We have put up an excerpt of The Sicilian Taimanov by Antonios Pavlidis. A lot of effort has gone into this book, so I hope you like the look of it. First thing next week we will add an abridged version of the Variation Index to this excerpt. We are still working on that, but I promised an excerpt this week so here we are…
We are continuing our free-fourth-book 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, if a European buys the Special Offer on our award-winning Grandmaster Preparation series, then we would send the 6 hardcovers, plus one free extra book.
The previous default option on the free book was Reggio Emilia. For April and May we will switch the default option to GRANDMASTER BATTLE MANUAL. 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:
ATTACKING THE SPANISH
CARLSEN’S ASSAULT ON THE THRONE
CHAMPIONS OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM
CUTTING EDGE 1: THE OPEN SICILIAN
CUTTING EDGE 2: SICILIAN NAJDORF 6.Be3
GRANDMASTER VERSUS AMATEUR
POSITIONAL CHESS SACRIFICES
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
Today Chessable released another of our books in their format – Chess Structures by Mauricio Flores Rios. Mauricio put a huge effort into creating the structure and content of his book, and Chessable have also put in a special effort – they have added over 600 trainable exercises with annotations. I am reliably informed that this is by far the biggest upgrade that Chessable has given any book.
As usual with Chessable, there is a discount available for the first ten days, so if you are interested, go for it soon.
We will soon have a new addition to our Classics series – The Science of Strategy by Alexander Kotov. An excerpt of this book can be read here.
The publication date will be the same as Boris Avrukh’s Dynamic Systems – GM Repertoire 2B. And that date should be April 3rd if all goes to plan in printing.
The final book in Boris Avrukh’s 1.d4 GM Repertoire has just been sent to the printer, all 592 pages of it. Expect a publication date in early April. An excerpt of Dynamic Systems can he read here.
I hope you enjoy the Avrukh excerpt. An excerpt of a different new book will appear on Monday.
I have said this in a few comments in responses to various people. In 2018 I was ill for half the year and recovering for the second half. I am still in a worse state than exiting 2017. It has slowed us down a lot, as have other things. Life, basically.
But things are moving ahead and we are finishing a lot of books at the moment. Kotov – The Science of Strategy is going to the printer next week. So is Boris Avrukh’s – Grandmaster Repertoire 2B, the final book in the 1.d4 Saga. It will be a big book with 29 chapters.
Colin will return from holiday next week and put up some excerpts once the books are uploaded to the printer. Meanwhile I have a screen shot for you.
Today is the publication day of Artur Yusupov’s Build Up Your Chess 1 on Chessable. Yusupov’s series was, I believe, top of a Chessable users’ poll as the books they most wanted to see on Chessable. So I hope they are happy to see it. As is normal on Chessable, a new release is introduced at a sale price that lasts just over a week. So if you are interested in this version, I suggest going for it soon.
My friend GM Csaba Horvath once had dinner with Fischer in Budapest, after meeting him in the street. At some point during the dinner, Fischer asked him, “What do you think of ‘my’ chess?” (meaning 960). Csaba said: “I like it, but…” Fischer caught him off with a big grin. “No! No, buts!”
I received the friendly email below after my appearance on the Perpetual Chess Podcast.
I know he asks for my opinion, but I am more interested in other’s opinions. And I have also made this commitment not to defend any opinions in debates since taking up a post in FIDE. For obvious mental health related reasons :-).
I just listened to you on the perpetual chess podcast.
I really enjoyed it and realise that you’re experience in the chess world is vastly superior to mine and with that your perspective is greatly appreciated.
My intention is honest and sincere. I’m not about to post your reply on a forum and anything like that. I’m kinda wishing for the future of chess to be chess960 and was interested to hear your recent comment in the perpetual chess podcast. Genuinely interested, im too stoic to get upset by differing opinions but also believe these views and discussions to be extremely important to the future of chess.
I am extremely interested in getting your perspective on something that you mentioned regarding chess960 as ‘the Fischer random circus’.
During the podcast you also mentioned your preference for classical chess due to the ‘deep thinking’ aspect.
I have interpretted these 2 snippets as on the one hand you’re pro deep thinking yet anti chess960 (compared to classical chess). I hope I haven’t completely misrepresented your beliefs here, I’m just making conclusions following 90 minutes of listening.
So I guess my question is really:
Why do you on the 1 hand love thinking deeply and on the other regard chess960 as a ‘circus’. What am I missing that you are seeing?
I personally love chess960 because to me it is an excellent opportunity each and every game from move 1 to think hard with no auto-piloting in the opening. I mean you can’t just be a d4 player in chess960 you’d at least need to make an assessment first.
I actually find that I think deeper (in chess960) from move 1. To me it’s the deep thinking of chess that I love. In standard I have won many a game thanks to london system solely due to my opponent not being as familiar with it as me. But in chess960 I don’t get these opening edges (and vice versa) – to me that’s more pure chess than memorised lines bring to the board.
To me being given more variety of opening positions leads to more varied positions to assess which leads to more deep thinking.
But… classical/standard chess is sooo much more popular so I’m in the minority. So there must be something I’m missing. I think chess960 is like jazz whereas standard chess is more like classical music. Chalk and cheese as far as prep’s concerned.
The thing that I see commonly mentioned are ‘unbalanced’ starting positions as a reason against chess960. But as long as each player plays same position as white and black what’s the big deal? Or if that’s impractical then to be honest, it’s rather obvious that even at top level e.g. Carlsen v caruana that even a computers 2+ edge is often not even realised. So until humans improve considerably I don’t think these computer assessments on unfamiliar positions really impact the human results much. I think the human aspect would likely be the difference.
To me this is a matter of taste entirely. I also don’t like jazz too much. It is too rich and there is an information-overload happening to me when I listen to it. Which I do on rare occasions.
I like the tradition of classical chess. I like that I begin the game in the same position as Kasparov did. I like the patterns of openings.
All of Jason’s arguments are valid. To me it is a matter of taste. What do you guys think?
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