Quality Chess Blog

At times we have to admit to great limitations when it comes to planning. We believed that Grandmaster Repertoire 8 – The Grunfeld Defence was going to be 550 pages – but as we are getting closer to finishing the book, we have realised that 700 pages is more likely.

We cannot do this; it is too much.

We have thus decided to split the book into two volumes. We will have Grandmaster Repertoire 8: The Grunfeld Defence Volume 1 and Grandmaster Repertoire 9: The Grunfeld Defence Volume 2. We have lowered the price, but overall it will of course be more expensive. We are sorry about this, but nothing else makes sense.

Those who have already ordered the book on our website will of course receive both volumes at no additional charge, or they can contact us demanding a refund. However, we hope these customers will see this as a bonus – two books for the price of one.

One knock-on effect of this change is we have to renumber the book previously known as GM9. It is now Grandmaster Repertoire 10: The Tarrasch Defence.

We are sitting four people in the office far beyond our normal time of departure, fighting to get Karpov’s Strategic Wins 2 – The Prime Years away to the printer this evening. The scheduled publication date of the 29th of April remains realistic. The first volume has already been printed, so there are no issues there.

At the same time we have just agreed a four day seminar in Glasgow from the 5th to the 8th of May with Grandmaster Boris Avrukh. He will lecture on issues from the opening and middlegame – ‘but tell them, no endgames!’.

The price for participating will be 120 pounds for all four days, with a discount of 50% for everyone wanting to come from outside Scotland to follow the lectures. If we have more than 20 full price paying participants, a copy of any of Boris’ four books (including Experts on the Anti-Sicilian, shipping to stores today, where Boris wrote a small chapter) will be given to each participant. Those wanting the Grunfeld book will have to wait until it is released on the 3rd of June (hopefully).

A more detailed announcement will follow.

As if I had all the time in the world, I have now wasted some of it creating a Facebook account for the company. Among other things – this is because I want to seriously limit the amount of friends on my personal account. It is for a few friends and family – and family photos…

http://www.facebook.com/QualityChess/

Sorry for not putting a publishing schedule up, I was busy editing Starting Out in Tic Tac Toe.

The next publication is 25 Feb. Besides the list here, I want you to know that the Yusupov Box Set is meant to be out in the summer – the first one – and Build up your Chess 1 and 3 will be ready in hardback before then. Already available in hardcover is Attacking Manual 1+2 and GM Repertoire 1, as of a week or two back.

We have been so busy working away that it has taken us until the 7th of January to wish our readers a Happy New Year.

We recently announced two new books:

Experts on the anti-Sicilian will be edited by Jacob and me, and we will also a write a few chapters. Many other authors are also sharing their Sicilian wisdom including GMs Peter Heine Nielsen, Boris Avrukh, Tiger Hillarp Persson, Milos Pavlovic, Christian Bauer and Matthieu Cornette. Only one IM is involved in this project – Andrew Greet, who was allowed in as Scottish Champion.  The topic, of course, is  Sicilian lines except the Open variations. Please note, this is not a repertoire book, but it will offer many new ideas for both sides.

In The Grandmaster Battle Manual Greek GM Vassilios Kotronias shares the lessons he has learned as a highly competitive 2600+ player. We are delighted Vassilios has started writing for Quality Chess as we admire his previous books and know him to be a tremendous analyst.

On the website you can also download our brand new 2011 catalogue which, among other things, gives a complete list of our titles.

After having worked for us as a freelancer for years, former World Team Champion in problem solving, GM Colin McNab has decided to join Quality Chess as a full time editor from December. With lots of projects on the way, we badly needed extra hands, and got not only this, but also the remarkable skills Colin posses.

Short term, this is what we are working on at the moment:

A business announcement: from January 1st we intend to increase our shipping charges to EU countries. This will be our first increase since 2004 and will not fully cover the real increase in costs since then, so we hope customers will not be too disappointed.

Our old rules were:

Shipping to European Union countries

• 3 Euros for 1 book
• 6 Euros for two books
• Free Shipping if you order 3 or more books

We are changing this to:

Shipping to European Union countries

• 5 Euros for 1 book
• 8 Euros for two books
• Free Shipping if you order 3 or more books

Plus the usual disclaimer:

“Note: It is the customer’s responsibility to provide a full and correct address, e-mail and phone number. Any problems arising from these details being incorrect is not the responsibility of Quality Chess UK Ltd “

So the only change is an increase of 2 Euros on the first book. There are two main reasons for this: increasing postage charges in general and the fact that our books are getting heavier. The shipping charges the customer pays will of course still be much lower than our real costs of posting the books.

Orders of 3 books or more (and sometimes orders of just 2 books) will be sent by UPS. If the customer is out when UPS calls, it is the customer’s responsibility to contact UPS. Sorry, we can’t do it for you.

Dear Quality Chess Reader,

Andrew Greet and I have just returned from the Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia. Andrew was non-playing captain of the English Women’s team, who performed above expectations. I was Board 3 for the Scottish team in the Open section; we finished slightly below our seeding, despite beating all the teams we were meant to beat and only losing to our betters.

Back to the books: the final two volumes of Mihail Marin’s 1.c4 repertoire: Grandmaster Repertoire 4 and Grandmaster Repertoire 5 are being printed now and, if you live in Europe, October 15 is a good prediction of when you will be able to read them.

GM Christian Bauer’s Play the Scandinavian will also be available at the same time. Please note that this book concentrates on 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5; fans of the quirky 3…Qd6 will have to look elsewhere.

Excerpts are available for all three books at the following links: Grandmaster Repertoire 4, Grandmaster Repertoire 5 and Play the Scandinavian.

Attached is a bumper collection of chess analysis: including various puzzles, a couple of Avrukh-crunching Grunfelds, a non-boring Exchange Slav and a friendly but spirited analytical debate between Jacob and Anish Giri. This is available in either ChessBase or pdf format.

Regards,

John Shaw

Chief Editor

Quality Chess