Quality Chess Blog

Dear Quality Chess Reader,

Since our last newsletter we have published several books:

The Alterman Gambit Guide: Black Gambits 1 explains dynamic chess using gambits as a vehicle. Compared to the previous volume in the series, White Gambits, the level of chess is a little higher and Black Gambits 1 could form the basis of an aggressive repertoire against 1.d4 and 1.c4. Gambit lines against 1.e4 will be covered in the concluding volume of the series, Black Gambits 2.

Advanced Chess Tactics by Lev Psakhis is, as the name suggests, about advanced chess tactics. Perhaps I should say a little more? Psakhis covers his topic by studying attacking chess and adds his own great wit and wisdom.

Grandmaster versus Amateur is written by seven grandmasters – Pavel Eljanov, Peter Heine Nielsen, Boris Avrukh, Mihail Marin, Tiger Hillarp Persson plus Jacob Aagaard and me. We told the authors the title and asked them to write a chapter on whatever that suggested to them. As we had hoped, the results were diverse, instructive and entertaining.

Grandmaster Repertoire 10: The Tarrasch Defence by Jacob Aagaard and Nikolaos Ntirlis will be available in early December. It covers an exciting opening that for too long has had a bad reputation. The Tarrasch deserves a revival and the original analysis in this book will spark that renaissance.

Chess Evolution 1 is the latest volume in GM Yusupov’s award-winning instructional series. This follows on from Build Up Your Chess 1 and Boost Your Chess 1 to complete the set of three books at The Fundamentals level.

This time our games collection covers a wide range. It is available in ChessBase or pdf format. I will not list everything, but the file includes a game each annotated by GMs Jonny Hector and Sabino Brunello. In the latter game Mihail Marin’s English repertoire is tested with great success. Boris Avrukh’s Grünfeld repertoire is also featured in several games where new ideas were tried. The rest I shall leave as a surprise.

Regards,
John Shaw
Chief Editor
Quality Chess

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The long road leading to Grandmaster Repertoire 10 – The Tarrasch Defence seems to be coming to an end. The boys will upload the book tomorrow or maybe even today. Meanwhile I have been testing the lines in the European Team Championship in Greece. So far two draws, against strong opposition. As I have managed to win both of my white games, this has been a great success. Today awaits Armenia and either Akopian or Sargissian. Chances are the Tarrasch – and especially my memory – will be seriously tested.

Update from Scotland: We reckon Jacob has White against Akopian. Live games can be watched here.

It has been very interesting to read your top 3s in opening books over the last few days, as well as your explanations. If you did not add your personal top 3, please do so. Everyone is interested!

Now it is time to add your top 3 for non-opening books. Here is my two lists:

Non-Quality Chess

1. The Dvoretsky Endgame Manual (Dvoretsky)

2. Imagination in Chess (Gaprindashvili)

3. The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal

From Quality Chess

1. Attacking Manual 1+2 (sorry, this is my honest opinion)

2. Learn from the Legends

3. Chess Lessons

A bit surprising maybe that I don’t include San Luis 2005, which many (and probably correctly) put down as the best chess book ever. I agree with this in principle and beyond, the other books just fit better with my character.

The same can be said about Yusupov’s nine books. They are a monument and will last beyond the time we are here (I hope). But they don’t speak to me personally. In the same way that I personally like Jo Nesbo novels better than Julian Barnes, despite what the Booker committee might think :-).

Today I saw NIC Yearbook 100 for the first time. It had some very interesting stuff and is far beyond what you normally can expect from this aging publication. Even if you have been wondering in the past why you bought one of them, please do get this one.

Interesting for us is the article by Glenn Flear on 23 interesting opening books from the last decade or so. I was a bit surprised that there was no space for Rogozenko’s THE SVESHNIKOV SICILIAN RELOADED or John Cox’ THE BERLIN WALL, especially as there was space for some books I don’t rate highly (no, I will not comment on that part). However, most enjoyable Glenn did credit Boris Avrukh with the most influencial opening book in what I figure must be this millennium for GRANDMASTER REPERTOIRE1-  1.d4 VOLUME ONE.

So, I was wondering: what are your top 3s? Please speak freely; we shall not judge you – unless John Shaw: THE KING’S GAMBIT is on your list, in which case we shall put our considerable resources into tracking you down and donating you a 400 page draft for internal use…

Anyway, back to the studio. My top 3 opening books in the 21st century is:

1. Avrukh: GM1 – 1.d4 Vol 1

2. Marin: GM3 – 1.c4 vol 1

3. Hillarp-Persson: Tiger’s Modern

I honestly stood in front of our considerable selection of opening books, and did not find a book from another company I liked as much as our 10 best books. The main reason is probably that I have considerable influence on how our books look, so they are made the way I like it, but I also genuinely think that at their time, these three books were something special. I look forward to hear other people’s opinions. I know that John would probably go Marin, Avrukh, Hillarp-Persson, but keep the same list :-).

We are publishing a few titles at the end of next week. We are also re-organising the company. John is taking over as Managing Director while I am becoming Creative Director (basically I make things up, but don’t have any real responsibilities) and Colin becomes Operational Manager (meaning he tells us when we have forgotten things) as well as staying an editor. I don’t think the rest of the world will notice, but to us it is quite a shift in focus, and most likely a very good one. The reason is quite simple: we need a change for many reasons, not the least because it will continue to make us more dynamic. And personally I am quite excited about working on the 1.e4 project as well as other ideas, rather than doing sales projections and talking to business contacts all over the world.

I will however still be active on the blog and answer questions, I just don’t have any weight to back my answers up with anymore :-). Here is the recent publishing schedule.

I am just about to go out the door to something as rare in my life as three days of holiday. I will obviously be online and workning while away, but still…

Quality Chess has joined forces with Anuk.doo (mainly Arkadij Naiditsch) to produce the periodical Chess Evolution. The first issue, September 2011, will be available in a week or so and is now available in our webshop. Soon we will also have subscription options. Hopefully I will be able to set them up while I am away, but if not, I will set them up at the end of next week.

We also have our own Chess Evolution series, and volume 1 will be finished from the printer at the end of next week. The same is the case for Black Gambits 1. Both books will be shipping from the 30th of September it looks like. We will send CE Sep a bit earlier to webshop customers, but probably not to shops. However, it will be in your local shop at the beginning of October. And if it is not – ask them to order it!

I finally got around to updating the coming soon section and adding seven books. We will add text to them throughout the day.