Quality Chess Blog

In Quality Chess we have aspired to make the best chess books possible since our first books in 2004, Learn from the Legends and Experts vs. the Sicilian. Overall we believe we have been successful in our endeavours and have produced some memorable books, such as Understanding Chess Tactics, The Sveshnikov Reloaded and the Grandmaster Repertoire and Build up your Chess series, to mention but a few.

It is not in our nature to rest on our laurels. These past six years that we have worked on Quality Chess have been an uphill battle and a learning process. It has taken the time it takes to finish a masters degree, and we now think that we have graduated, receiving the first ever Boleslavsky Medal for the Build up your Chess series. On the way we were proud to win the Book of the Year from the ECF for San Luis 2005 and the ChessCafe.com prize for Learn from the Legends.

Ambitions should be ambitious, so we would like to share our aims for 2010:

1) In the first three months of 2010 we will supersede the quality (and possibly quantity) of our 2009 production.

2) Throughout all of 2010 we will do better than we have done before.

Jacob & John

Here, on New Year’s eve, I have finally uploaded Attacking Manual 2 to the printer. It will thus hopefully be ready for shipping from our warehouse from the 20th of January. I have uploaded the first 15 of the 464 pages as an excerpt. I will put it on the main site and so on, when I return to the office on the 5th. You can find the excerpt here.

We enjoy hearing from chessplayers who study our books and feel the benefit. The photo below shows players from the Sachovy Klub Lipa in a pub in the Czech Republic working hard on Artur Yusupov’s Build up your Chess 2. At least I assume they are working hard.

Israel did not play well at the European Team Championship in Novi Sad this year. Overall the team got 50%. The hero in a lot of their matches was Quality Chess author Boris Avrukh, who often was the sole winner in a 2,5-1,5 victory.
Read more…

We have an excerpt ready for Reggio Emilia 2007/2008, the tournament book about the Golden Jubilee edition of this famous tournament. I think the book is about 4-5 weeks away from publishing, meaning that the schedule has slided a little bit again. Let’s blame Andrew who is away at the European Team Championship as the English’ Women’s coach; he does not have time to read these pages…

The book is written partly by Mihail Marin and partly by the other participants in the event. The level of the event was very high and many great games were played there.

The Royal Mail is facing a series of strikes, mainly because they fear an effective sorting machine will put manual sorting workers out of work, as I understand it. At the moment the Royal Mail is losing a penny on every letter it delivers.

This conflict should not affect Quality Chess or purchases on our website. We will simply send all parcels from Poland until the conflict is resolved.

Final Scores:

GM C. McNab 8
IM N. Mikkelsen 7
FM N. Berry 5½
FM D. Eggleston 5
IM A. Greet 5
M. Mitchell 4
A. Tate 4
FM M. Andersen 2½
FM C. Thomson 2½
J. Grant 1½

A brilliant 2650 performance by GM Colin McNab, who is the main proof-reader of Quality Chess. Our books have benefited greatly from Colin’s sharpness. He is the ideal man for the job – a strong player, published author, and, as a bonus, a world class chess puzzle solver. Next month Colin will be part of the British team in the World Solving Championships in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

No IM norms were made, but FM Neil Berry was closest, in third place, nudging his rating closer to the 2400 level that is also a requirement for the IM title.

Games from the final two rounds are posted in the comments and all the Games are on-line.

Quality Chess is sponsoring an international all-play-all tournament, which is underway now. The event is being hosted by Edinburgh Chess Club.

Update:
Scores after 8 Rounds

C.McNab 7½
N,Mikkelsen 6
A.Greet 5
N.Berry 5
M.Mitchell 4
D.Eggleston 4
A.Tate 3½
M.Andersen 2
C.Thomson 1½
J.Grant 1½

I will post some of the games as they become available. I will put up a link to the games and place them in the comments section. It is not a high-tech event, so no live internet coverage. Thanks to Geoff Chandler of Chandler Cornered for sending me some of the games from the first couple of rounds (posted below) with a few of his comments. Geoff’s site has stories and photos from the event.

Games

10 player all-play-all, 12-20 September 2009, play is from 1pm – 7pm each day.
Edinburgh Chess Club, 1 Alva Street, Edinburgh, Scotland.
http://www.edinburghchessclub.co.uk/
Prize money:

1st £500
2nd £300
3rd £150

Participants:

GM Colin McNab 2466 Scotland

IM Andrew Greet 2433 England

IM Nikolaj Mikkelsen 2361 Denmark

FM Mads Andersen 2338 Denmark

FM David Eggleston 2368 England

FM Craig Thomson 2324 Scotland

FM Neil Berry 2301 Scotland

Jonathan Grant 2249 Scotland

Alan Tate 2175 Scotland

Martin Mitchell 2175 Scotland