study material. My own preference is for the latter – it seems more objective, more diverse and more up to date.”

It’s a long review and well worth reading in full. Give it a scan and see if you disagree with Arne. Is Bologan too harshly dealt with for continually praising his old coach? Is our book excessively praised? Why am I asking stupid questions?

On the subject of reviews, in his Checkpoint column at ChessCafe, Carsten Hansen reviewed The Cutting Edge 2: Sicilian Najdorf 6.Be3. Once again, the whole review is worth reading. The quick summary is 5 stars out of a possible 6: Carsten loved the chess but objected to some of the language.

Sean Marsh, writing at The Week in Chess, selected his best books of last year in Off the Shelf – The Best of 2010. As the screenshot below shows, we can be happy that Jacob’s Attacking Manuals 1 and 2 both made the list. Also the bonus of a new spelling of Jacob’s surname.

The full review of the Attacking Manuals says good things such as “They can rightly be considered as the flagships of the Quality Chess productions.”