Quality Chess Blog

I have confirmation from the printer that Grandmaster Repertoire – 1.e4 vs The French, Caro-Kann and Philidor by GM Parimarjan Negi and Grandmaster Repertoire 18 – The Sicilian Sveshnikov by GM Vassilios Kotronias have been printed on schedule and will be in our hands next week.

So what are the books like? ‘Stunningly brilliant’ says this biased publisher (but I’m right anyway). Excerpts of both books are at the following links: Negi and Kotronias.

Let’s start with Negi on 1.e4 – it’s the immensely strong repertoire of a young Super-GM who is noted for his opening prowess. For a huge opening book (600 pages) it is highly readable, as Negi seems an “ideas man” rather than merely moves-moves-moves.

Kotronias on the Sveshnikov is also a dream ticket – one of the world’s leading theory experts on one of Black’s most feared Sicilian systems. It seems no one has anything with White against the Sveshnikov (that will be a challenge for Negi later). So add this line to your repertoire and frighten White into the sidelines.

Forward Chess are preparing both books and will likely have their versions ready before us. I believe the Negi book is already there. So if you haven’t checked out the Forward Chess app before, then now would be a great time to start.

The Secret Life of Bad Bishops by Esben Lund is also on the way (from a different printer) but I will introduce that one separately later.

Read more…

We will publish paperback editions of Attack&Defence and Endgame Play in my Grandmaster Preparation series on Wednesday next week.

We will print a German edition of the first volume in the Judit Polgar Teaches Chess series as soon as we get the cover fixed. This is harder than it should be, but hopefully it will work out soon.

Finally, I am happy to announce what I am working on at the moment. I am helping a good friend write a book on the way he understands chess. And boy does he understand chess:

We have written some of the chapters already and have the raw material for all but the last chapter. I am very very happy with it. Actually, I am ecstatic. I hope you guys will support this project too.

Once again we have fallen a bit behind our schedule. The reason is quite simple: We have a number of big books coming. Grandmaster Repertoire 1.e4 will be about 600 pages (dealing with such big openings as the Caro-Kann, French and Philidor) and the Sveshnikov will be about 500 pages. Also, John is struggling his way through Playing 1.e4, but has had to take a few weeks off, editing Judit’s final installment in her award winning trilogy. Finally, we will all be at the Olympiad this year, so a few weeks of the summer are “lost” in this way as well…

And no, I am not saying who Mr X is. I want the book to be further along first; but so far I am very happy with the material.

We have more books coming down the list. For example: Thinking Inside the Box is delayed til August 2015. I just needed a break from this series. Endgame Play was too difficult.

Finally, we are planning to release Attack & Defence and Endgame Play in paperback somewhere this summer. The final decision on this will be made on Monday at the editorial. And then there will be 1-2 surprises or changes along the way of course.

As always, this is a view into what we are hoping and not an official publishing schedule! I am certain about the first six books on the list; everything thereafter might change and change greatly!

Try to find the best move in these two positions. I have reduced the problems to sort of candidate moves in order to make it easier for you. There is no need for deep calculation.

[fen size=”small”]r2qr1k1/1pp2pb1/3p2pp/1N5n/1PP1n3/p3B1PP/P4PBK/1R1QR3 w – – 0 19[/fen]

White to play

[fen size=”small”]3R4/4np1k/6pp/R3p3/1p2b3/5qP1/PP3P1P/4Q1K1 w – – 0 34[/fen]

White to play

Read more…

A few points about the sliding schedule. And this is really to the authors. 3-400 pages does not mean when exported from ChessBase! It means once we have diagrams put in and formatted the text!!!

Yeah, we are working through a number of tough ones. But they will be worth the wait. First the list, then a few comments below.

One obvious questions is: Whatever happened to Grivas’ THE GRANDMASTER PROGRAM. We were working on the book and we felt it had certain issues that we wanted to address in one way and Efstratious wanted to address in an entirely different way. We found it hard to find a compromise and decided that the best solution for all parties was for Stratos to publish his book with another publisher. I am personally disappointed about the way things went; it is quite an interesting and enjoyable book and I am sure it will do very well for another publisher. But Quality Chess has certain internal ways of doing things that might be a bit rigid, but have served us well. I am sure the book will come out on another publisher – I see no reason why it should not – and you will be able to enjoy it like I have.

To Book Shops Our lists are very much guess work and just keeping in touch with our readers. We put a date on the list when we think a date is prudent only. Otherwise we are guessing. Books over the empty lines are being edited. Books under have not yet been delivered – with the exception of ever-reliable Tibor Karolyi, of course. The official release date of The Secret Life of Bad Bishops will be the 30th July or the 6th August. But I hope we will have a presentation of the finished book at Politiken Cup on Monday the 28th July by Esben and it will be on pre-sale there of course! Quality Chess are proud to once again to sponsor this open, which is one of the top tournaments in Europe in respect to pleasure to participate in.

About order This is close to what I believe will happen. Of course there will be a few additional titles popping up along the way, but essentially, this is the order we currently believe things will happen. Up close this is definitely the case. Two months down the road – who knows.

I will put up a publishing schedule in a moment, but I just wanted to address the slide of THINKING INSIDE THE BOX. Basically, I am a bit worn out after doing ENDGAME PLAY, which as I have already attested, I will have spent about 1000 hours on preparing. This includes: finding positions, analyse them, use them with students, have two seminars in Denmark with the elite, write the text, rewrite the text, find new exercises after Karsten Mueller busted about 15 of them, rewrite changes from Karsten (big thanks once again), typeset the book, proof read the book, make more changes because I was worn out and made too many mistakes…

Am I whining? Yeah, a bit (read a lot). But I am knackered. I want to take it easy for a while and do some easy things.

So, I will go back to BOX somewhere after the Olympiad (should there be one). I have the ideas and I am eager to make it my best work. Which is also pressure and less easy than it once was (kinda still very happy with Positional Play!).

So I am helping two friends write their books at the moment. It is less difficult, as they have the last say and their names are going on the cover. And then I am looking after my students.

I might also help John a little with the second Playing 1.e4 book, as he is finding it tough to both write and be the Managing Director.

So it has been moved to 2015. Sorry to the 3-4 people looking forward to it. And to the rest of you, you will not be disappointed by what I am doing instead. Probably those 3-4 people will more than forgive me. We have a treat coming in the autumn…

Things are moving far better with the Forward Chess app (finally!). New books are being added all the time. In NIC 4/2014 we will carry a full page add for the app on page 3. Sales are slowly picking up, making it feasible to do the conversions (though this was not the reason for the delays, they were technical) and we start to look at it a bit more optimistically.

Also, there is a decent review on ChessCafe of the app. I should note that we have a free book on it as well and will continue to put a few free books on it over the years.