Jacob is extra busy these last few days; on top of finishing some books and training people all over the world, he is going live on YouTube for a quick view on the games of the day in the ongoing Candidates tournament.
You can see here the scheduled times, here the videos, and here the analysis in replayable format. For those who prefer paper, boards, and pieces, John Hartman from uschess.org has created pdf versions.
One of my favourite things in this job is to take books from
our bookcases in the office, pack them up and send them off to another bookcase
all over of the world. It is just so nice for me to have this reminder that there
is still a huge world out there, daydreaming about traveling with the books to
Brazil, Australia, Kenya, Hong Kong, Vladivostok, Dubai, Indonesia or some
lovely Mediterranean village. I look forward to the day that an order for
Antarctica will pop up. Or a photo of Quality Chess books in Antarctica. That
would be so cool, on so many levels!
Anyway, after I am done daydreaming about travelling again, the books are packed up nice and tight, all the labels are in place, Claire and I look out to find the best way to ship them. It’s not the lowest offer we are going for, but the one that makes more sense to us. For example, delivering two books in 3 days to the USA for £30/€34/$50 is better for the buyer than have it delivered for €23 in 10 days. So we choose the option we would like to receive as customers. €34 and 2 working days delivery. And that is how we operate here at Quality Chess.
In the last 18 months though shipping cost and shipping times have skyrocketed. All those of you that you are shipping goods worldwide, understand what I am talking about. We had to increase the shipping fee after 10 years of keeping the same price and it worked. The costs are now covered and that is what our goal is; to offer the books to everyone who cannot get the books from a chess shop, while being able to cover the expenses.
But the prices for Oceania keep going up. It used to be £19.20 to send a book to Oceania with Royal Mail and it would take at least 4 weeks. It was manageable. But a little after we increased the shipping cost to €10 per book and we promised to keep it there for a year, Royal Mail increased their prices and nowadays it is £26 and it takes 8 weeks minimum. It is just unacceptable, so we went for courier services. With the average price cover for a book being €25 plus €10 shipping, and just the shipping cost for Oceania for a single book being €45, without taking into consideration any other cost, we have two options. Either stop shipping there, which would violate the principle of offering the books to everyone worldwide, or come up with a solution that will be better for everyone. You know us, we went for option number two.
Effective immediately, orders for Oceania will have a €45 flat shipping rate with UPS and the delivery will be fast! We understand people that only want to buy one book will be disappointed and we are very sorry, but there is nothing else we can do. Talk to a friend and order books together; it’s cheaper for you and better for the environment.
Last year John was hoping that the Candidates tournament would go ahead without any disruptions from viruses or anything else. We all know how that worked out. Here we are again, waiting for the second part to start in 10 days, so let’s have a second quiz, in addition to the one from last year; show your expertise or guess wildly, have a go, and tell your friends about it.
Please make sure to enter before the event kicks off – Round 1 is scheduled
for April 19 and submissions
will close before the first round starts. Enter by clicking on the following quiz link
and selecting your answers. Only one entry per person, through their gmail
account, to avoid spam.
Regarding Killer Chess Training
Last year, we mentioned 365 Chess Academy. This year finds us with a change
in the name and improved services. Killer
Chess Training is the place for you to train daily with GM Jacob Aagaard,
GM Sam Shankland, GM Ivan Cheparinov, GM Alexander Motylev, GM Iván Salgado
López, GM Julen Arizmendi, GM Sabino Brunello and IM Renier Castellanos.
You put in one hour of training every day for a year and we put in the fresh daily material, the best trainers, and the online community (which we are currently rebuilding). Even if you miss the live class (we do our best so that there are at least two live classes per week for each time zone), there is a recording available that gives you the advantage of pausing, putting the positions on the board, and think about them for as long as you need.
But even if you do not have an hour every day, but only have time for a bit of Homework on the weekends, submit in time and you will get personal feedback from GM Jacob Aagaard. Homework Club alone is worth the membership fee!
Training daily with some of the best trainers in the world, but at a price
of less than €2/$2/£2/INR 170 per class, is an opportunity that you should not
miss.
Get in touch via our Facebook page or send an email to KillerChessTraining (a) gmail.com to ask for anything you want to know, for example, installments options (yes, we do offer them), purchasing completed courses, or about the €19 trial membership that we made available again just now and will be up for a week.
For any reader of Quality Chess who wants to join the simul tomorrow, the 5th of December, 17:00-19:00 UK time, just join the team.
Also, you can join our Blitz tournament on Sunday for free here.
Now, for anyone who wants to join for the whole weekend for free, we came up with a special offer. Whoever takes a photo of their brand new Exhilarating Elephant Gambit book and upload it on social media, tagging Killer Chess Training – The rebranded 365chessacademy using the @KillerChessTraining shortcut for Facebook and Instagram, will get a free pass for the whole weekend. Bonus point if you tag also The Exhilarating Elephant Gambit page @ElephantGambit.
If your book has not arrived yet, you can make a post tagging the pages and you can use the book cover photo.
Yes, if you buy your copy now, you can still get the Gambit weekend for free.
Send us an email to KillerChessTraining (a) gmail (dot) com with your order number and we will activate your pass. We can guarantee the pass for the first 50 people.
You will own the product and have access to the recordings indefinitely, so even if the live classes are not compatible with your schedule, it is still worth it signing up.
If you are not a social media person, we respect that. Go to the website, add the Gambit weekend camp to your basket, checkout without paying, send us and a photo of your book and we will activate your pass.
GM Boris Gelfand is returning as a guest lecturer to 365 Chess Academy. He will be joined by some of our regular coaches, such as GM Jacob Aagaard, GM Sam Shankland, GM Julen Arizmendi, and IM Renier Castellanos.
This camp is completely free for 365 subscribers and is offered at a hugely discounted price for non-subscribers; only $49!
We highly recommend that you subscribe at least with a monthly membership ($99), so that you can enjoy all these great chess trainers on a regular basis. Click here to go to the shop.
Schedule (UK timings)
Friday 9 October
17:30 GM Jacob Aagaard – Deep analysis in the Endgame.
19:30 GM Sam Shankland – Low on time? Being Practical in Modern Endgames
Saturday 10 October
17:00 GM Julen Arizmendi – Tricks, traps and tactics in the endgame
19:00 GM Boris Gelfand – Technical Decision Making in Chess
21:00 Simul with GM Sam Shankland
Sunday 11 October
17:00 IM Renier Castellanos – The five rules of opposite coloured bishop endings
19:00 GM Boris Gelfand – Decision Making in Major Piece Endings
Boris feels strongly that this cover reflects the spirit of the book better, so we followed his intuition.
The previous copperish colors didn’t work, so I went with silver, to make sure the face is the focal point of the whole cover and not just of the great photo that Maria Emelianova took.
I do not know how many of you have noticed, but we had some small changes in shipping fees.
For more than ten years we have kept the prices in shipping fees steady, despite the increases.
In the past 3-4 months, Royal Mail in the UK and US Post Office have significantly raised their prices, courier services as well, flights are still not resumed in many places in the world. We apologize, but we need to charge a bit extra for shipping.
It’s not just an increase in the price though, it comes with improving the service; we are shipping more and more parcels with courier services so, in many cases, we can now provide tracking numbers and the books will get to you much faster. Applying flat international shipping saves your and our time with back and forth emails for postage enquires, leaving time to process the orders faster. We have also unified the charges for all European countries. Here, you can see the new shipping fees.
Number of Books
Shipping to
Europe
Free EU* book?
Shipping rest
of the world
1 book
€ 7
no
€ 10
2 books
€ 10
no
€ 20
3 books
€ 10
yes
€ 30
4 books
€ 10
yes
€ 40
5 books
€ 10
yes
€ 40
6 books
€ 10
yes, 2
€ 40
Special Offers
Discounted Price
Shipping to Europe
Free EU* book?
Shipping rest of the world
Grandmaster
Preparation series in Hardcover
€ 149.99
€ 10
yes, 1
€ 40
Yusupov
Complete Series in Hardcover
€ 224.95
€ 10
yes, 1
€ 50
Classics
€ 89.99
€ 10
yes, 1
€ 40
Tibor Karoly collection in Hardcover
€ 124.99
€ 10
A free book is already included
€ 40
We also increased the number of special offers by one. The new Tibor Karoly Hardcover Collection. 4 books for the price of 6 and only €10 postage for Europe!
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