Quality Chess Blog

I spent almost eight years writing the Attacking Manuals two books (AM1 and AM2) and felt absolutely drained at the end of the process. Obviously I did a lot of things in the meanwhile, but mainly I felt anxiety about my ability to reach the necessary level for making these books as good as I wanted them to be. Completing the GM title and becoming British Champion definitely helped. 2007 was a very tough year for Quality Chess and for me personally, but ended on a high by the birth of my first child.

We are now speaking more than four years later. Attacking Manual 2 came out in 2010 and I won the ECF book of the year award for the two volumes combined. In the end it was all worth it.

Enter the room in February 2011: Nikos (Nikolaos Ntirlis). Unknown outside Greece and to many Greeks as well, close to unrated (would have preferred to be) and full of ideas. I was so fascinated that I entered a mad project – the complete revival of the Tarrasch Defence. The result was Grandmaster Repertoire 10 – The Tarrasch Defence. We both worked so hard that Nikos went from criticising all books on the Chesspub forum to praising anyone who write an opening book and live to tell the tale!

But was it worth it? Well, initial sales have been good. People are interested (which is far more important to us than money – though we need to pay the rent of course). This is more important than the reviews, but the reviews are easier to pass on, so here we go:

The first one is from the Danish newspaper Politiken. Their chess journalist is a sometimes 2600 Danish GM who sent a private message to me on Facebook calling me insane – based on the work we had done with the book. He claimed we were making amateurs into GMs with it, which I would contest. But we have definitely given them a fighting chance against GMs!

The actual review looks like this in my translation:

“Most opening books are a collection of existing knowledge and a few extra ideas in critical positions. This is not the case with Jacob Aagaard’s and Nikolaos Ntirlis’ (called Nikos) new book on the Tarrasch Defence in the Queen’s Gambit. The book is the result of a large piece of research where the two authors have succeeded in turning completely new pages in opening theory.

Before The Tarrasch Defence was published the opening was considered dubious, but now that it is here, all super-GMs have been recalled to the laboratory. All main lines have been repaired, including those no one knew were broken. Have a look: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.dxc5! This line has always been considered completely harmless, but it is not and is handled over 37 pages! (Don’t fear – Black will be all right in the end.) The book is ground breaking and sets new standards for the future of opening books.”

GM Sune Berg Hansen

This is of course very flattering, but it is not necessarily the most positive review we have received. The German FM Christof Sielecki makes youtube lectures, freely available. He said:

“The authors invested an enormous amount of time. The amount of novelties and really astonishing ideas presented here can only mean that they invested hundreds of hours to make this an interesting and really fighting choice.”

But to get his excitement you really need to listen to the 30 minute lecture (which also explains some details from the book and some we shamefully omitted about move orders).

There was also a nice review in German (you are one like away if you go here) and a nice review on ChessCafe where the only criticism I could find (and you do look for them when you “only” get 5/6 in the review!) was that the book was irrelevant to players under 1400. As most opening books are, I don’t really care for this.

However, the best review of all was from Arne Moll, the notoriously harsh ChessVibes reviewer (which is why we love him. People like Elburg that loves all books are nice people, but don’t guide the customer in a meaningful way, we think). He said among other tings:

“The two authors… present so many fresh and fascinating ideas in this old opening that it’s impossible to put down. It’s also a very objective and sensible book, in which the old opening is both treated with respect and is challenged to defend itself against computer-age scrutiny and rigour.

I could go on and on about the many beautiful variations in this book, but the truth is that it is crammed with fantastic stuff – really too much to mention in one review. So let me just say that the authors treat the ever-important Timman Variation (9.dxc5 Bxc5 10.Bg5 d4 11.Bxf6 Qxf6 12.Nd5) with due adoration and skepticism (I’ve always felt the line to be both overestimated and underestimated at the same time!). Here, too, they improve existing theory as they go along in many crucial lines.”

The full review is very well written and gives an honest image of our book from someone who likes it. If you are wondering if you want to read the book (or even pay good money for it!) please read this first.

Recently a reader wrote to me and mentioned that the same position was considered two different places in The Tarrasch Defence, with slightly different annotations. The suggestion was in both cases not to play like this, but it was still an interesting point. No matter how obsessively you work, you cannot avoid mistakes.

Similarly at some point in Delchev’s new book on the Reti he writes the following: “It is true that Mihail Marin has spent tons of ink on it in his The English Opening, Volume 2, but in fact his work has hardly advanced theory any further.” Harsh words, but apparently he did not like this lines in this specific variation. We have heard different feedback from 2700+ (sometimes ++) players about the Marin books, but maybe not all chapters were equally strong?

Or is this what happens when your editor is only 13 years old? (By the way, Happy Birthday Semko!)

No. Writing chess books is just damn hard. What you think might be interesting is routinely trashed by the readers. No matter how much work you put into your work and how obsessively you look for mistakes, they will always be there. Sometimes it is a harmless transposition to a note that is missed as above, but you are not always this lucky.

We all remember this blog post (?!).

Well, Vitiugov is back with a new edition of his book on the French, probably a combination of end of the line for the first print and a lot of serious work. I have been browsing in the book for the two days I have had it (thank you for the freebie Semko!) and find it a really interesting book worth the money several times over.

This does not mean that I am not going to get my “revenge” for the remark on the Marin book.

In the line starting with:

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. f4 c5 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. Be3 Qb6 8. Na4 Qa5+ 9. c3 cxd4 10. b4 Nxb4 11. cxb4 Bxb4+ 12. Bd2 Bxd2+ 13. Nxd2 O-O 14. Bd3 b5 15. Nb2 Nb6 16. O-O Nc4 17. Nbxc4

17…dxc4

Vitiugov claims that the theoretical debates have recently centred around this move. I am not sure what went wrong for him. Maybe he wrote the moves down in Word and did not check the moves with a chess board or program. It only took me two seconds to see that this is completely wrong when looking at the diagram in the book and the variation he gave. But being not too overconfident, I checked with a computer (and database!) and confirmed that this is not playable.

More and more games are played (as well as becoming available) after:

17… bxc4 18. Bxh7+ Kxh7 19. Qh5+ Kg8 20.Nf3 g6 21. Qh6 Qc7 22. f5 f6

(22… exf5 23. Rae1 is totally toast, I think. 5-0 in the database. Most recently: 23…f6 24. exf6 Qh7 25. Qf4 Qf7 26. Re7 Qxf6 27. Rfe1 Rf7 28. Rxf7 Kxf7 29. Ng5+ Kg7 30. Qc7+ Kh6 31. Qh7+ Kxg5 32. g3 1-0 Zherebukh – Jaiswal, New Delhi 2011.)

23. fxg6 Qg7 24. Qh4, when I do not believe in the Black position at all. 24…Qh8 25. Qxd4 Ba6 26. Nh4

(26. Qc3 Rae8 27. Nd4 f5 28. Rae1 White has a big advantage. 28…f4 29. Rf3 Qh4 30. Qa5 c3 31. Qxc3 Bc4 32. Kh1 Re7 33. Qb4 1-0 Colin – Haraldsson, ICCF 2010)

26… f5

(26… fxe5 27. Qg4 Rfe8 28. Rf7 with a winning attack.)

27.Nxf5 led to a winning attack in Avotins – Hladecek, e-mail 2009.

18.Bxh7+ Kxh7 19. Qh5+ Kg8

Here Vitiugov only gives 20.Nf3, failing to spot the reason why White is eager to take on c4 on move 17.

20. Ne4! Rd8

20… f6 21. Nxf6+! 1-0 Secer – Gurcan, Konya 2010. White wins after: 21…Rxf6

(21…gxf6 22. Qg6+ Kh8 23. Rf3 is mate.)

22. exf6 Bb7 23. f7+ Kf8 24. Rae1 Bd5

(24… Qxa2 25. Rf2 Qa6 26. f5)

25. f5 Qxa2 26. Re2

21. Ng5 An obvious novelty.

21. Rf3 d3 22. Rh3 Kf8 23. Qg5 Qb6+ 24. Kh1 Ke8 25. Qxg7 Qd4 was not completely clear in Bulatov – Yuzhakov, Kurgan 2010, and Black escaped with a draw.

21… Qc7 22. f5 exf5 23. Qh7+ Kf8 24. Qh8+ Ke7 25. Qxg7 White is evidently winning.

25…Rf8

25… Re8 26. Qxf7+ Kd8 27. Qd5+ Qd7 28. Qxa8 with an extra rook and limited counterplay.

26. e6 Qc5 27. Rae1 d3+ 28. Kh1 d2 29. Re5

If this was a game, 1-0 would be the next text.

If you are at all interested in these two books, please get them from your nearest chess supplier. But don’t forget that Quality Chess gets the last word and the last laugh!

 

Arne Moll at the ChessVibes site reviewed two books in one column: our Experts on the anti-Sicilian and Bologan’s The Rossolimo Sicilian. The comparison went in our favour with quotes such as: “If you want to have fun with the Anti-Sicilians, The Rossolimo Variation and Experts on the Anti-Sicilian provide excellent study material. My own preference is for the latter – it seems more objective, more diverse and more up to date.”

It’s a long review and well worth reading in full. Give it a scan and see if you disagree with Arne. Is Bologan too harshly dealt with for continually praising his old coach? Is our book excessively praised? Why am I asking stupid questions?

 

On the subject of reviews, in his Checkpoint column at ChessCafe, Carsten Hansen reviewed The Cutting Edge 2: Sicilian Najdorf 6.Be3. Once again, the whole review is worth reading. The quick summary is 5 stars out of a possible 6: Carsten loved the chess but objected to some of the language.

Sean Marsh, writing at The Week in Chess, selected his best books of last year in Off the Shelf – The Best of 2010. As the screenshot below shows, we can be happy that Jacob’s Attacking Manuals 1 and 2 both made the list. Also the bonus of a new spelling of Jacob’s surname.

The full review of the Attacking Manuals says good things such as “They can rightly be considered as the flagships of the Quality Chess productions.”

Attacking Manual 2 has received another honour: the Guardian newspaper, specifically GM Danny King and Ronan Bennett, selected the Attacking Manual 2 as their Book of the Year, ahead of rival works written by Kasparov, Seirawan and Watson. Of course, recently the English Chess Federation also selected Attacking Manuals 1 and 2 as their Books of the Year.

The Guardian judges wrote:

“Aagaard delivers opinionated and sometimes biting judgments, and more importantly, he has found some remarkable and original ideas that enrich our understanding of attacking play. This is a case where computer software has been put to good use to bring out the beauty in a game, but he is not a slave to the machine, going his own way when necessary. So congratulations to Aagaard and Quality Chess.”

The full column can be found at the Guardian website.

I am proud to have won the 2010 ECF Book of the Year award for Attacking Manual 1 – 2nd edition and Attacking Manual 2. The reason why I did not originally write this project for Everyman despite a very nice offer, but set up Quality Chess instead, was that I wanted it to be perfect – and that I wanted to win this prize. This is the biggest achievement of my career by far.

English Chess Federation

BOOK of the YEAR 2010

The judges this year were faced with a particularly difficult choice as all the four books listed had considerable, but differing merits. The choice finally fell on a two volume work which had taken the author no less than eight years to write.

The book is Attacking Chess Volumes 1 and 2 by Jacob Aagaard, published by Quality Chess at £23.99 each.  These constitute a substantial work totalling 720 pages in all, excellently laid out and printed. The volumes are written in a lively manner, which keeps the reader entertained as well as interested.

The genesis of the book is found in the introduction to volume 1. Aagaard felt that the role of intuition had been undervalued in chess writing. Good players not only calculate but also have a feeling for what might be possible in a given position, which can be described as intuition. Aagaard also felt that there was a shortage of good books on attacking play –by which he means attacking the King. There are many excellent titles on combinations, but Aagaard is looking for the conditions when an attack may be possible (King in the middle is an obvious example) and how that attack may be prepared and prosecuted. In other words Aagaard is trying to develop the reader’s attacking intuition.

Volume 2 is, in the words of the author “what to do when the attack is up and running”.

Whilst doing this, Aagaard introduces new concepts and ideas into the text. To help in this process he gives preview diagrams of the positions to be discussed, which the reader is invited to consider before reading on, a valuable learning tool.

The author has obtained the games and positions for both volumes from a wide range of contemporary sources, many of which were new to the judges. It is also clear that throughout Aagaard has provided fresh commentary and analysis. The reader can simply enjoy the many fascinating positions or study in depth, but either way there are many hours of pleasure to be found in these two books.

Aagaard has written a significant and original treatise on the fine art of attacking play and is a worthy winner of the Book of the Year 2010.

R B Edwards  J Farrand  D Friedgood 27th September 2010

Earlier today we got a phonecall from Ray Edwards, head of the three-man committee deciding the Book of the Year by the English Chess Federation. We were pleased to be nominated, this year with two books. The short list of candidates looks like this:

1) Yasser Seirawan: Chess Duels

2) John Nunn: Understanding Chess Endgames

3) Kopec, Ftacnik & Browne: Champions of the New Millennium

4) Jacob Aagaard: Attacking Manual 1+2

It is very pleasing to have both the books we sent in (each publisher can only send two books) nominated. Whatever the final choice, this is a big moment for Quality Chess – and the authors as well, of course.

See the committee’s reasonings.

Usually we use this blog to discuss our own books, as we do not want to be seen as discussing the competition in any way. However, at times we can make an exception. Today we received a few copies of the book OLYMPIAD UNITED about the 2008 Dresden Olympiad. It is big, as in many pages and a good deal bigger than A4. Besides this it is in hardback. The book is full of nice b/w photographs and annotations from many strong grandmasters, and other punters such as myself. (Our connection to this book is through one of the three authors, Harald Fietz, who has taken a lot of the excellent photos seen in our books.) This is a brilliant book in the tradition of San Luis 2005, Champions of the New Millennium and other books that offer high quality chess, on good paper and with lots of photos. Get your local chess shop on the phone now; 100s of other chess players are already in the know…

New posting planned for tomorrow.