Quality Chess Blog

For years people have asked for a deluxe hardback version of Learn from the Legends. I am starting to understand why, as this book easily won the “best of the first decade” vote. Here are the results (I know you cannot see Carlsen’s Assault on the Throne with 5 votes at the bottom, but I am travelling and on a laptop and will aim lower than for perfection).

Thank you to everyone who voted and especially to those who voted for me :-).

A repertoire to last a lifetime

Karpov’s Strategic Wins

Tired of Bad Positions – Try the Main Lines

A review of GM Repertoire 17: The Classical Slav got me thinking. The review had a highly favourable conclusion but mentioned that GM 17 improved against the repertoire Avrukh recommended years ago in GM Repertoire 1. “So much for the ‘repertoire to last a lifetime’” as we had written on the cover of GM 1. The reviewer’s comment is half-joking (at least that is my interpretation), but it caused me to look again at some of the sales text listed above.

(I have not linked to the review as I am perfectly happy with it, and I do not wish to start another “Quality Chess disagrees with reviewer” extravaganza. The review is excellent – no complaints here.)

So is ‘A repertoire to last a lifetime’ misleading? Well, the GM1 repertoire could last a lifetime. You could play the variations it recommends forever, and with success (4.e3 against the Slav, Fianchetto against KID, Catalan against QGD, etc.). But that does not mean the details will never need updating. Did anyone seriously believe that Boris Avrukh had ‘solved chess’ and found the strongest possible move in every position? People rightly have a lot of faith in Boris, but that would be too much.

Karpov’s Strategic Wins? Are all the wins in those books ‘strategic’? Whatever that means. Still, great books, in my opinion.

Tired of Bad Positions – Try the Main Lines. A tagline on our GM Repertoire books. What is a main line? And not every sideline automatically leads to a bad position.

As an example, 4.e3 Bf5 5.Nc3 e6 6.Nh4 against the Slav was not, I think, a hugely popular line at GM level before Avrukh recommended it in GM1. Was it really a main line? It certainly is now.

So here are my questions: how do you feel about such sales text? Do you ignore them as pointless sales waffle? Take them literally and absolutely, then search for loopholes to prove us wrong? Any other examples of our sales text you wish to debate?

Recently I had a conversation with an IM about the ideal line-up for the 2014 Candidates Tournament. I leaned towards this being a fine tournament, accepting the financial incentive to have a wildcard and not feeling overly burdened by the participation of Andreikin, despite him not winning more than one real game of chess at the World Cup.
 
We randomly drifted into how we would have filled the eight places if we had to pick them, rather than filling them with players who had qualified. From my perspective it is a bit of a morbid thought experiment, as the principle of majority participation by qualification rather than rating is the only way that makes sense to me. If everything was done on rating, why not just crown the highest-rated player the ‘Best Player in the World’ and be done with it? The answer is of course that we want a match, which to me also means that you need to have a tournament to pick the challenger, and again tournaments to fill that tournament.
 
But anyway, in this experiment I picked, among other people, Boris Gelfand. Not because I am on friendly terms with Boris; nor because he supports what we are trying to do with Quality Chess. But because he won three super-tournaments in 2013. One in front of Carlsen, one shared with Aronian (none of the top players care about the tie-break in events other than the Candidates) and one shared with Caruana (the last of the Grand Prix tournaments).
 
The IM argued that Boris should not be included because he is in bad physical shape. Although I agree that there is a big difference from Carlsen and his six-pack, and Gelfand’s more natural mature look, and that being super-fit is an advantage in chess. But it is only one of many parameters.
 
Actually, I have always hated selection for anything based on style, evaluation of talent or discipline, hair colour or other rubbish. At the end of the day, what should matter for those picking participants for junior events, national teams and so on, should be all about results. There are many ways to do just about anything in life and chess is no exception.
 
The time Gelfand is saving by not doing two hours of sport a day is used solving puzzles, analysing the opening or looking at complex endgames (entirely guessing here, but you get the point). Do we know what the perfect balance is? I don’t think so. We know what the perfect system is for Carlsen – and what is much more important – Carlsen knows it too! Gelfand has over time carved out his own routine, based on his personality and perception of his own strengths and weaknesses, as have the other top players.
 
I am quite sure that both Carlsen and Gelfand would lose a lot of strength if they tried each other’s systems. They are built on their own experience of what they want to do and what works for them.
 
This leads me to an absolute point behind all of this musing: You will never have enough time to do all the training you think you should do. You should tailor your training based on your own likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses.
 
Actually, despite being unable to know you so well without spending a lot of time with you, I am willing to put my reputation on the line (well, yours actually, but I can live with that) and advise you to look at two things in connection with chess improvement.
 

a) the thing you do the best
 
b) something you do poorly and feel frustrated by
 
This could be physical or it could be endings. Either way. Develop strengths and try to remove some weaknesses; and feel free to delay working on either at times, if this makes you happier. At the end of the day; that is what life is also about.

John stumbled over this quote on the English Chess Federation’s Forum:

Just look at the two Judit Polgar books published by Quality Chess. It’s a dead cert that all the notes were written by Marin. This is the best annotated game collection I’ve ever seen in my life (and I think I’ve seen ’em all). Tears of gratitude emanate copiously as I flick through the pages of these two tomes.

We are of course grateful that our books are appreciated, but probably we should clarify what is happening here. Mihail and Judit are friends since she was a small girl and have worked together on a number of occasions. When she decided to write the book, she knew she needed help and turned to one of the best chess writers around. What he is mainly helping with is structure, advice and occasional typing. The opinions, the choices, the variations are all Judit. This year she went a week to Bucharest and he a week to Budapest. They have also both worked independently. There have been sections I have seen that were clearly written by Judit and others written by Marin (detectable from their personal recurring grammar mistakes).

So, it is no secret that Marin is helping a lot with these books; but they are not ghosted as they would be for a footballer or other celebrities. Judit is intensely involved and does not do this for the money at all – which is a good thing, as otherwise the books would not happen. I am personally looking forward to the last volume a lot; the first two have been some of my favourite chess books ever.

Dear Quality Chess Reader,

We have just sent three new books to the printer, and we predict these books will be available on April 30th.

Mikhail Tal’s Best Games 1 – The Magic of Youth by Tibor Karolyi is the first of three volumes covering Tal’s life and games. In addition, the author contacted many of Tal’s contemporaries, who were kind enough to share their personal stories about a popular champion. A pdf excerpt is here.

In Endgame Play Jacob Aagaard continues his Grandmaster Preparation series. Rather than me say how good this book is, let’s see part of what GM Karsten Müller writes in the Foreword: “With Endgame Play Jacob Aagaard has again proved convincingly that he is indeed one of the best chess authors of modern times.” A pdf excerpt is here.

Mating the Castled King by GM Danny Gormally is an entertaining guide to attacking play. Well-chosen model examples and test positions are complemented by the author’s lively writing style and original terminology. Clobber your opponents with motifs such as the “Shotgun” and the “Tower of Terror”! A pdf excerpt is here.

There are no chess files with this newsletter, as we have concentrated fully on completing these three books. We will make up for this in our next newsletter.

Regards,

John Shaw

Chief Editor

Quality Chess

We will get this on the website very quickly. Still struggling with Endgame Play.

For those wanted to see John’s fantastic speech, here is the link (don’t know if it will work…)

John and I are not fans of fooling people. Not even on April 1st. Or should I say especially not on April 1st, as this is the day our company was founded. Later today I will put our 2014 Catalogue up and I promise it is genuine 😎 .