Quality Chess Blog

Wow, we worked a lot on this book. I spent a decade pressuring Afek to write this book. We even had a contract that he asked to get out of. But finally it is here, the book I dreamt of. This is an obvious candidate from Quality Chess for book of the year.

I know that studies is not to everyone’s taste. What I like about Afek’s creation is that they both have the beauty of studies and the game-like feel I enjoy. Actually, Afek included a study we made together, based on my analysis of a game by a young Carlsen.

If you want to test yourself, I have a small problem for you here.

White to play and win (move 3 of a study)

You can find the solution to this problem in the last example of the PDF excerpt.

Having had fun debating the Swiss system, let’s move on to something less contentious.

What is the strongest way forward here?

White to play!

I am going through a lot of games from the Olympiad at the moment and this one really caught my eye. See how author of The Modern Tiger improved his positions here.

And yes, I am going to continue to have opinions even if people buy our books…

Blogpost by Kallia Kleisarchaki

During the Batumi Olympiad 2018, Sam Shankland met across the board Rauf Mamedov, Azerbaijani GM. Rauf didn’t buy Sam’s book and I know! How? Well, he did exactly the kind of mistake Sam warned about in his book, Small Steps to Giant Improvement, proving once again that every chess player, regardless titles, can make simple mistakes that cost dearly.

As Sam explains in page 232 of his book, “…Black has advanced a7-a5, so White will not be able to play b3-b4. As such, white is condemned to have a pair of doubled pawns where the further-advanced one cannot be protected from another pawn.”

What kind of simple mistakes have you made and you still remember them?

I saw that the excellent gentleman and highway robber in blitz Kevin Goh said a few nice things about me after making his last GM-norm.

JT: Was there a different approach you took towards this event and the previous other GM norm attempts you made during the barren years that made your chances better (preparation, mindset, living conditions etc)? 

Read more…

Quality Chess would like to congratulate, GM Hans Tikkanen, co-author of the soon-to-be published The Woodpecker Method…

…on becoming Swedish Champion for the fifth time. 7/9 and a 2714 performance is mighty impressive! We’d love to tell you his victory was the result of pre-tournament Woodpecker training but, as far as we know, this was not part of his preparations. Still, the process of collecting and working through more than a thousand tactical puzzles for the book was evidently not bad for his chess. Take the following example from round 5, which would have made a perfect example in the book.

Jonny Hector – Hans Tikkanen
Ronneby 2018

Black has built up a dominating position with skilful middlegame play. His advantage should be enough to win by slow means, but there is one clear way to break through.

Read more…

While in New Delhi for a teaching camp, I came across a well known fugitive and immediately conducted a civic arrest. Read more…

Hi guys,

Best wishes from Heraklion, the capital of the Greek island Crete. Kallia and I are here to inspect possible venues for our next big project – the Quality Chess Training Camp! We have so far found three possible venues and will now have to debate the prices with the hotels.

Meanwhile, let me explain the basic concept for you. A seven day training camp in beautiful surroundings at affordable (off-season) all-inclusive prices.

This year I am hosting a training camp in my house for the third time. The first year had two participants, the second year six and this year we will be nine. However, I had to push people to come the last two years, while this year 21 people expressed serious interest.

I prefer such events greatly to one-on-one training. I charge £700 all-inclusive for the seven day summer camp, which involves a few sofas, some AirBnb and so on. With nine participants it feels like it has outgrown the “do-it-yourself” stage.

So here is the plan. Quality Chess will cooperate with a local organiser in Heraklion to have a camp in a hotel here for something like €899. Depending on the hotel we choose and get a good deal from. We have a favourite and they seemed interested.

The first camp will take place 4-10 November 2018 and will most likely be capped with a minimum rating of 2300. The second camp will take place in the beginning of May 2019 and be open for everyone.

In the first camp in November there will be two coaches, GM Boris Gelfand and GM Myself. Exactly how we will divide the job between us, we are still negotiating. I hope he will not jump ship in the process, so do not read this as an invitation, but as a blog post!! But the dates in November are specifically decided to fit around his schedule.

In the second camp in May, there will be more coaches and hopefully more participants. The November camp is a trial run for us to learn how to do this right. In May we will not have any rating restrictions, but a big camp with classes at multiple levels at the same time and some big lectures. The evenings will have blitz tournaments by the pool (not guaranteed a pool for November though :-(), simuls, a quiz night and so on. We hope for it to be possible to bring family members at good prices. Wives, kids, parents, siblings, grandparents. Whatever is needed for you to be able to come. I want it to be something special, which incorporates a great holiday with top level chess coaching.

Look out at this spot or sign up for our newsletter for more information.