Quality Chess Blog

At some point in the next couple of months we will need to print more copies of Small Steps to Giant Improvement by Sam Shankland. We are delighted with the book, but what did you think of it? Did you see something we should change/correct?

As you will guess, after the blog readers’ suggestions on what we should correct when reprinting Playing 1.e4 e5 (thanks for that) we are once again asking for help.

On a wholly unrelated topic, my pre-World Cup prediction was that England would win the Cup (this is football not chess). I was half-joking to Jacob, but if it turns out be correct then I will claim full credit.

Hi guys,

Best wishes from Heraklion, the capital of the Greek island Crete. Kallia and I are here to inspect possible venues for our next big project – the Quality Chess Training Camp! We have so far found three possible venues and will now have to debate the prices with the hotels.

Meanwhile, let me explain the basic concept for you. A seven day training camp in beautiful surroundings at affordable (off-season) all-inclusive prices.

This year I am hosting a training camp in my house for the third time. The first year had two participants, the second year six and this year we will be nine. However, I had to push people to come the last two years, while this year 21 people expressed serious interest.

I prefer such events greatly to one-on-one training. I charge £700 all-inclusive for the seven day summer camp, which involves a few sofas, some AirBnb and so on. With nine participants it feels like it has outgrown the “do-it-yourself” stage.

So here is the plan. Quality Chess will cooperate with a local organiser in Heraklion to have a camp in a hotel here for something like €899. Depending on the hotel we choose and get a good deal from. We have a favourite and they seemed interested.

The first camp will take place 4-10 November 2018 and will most likely be capped with a minimum rating of 2300. The second camp will take place in the beginning of May 2019 and be open for everyone.

In the first camp in November there will be two coaches, GM Boris Gelfand and GM Myself. Exactly how we will divide the job between us, we are still negotiating. I hope he will not jump ship in the process, so do not read this as an invitation, but as a blog post!! But the dates in November are specifically decided to fit around his schedule.

In the second camp in May, there will be more coaches and hopefully more participants. The November camp is a trial run for us to learn how to do this right. In May we will not have any rating restrictions, but a big camp with classes at multiple levels at the same time and some big lectures. The evenings will have blitz tournaments by the pool (not guaranteed a pool for November though :-(), simuls, a quiz night and so on. We hope for it to be possible to bring family members at good prices. Wives, kids, parents, siblings, grandparents. Whatever is needed for you to be able to come. I want it to be something special, which incorporates a great holiday with top level chess coaching.

Look out at this spot or sign up for our newsletter for more information.

We have sent off the Woodpecker method to the printer on Wednesday. We have to unscramble our brains and work out what that means regarding the publication date, especially after a personal change with our printer, meaning some things have to be relearned there. But it is coming and it is coming soon. The final page count is 392 pages, but as you should go through it many times, by design, it is much more than this!

We need to reprint Nikos Ntirlis’s fine book Playing 1.e4 e5. Whenever we reprint a book, we of course take the opportunity to correct any errors we missed the first time. So, do you know of any errors in Playing 1.e4 e5 that we should fix?

Please note that we are reprinting, not updating to the present day or writing a new edition. So “Instead of the Breyer, Nikos should cover the Zaitsev” is not a helpful correction.

We have tried asking the blog for title suggestions, so why not for error-spotting? Call it an experiment.