Release dates for Play the Scandinavian, GM4 and GM5

We have finally got a date confirmed from the printer. The Christmas catalogues are starting to get in and they need to be printed, but we managed to get slots for

  • Play the Scandinavian (PDF excerpt)
  • Grandmaster Repertoire 4 – The English volume 2 (PDF excerpt)
  • Grandmaster Repertoire 5 – The English volume 3 (PDF excerpt)

Here is our general overview. As always I avoid being too specific, as I don’t want to disappoint anyone.

Christian Bauer Play the Scandinavian 17 October
Mihail Marin Grandmaster Repertoire 4 – The English Opening vol. 2 17 October
Mihail Marin Grandmaster Repertoire 5 – The English Opening vol. 3 17 October
Tibor Karolyi Karpov’s Strategic Wins: Volume 1 – 1961-1985 Dec/Jan
Tibor Karolyi Karpov’s Strategic Wins: Volume 2 – 1986 – 2009 Dec/Jan
John Shaw The King’s Gambit Dec/Jan
Artur Yusupov Boost your Chess 3 Dec/Jan
Vassilios Kotronias The Grandmaster Battle Manual Dec/Jan
Boris Avrukh GM Repertoire 8 – The Grunfeld Defence 2011
Milos Pavlovic The Cutting Edge 2 – The Najdorf Sicilian without 6.Bg5 2011
Aagaard, Shaw (editors) Experts on the Anti-Sicilian 2011
Vladimir Popov Chess Lessons 2011
Aagaard, Shaw (editors) Grandmaster versus Amateur 2011
Boris Alterman Alterman Gambit Guide – Black Gambits 2011
Artur Yusupov Chess Evolution 1 2011
Suba Positional Chess Sacrifices 2011
Milos Pavlovic The Cutting Edge 3 – The Najdorf Sicilian with 6.Bg5 2011
Martin Weteschnik Understanding Chess Tactics 2nd edition 2011
Sabino Brunello Cutting Edge 4 – The Nimzo-Indian 2011
Vassilios Kotronias Grandmaster Repertoire – The King’s Indian Defence 1 2011
Vassilios Kotronias Grandmaster Repertoire – The King’s Indian Defence 2 2011
Romanovsky Soviet Middlegame Technique 2011
David Vigorito Play the Semi-Slav 2 2011
Tiger Hillarp Persson Middlegame book – TITLE NOT CONFIRMED 2011
Artur Yusupov Chess Evolution 2 2011
Jacob Aagaard Thinking Inside the Box 2011/12
Jacob Aagaard Train your Chess Intuition 2011/12

111 thoughts on “Release dates for Play the Scandinavian, GM4 and GM5”

  1. To me the big irresistible news is a book by Judith Polgar, hopefully with her best games, it would be fantastic!!!
    (maybe with colour photos like San Luis 2005? it was one of the best tournament books ever…)
    Quality Chess is the best!

  2. fantastic publishing schedule ! Nearly every book sounds very interestin´g, especially knowing the high quality of qualitychess !
    The only sad news , that we have to wait till 2012 for Aagards 1.e4 books?

  3. It seems a joky title from a late night making gags survived to the first posting. It is now removed.

    As far as I know the GAMBIT guys have just generally retired. Chandler has returned to New Zealand, Nunn is in his late 50’s and Burgess might be moving to the US (remours say).

  4. More books are in the pipeline – but these are the ones I feel optimistic about. THIS IS NOT ALL 100% GUARANTEED TO HAPPEN.

  5. Great update, thanks a lot for the new info Jacob. Two quick questions:

    1. Is Chess Evolution just like Boost Your Chess, or is it different?

    2. Is Yusupov aware that Popov has stolen a book title from him!? 🙂

  6. Well this is a wonderful news…to have Russian Katyusha’s (multiple rocket launchers) on my war side: GRUNFELD & KING’S INDIAN POWER 🙂
    Long live my fellow Russians !!!

    Jacob, can you please write with what are dealing following books:

    a) Vassilios Kotronias: The Grandmaster Battle Manual

    – attacking chess? preparation? middlegame?

    b) Vladimir Popov: Chess Lessons (as pointed this title refers to Jussupow’s book published by Chessgate: http://www.ischach.com/WM-Shop/Yusupov-Chess-Lessons::4485.html)

    – training? starategy/positional play?

    c) Aagaard, Shaw (editors): Grandmaster versus Amateur

    – like Euwe’s books “amateur vs master”?

    d) David Vigorito: Play the Semi-Slav 2

    – updated edition of 1st edition or completely upgraded and new book?

    And which book shall deal with stargey/positional manual/excercise book?

    Looking forward to buy “my” hardcovers.

  7. Looking forward to the Semi-Slav, I have the first and an update would be nice. Will go nicely with Everyman’s “Triangle System” whenever it comes out. (I wish QC wewre writing this title, it would be a dream come true!).

    It is a shame about GAMBIT I feel that a publishers need competition.
    Keep up the good work guys!

  8. THANK YOU LORD QUALITY CHESS BOOK PUBLISHERS!!!. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS CHESS AND AWESOME PLEASE DO NOT DELAY GM 4 & 5 ANYMORE. I CAN’T TAKE IT!!!!! *Begs for mercy*

  9. Jacob,
    These series are truly wonderful books! Thanks to all involved!

    Have finally read (only the first time, I am sure) the first of your Attacking Manuals! Wow! There are are some truly astounding games in this book, and amazingly complex subvariations! Beauty, poetry, and chess!
    Great job!

  10. The 17th… This only shows the sort of pressure we are under at the moment, when you cannot add up 8 and 7… The books will be sent from our warehouse to the shops on the 15th. The should have them 2-3 business days later. Websales will be sent from Glasgow on the 18th unless there is postal problems.

    Play the Semi-Slav 2 will be a complete update.

    Chess Lessons is a very generic title, it cannot be owned and thus not stolen. But we had forgotten about the Yusupov book when we decided on it. Basically we checked Amazon, and nothing came up.

    The Kotronias book is 9 deep essays on tournament play. There are chapters with ideas of resistance in bad positions, beating the “Wall-Y” structures, how to beat lower rated players and so on. I am really enjoying the initial read of it. The first draft is essentially done.

    GM vs. Amateur was an idea by our webmaster. A number of GM’s will give their some thoughts on this and share some of their experiences. The idea is to show real differences. On purpose we have not looked at Euwe’s book.

    Thinking inside the Box & Train your Chess Intuition together is my next big project. I have used my own method to train chess strategy for a number of years with great results. This is the written down version. It will cover a lot of ground and probably be even more pages than the Attacking Manuals. One of the books will be a lot of worked through exercises. The first book will to some extent also be built on my best games, but not only those. To those that have seen me at tournaments, they will know that when I play well, my games are very entertaining.

    The omission in this list, as some will probably have seen, are the 1.e4 books. They have to be delayed to 2012 for the reason of keeping my sanity. With these two essay books to edit, with the various updates to administrate and my own two books, I started to feel a bit crowded. I will do a lot of work on 1.e4 in 2011, but not publish till 2012.

    Finally, this is not the complete list of what we are doing. This is the list of what I am happy to announce. I am still hoping for a GM Repertoire Nimzo to come through – and I have every reason to believe that it will. John also really wants to do a book on the Classical Slav. We still try to convince Lars Schandorff that the world cannot live without a “Beating the Indians” follow up to his superb book on Playing the Queen’s Gambit. And more…

    Still, most of these books have not been written (or they would have been released), so there are no guarantees that they will all happen, although this is definitely what we are working towards.

  11. Interesting list of books! Is the Romanovsky book the two “Middlegame planning” and “Middlegame combinations” books put together?

  12. He wrote a number of books, but essentially it is two books re-edited in Russia, translated and put together. Another book in our classics series.

  13. Is Mr. Boris Avrukh working on GM Repertoire 8 – The Grunfeld Defence, since it’s listed first in 2011.

    WHich line will he choose for Black?

  14. Until Jacob commented on it, I was wondering if the Cutting Edge book on the Nimzo was replacing the GM Repertoire or not. Apparently not, it’s in addition to, but the GM one isn’t apparently set up yet.

    Definitely looking forward to receiving the Scandinavian book and the 2 English books. I’ll be keeping an eye out for the Nimzo books.

    Hopefully by 2012 Quality Chess will have my entire repertoire outside of the occasional Dutch that I play, though the book by GAMBIT from 2009 is excellent, and while Quality Chess seems to be the best source of most topics with their in-depth coverage, I can’t see the book “Winning with the Stonewall Dutch” ever getting beat when it comes to the Stonewall.

    All that seems to be lacking are the QGD (Black) and the French (Black), though maybe Aagaard is the next Bobby Fischer, and if that’s the case, we’ll never see the French for Black. 🙂

  15. Glad to see the new updated publishing schedule. Although the upcoming openings after Marin’s English are not ones I play, the selection makes sense. The array of middlegame books is very impressive. I am also pleased to see Romanovsky’s classic is to be reissued by Quality Chess. It is a gap in my chess library. looking forward to the Karpov two volume work, Yusupov’s series, positional sacrifices and the Grandmaster battle Manual. Sounds like the editors will have a lot to do. Good luck and keep the excellent material coming!

  16. Many interesting books, what will be new on “Understanding Chess Tactics 2nd edition”? and please give some info about “Positional Chess Sacrifices” by Suba.

    Im also looking forward to Yusupov’s Course (hopefully in box set / hardcover edition, any news on that?)

    Best Wishes with all these coming projects

  17. UCT 2 might be twice the size – have many exercises and a section on Calculation. We are still discussing exactly how to do it.

    The book on the French fell through. The author said he had no energy for it. Sad.

    Avrukh is 3 months away from finishing, he thinks. So Feb 2011 could happen. I don’t announce lines on the blog anymore.

    Suba is 50% through. Quirky style, very talented writer. Glad to have him.

    Personally I cannot see that the new Stonewall book is much better than my own. But people have different tastes, and of course it was good for them to get some other people’s input.

    Yusupov in hardcover is happening – box set is likely to happen as well.

    Yes, we have a lot to do – even more if you knew the internal schedule…

  18. Hi Jacob,

    I assume GM 4 and 5 are coming out at the same time, which means they are probably off to the printer at the same time, which means they probably finish editing at the same time. Does this mean we can get an excerpt from GM 5 soon as well? Thanks,

    -Tony

  19. M.A.S. :
    It’s very disappointing to see the bibliography of “Play the Scandinavian” is so short. Why weren’t any White repertoire books, such as “Opening for White According to Anand” consulted? As James Vigus says in the introduction of his excellent book “The Pirc in Black and White” “I pay special attention to the lines recommended for White in the major repertoire books”.
    It’s disappointing to see more and more Qualitychess books getting published without all relevant sources being consulted.

    Nothing t o worry about. You don’t have to order them!

  20. Phil Collins is “Turn(ing) it on Again”! You know M.A.S. will have “No Reply at All” to that. Or perhaps he’ll go crying to his “Mama”.

    Sorry – couldn’t resist.

  21. Wonder who the French author would’ve been.
    Maybe an Armenian should write it, Vaganian or Lputian. They’ve got some french defense culture over there.
    Or maybe Volkov or Berg wouldn’t mind?

  22. I’m devastated that the French book won’t be happening 🙁 Hope you guys can find another GM to do it.

    Anyone else thinks a book co-authored by Morozevich/Kiriakov/Korchnoi will sell well? 😉

  23. I asked the two latter, but both declined. Maybe one day we will tell, but actually, I would rather find someone to do it…

  24. Ponting is a Legend

    Is GM4 a Reti repertoire essentially? GM4’s Chapter 23 is titled “Reti move-order” and as far as I know all the material in GM4 and the Symmetrical in GM5 is all that is needed to know to play the Reti.

  25. I have removed MAS and will continue to do so. If he wants to antagonise me, he can do it on Chess Publishing. The alternative to stop letting trolls into the house is to burn it down – as in stop having a blog.

  26. GM4 is not a Reti-repertoire. Obviously there is a lot of cross-overs, but the Reti Move Order chapter is pointing out the things Mihail is unhappy about with the Reti, meaning it points to where you have to look outside the book in order to make such a repertoire work.

  27. @ Martin Weteschnik: Understanding Chess Tactics 2nd edition

    I read the 1st edition and find it quite interesting and instructional as a handbook of tactical operation. Unfortunately I find it to easy for me (us Elo players 2000+++), but hopefuly this shall be fixed in the 2nd edition. So I recommend to the author that he raises the difficulty of exmaples and that he adds much more excercises (just like in Jussupow’s books). To my opinion such book could easily be compared with Chess Informant’s “Anthology of chess combinations 3rd ed” in the field of comprehensivness and instructional/handbook value. Just go for it!

    @ paper issue:

    Jacob, I shall “torture” you one agaian: your hardbacks are to my mind weaker than Jussupoe’s “Tigersprung” – yours are much lighter, thiner paper, and not glossy. And how come that your Attacking Manual is so heavy and “Soviet Strategy” so Light. And how is Ftacnik hardcover so thin, and I do see trough the paper. Again, to my mind this is not so good. Where am I wrong?

  28. UCT is meant for a specific audience and will not change. Get Quality Chess Puzzle Book instead.

    Taste is different, I guess. If you have a version you like, you are home free :-).

  29. Ponting is a Legend,

    When I first looked at it, I thought the same thing, but then Aagaard’s statement confirms my 2nd thought, that perhaps the Reti move order chapter was to point out problems.

    I obviously haven’t gotten the book yet as it isn’t published yet, but from the table of contents in the sample here combined with what I have seen in the first volume on 1…e5, I can imagine one big problem that he has with the Reti (I’m sure there are others).

    If you look at lines with 1…e5 in the first volume, you will notice that he likes to play e4 in lines where Black holds his DSB back, and fienchettos it instead (i.e. The Botvinnik in chapters 13 to 18), and e3 (either immediately, or later on to promote d4, in lines where say, the DSB comes out to c5.

    That said, if I go 1.Nf3 (Reti move order) Nf6 2.g3 g6 3.Bg2 Bg7 4.O-O O-O 5.c4 d6 , intending 6…e5 where I either have to go into a Fienchetto KID, or else if I play e4, the Knight isn’t where it belongs, and pins on g4 can be very annoying. If 2.c4 instead, not sure if the problem would be 2…d6 perhaps, where again, with the bishop locked in, and a possible e5 anyway, his desired e4 push may again lead to an annoying pin on the f3-knight.

    That’s one trend I am noticing with Marin’s Repertoire – the avoidence of pins on f3 to the Queen, which I observe a lot in other games at tournaments where White plays lines like the English or, even more often, the King’s Indian Attack.

    Again, take this with a grain of salt, as I haven’t seen or written the book (outside of observing the sample here), but I’m probably not too far off with this.

  30. Hi,
    I guess a Grandmaster Repertoire for Black against the “minor” openings (English, Reti, Trompowsky, Torre, Colle) would be a great idea

  31. It took a lot time for me to study Gm 1 and Gm 2 . I wonder how will English Opening fans cope with the upcoming two books (too much to remember.No??)

  32. (!) Jacob, there is a problem with the page number in GM5, see chapter 14 and 15 in the index of the variations from the excerpt.

  33. @ handbook:

    Guys, what do you think about making a HANDBOOK/MANUAL of POSITIONAL/STRATEGIC PLAY? I mentioned this is one mail to Mr. Dvoretsky since he wrote “Dvoretsky’s Analytical Manual” and “Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual”, but he replied to me that he doesn’t have such plans. Jacob now it’s your turn to fill the gap in my book collection…

    @ encouragement from blogger’s:

    people what do you think about implementing Bauer’s “Scandinavian” into repertoire against 1e4 as a surprise weapon with Marin’s 1…e5 and Ftacnik’s GM Najdorf? Curiously there isn’t any top GM in last 5 games who plays Scandinavian with Qe5, and Bauer’s score with it is rather poor… hopefully the book is better 🙂

  34. Ponting is a Legend

    At what date would Play the Scandinavian be released on hardcover from QC website?

    My entire opening repertoire is based off of QC opening books. Cannot wait for GM4/GM5. 🙂

  35. @Jacob Aagaard

    May be you can find an author to write on one variation (i.e Mc Cutcheon) after all books on the Sicilian defence are that way. The (complete ?) French defence in 5 or 6 books, with differents authors, this way you can mix authors for the best results. QC is the best one chess book source for most of us & we know you do your best … so go on with the French (good luck !)

  36. Do you think Play the Semi-Slav is still valid, or has it taken some shot in certain variation?
    I’m asking this ’cause I’m uncertain to use it in my correspondence games.
    By the way at the moment i don’t see any other decent repertoire books against 1.d4, so I must make it work nonetheless!

  37. @Michel Barbaut

    I am actually with you on that one. If you look at what is published in the last 15 years on the French, there are entire books on the Classical, Winawer, Advance, etc.

    When it comes to the MacCutcheon, here’s what you have:

    – One chapter of a book on the Classical by Jacobs from 2001 (Everyman) Coverage is light.
    – One chapter of Psakhis’s 4th book on the French from the first half of the 2000 decade. Coverage is a little better, but still very light in certain areas.
    – One chapter of How to Play Against 1.e4 by McDonald. This is a repertoire, so all you get is 8…Kf8, not 8…g6
    – One chapter of Pedersen’s old book from 2000 on the French with 3.Nc3 (outdated)

    The MacCutcheon seems to be the armpit of the French and gets no respect (kinda like New Jersey is viewed as the armpit of New York, trust me, I know, I lived in NJ my first 13 years before living in NC the last 22).

    A book on the MacCutcheon would be what this world needs. A full chapter on 8…g6, a full chapter on 8…Kf8, a full chapter on 8.NOT Qg4, a full chapter on 6.Be3 (This is what I’d play as White if I were an e4 player, but I’m not), a full chapter on 6.exf6 (This is either VERY POPULAR in players below 2200, or else I just happen to face every one of these people when I choose to play the French over the Scandinavian), and another chapter on 6.Bc1 and 6.Bh4 (not quite popular enough to warrant its own chapters, but should get more than 2 or 3 lines of text in a book.

    Enough with the Sicilian. Long live the French and Scandinavian!

  38. I was wondering if there is any chance of the 2nd edition of “Play the Semi-Slav” including coverage of the …e6 move-order which is the move-order I prefer. Only two extra chapters would be required, one covering the Marshall Gambit and the other covering the Catalan and other 4th moves such as 4 Bg5 and 4 e3.

    The reason I prefer the …e6 move-order is for 3 reasons:

    1) I think it’s easier to get winning chances and I just prefer to play against the Catalan than the Slow Slav.

    2) I prefer a sharp battle in the Marshall Gambit to the boring Exchange Slav, as I think most Semi-Slav players would.

    3) It’s easier and there is less to learn on how to meet 1 c4 since you don’t have to learn lines of the Caro-Kann after 1 c4 c6 2 e4 or 1 c4 Nf6 2 Nc3 c6 3 e4 d5.

  39. I would love something on the French. I think we asked at least 10 GMs.

    Thinking Inside the Box and Train your Intuition will be on positional chess.

    PtSS is fundamentally sound. I am not sure about the Botvinnik, and you would need to use databases and Dreev’s book on the Moscow to play it in corr. Chess
    .

  40. Thanks… of course I already got Dreev’s work and I regulary use databases for my corr. games (how would you do without 🙂 ).
    By the way I used (and I’m still using) Marin’s works on open games as the main reference for defending against 1.e4 … still waiting to lose a game there!
    This will suffice for the moment, but I can’t wait for a more solid repertoire against 1.d4, for sure I’ll buy the Grunfeld one by Avrukh, waiting for a Nimzo or QGD or maybe Slav.
    Tremendous work with your publishing program, thanks!

  41. Don’t know if you like to answer that question:
    Did you ask Yusupov for the French Book ? – I think
    he played that opening regularly and even created some ‘model’ games.
    But, you know that anyway…

  42. I’m not sure Yusupov would be a good choice. He has the unfortunate tendency not to explain enough. He scaled this back in his 9 book series, but I would prefer to get at least some explanatory prose here and there in an opening book. And apart from that, why would he do contract work if he can write his own projects?

    Maybe Kindermann would be an idea. His Winawer book was one of the best opening books ever. A 2-page ad for his chess school in the back of the book could be the icing on top to convince him.

  43. Yes, they will be printed on this new paper. A majority of feedback was very positive about it, and I personally like the feel of it.

  44. I noticed on your updated publishing schedule that the ‘cutting edge slav and semi-slav’ was not in there, however it was put on the ‘quality chess catalogue’. Is the project just not happening!? or is Vigorito’s second edition just covering it. It just seems like there are a lot of repertoire books for the semi-slav for Black and hardly any for the white side, which is why i was precisely looking for the nice objective view of cutting edge! I was also looking for it as an update to Schandorff’s QG work, since i’m almost 100% sure that the lines examined would receive a modern treatment (even though 6.Ne5 in the slav is put a little bit on the backburner after Hector’s novelty against Avrukh, and not to mention Anand’s relatively drawish variation against Topalov).

  45. We got sort of bullied into asking Dave for an update on the Semi-Slav. And we decided to finish some other things before this Cutting Edge book. We have to produce them, after all!

    I will consider asking Lars for an update. I am not sure, but ok, I will think about it.

    I don’t consider these Slav endings pleasant for Black at all. especially without the aid of a computer. One of Anand’s seconds said that it was quite unpleasant even with the computer, which is why they stopped playing it in the last few games…

    I will put up a number of covers over the next week. Some other things to do first.

  46. With regard to GM8, will Avrukh include a chapter about the Grunfeld English (move orders with 1.Nf3/1.c4)? I would find that very useful!

  47. jacob Aagaard :
    Yes, they will be printed on this new paper. A majority of feedback was very positive about it, and I personally like the feel of it.

    Beside the feel and quality it makes the book much narrower. I have GM1 (458 pages) & GM6 (430 pages) and GM6 is only 2/3 as wide as GM1.

  48. @ QC

    Keep up the good work but please release some info for the future books so that the fans have something to obsess about! I am eagerly waiting for the new publishing schedule with some news (maybe a little info on contents as well) on GM8, Najdorf Cutting Edges and Nimzo GM repertoire by the mystery writer (and since Nimzo by itself is not a complete repertoire I am wondering what the second book would be based on …).

  49. Yes, the hardbacks and softbacks will be ready at the same time. We are shipping 7500 books from the printer to various warehouses this week.

    I want to put up some covers and cover texts before going to Italy next week, but we have many things on our plate at the moment, so I don’t know if I will get around to it.

    Very recently Kotronias handed in the final chapter for his book. It reads like a dream. I am very fortunate to have been parred with him in the last round of Dresden 2008. We have some other very exciting things happening, but it is too early to share any of it.

    About the Nimzo – the author is busy for the next 7-8 months, so you have to wait a while.

    About content: there is hardly ever a lot to share before 3-4 weeks before publication, the way we work.

  50. @Jacob Aagaard

    Thanks for the information. I know you usually don’t give out information about specific lines but if the NID GM repertoire happens can you tell us with which other opening it will be paired? I mean he has to cover Catalan and then against 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 there is a number of choices (QID, QGD, Benoni and Bogo-Indian).

    Also thanks for the new covers! Looking forward to the new publishing schedule!

  51. Ponting is a Legend

    Are QC shipping websales from the printer directly or from Glasgow? I remember for GM6 it was said that GM6 was said published 26 July, yet I received the book at my doorstep on 26 July (which was very fast, since it was a transcontinental shipment).

  52. This time around we are shipping a number of the double orders from the warehouse in Poland as well. It only makes sense to ship from there if it is an order the size needed for a UPS shipment to be sensible. So, it is a bit of half ‘n half this time around.

    We never send the books directly from the printer.

    The books will arrive today. No tail lift was available yesterday, so they were one day delayed from the printer.

  53. I have Ftacnik’s book- very decent work indeed.But waiting for a cherry on that-
    When can we expect Cutting Edge 2 and 3 to appear- is there any chance to have it in the first months of 2011/or at least until the next summer?
    ps. Is Grunfeld that difficult for a 2100 player to play with a confidence? Will Avrukh’s new book be suitable for me (never played it as black)?

  54. CE 2 is out early next year. CE 3 – I don’t know to be honest. Next year somewhere I would guess.

    I think the Grunfeld is an excellent opening. I played it successfully when I was 1600, so why not?

  55. I’ve never been a firm believer in tying openings to ratings. I have known people that played the Grunfeld from the get-go all the way to expert or beyond. Kasparov played it obviously at the GM level after Kramnik crushed his King’s Indian and he had to find a new opening.

    I get many people that think the Colle System is great for someone rated 1400. Personally, I think the Colle is useless at all ratings, and you might as well offer a draw on move 3.

    Ratings don’t determine appropriate openings. Your own personal style of play does. I tried to play the Grunfeld in 1998 when I was about 1600. I tried to play it again a couple of times in the 21st century at 2000+. Either way, it just doesn’t make sense to me. I always feel like I’m giving White a winning passed d-pawn. The reason for that is my style of play, not the soundness of the opening, and definitely not my rating. I can’t make heads or tails out the the Black side of the Grunfeld. The same thing goes for the Black side of the Benko Gambit or Alekhine, the White side of the Ruy Lopez, or either side of the Sicilian Najdorf. The answer is simple, I avoid them!

    I play 1.c4 as White, Nimzo-Indian/Queen’s Indian/Queen’s Gambit Declined with an occasional Dutch as Black vs 1.d4, and the French/Scandinavian, with maybe an occasional Caro-Kann, Modern, or 1…e5 (1…e5 more frequent in correspondence) as Black vs 1.e4. Doesn’t matter that I’m a little over 2000. If you think like I do, these are great openings for you to play. If you don’t think like me, and think more like Tal rather than say, Korchnoi, then these openings would bore you to high heaven, you’d grow impatient, and would have horrible results, and people would wonder why you aren’t play the Dragon and King’s Indian/Gurnfeld/Benoni as Black, and 1.e4 as White.

    I have either owned (#1, #3, #’s 4 and 5 coming) or seen (#7) many of the GM Repertoire books. In all cases, I would say that you need to have played the opening before, that these aren’t starting out books, but whether you are 1500, 1800, 2100, or 2400, if you’ve at least played the opening before, and have the “basic” foundation, I’m sure GM8 will be no different from the perspective of Quality. If you play the Grunfeld today, by all means, order the book. If you are looking to learn the Grufeld for the first time, get something else (i.e. Starting Out: The Grunfeld), and a year later, order Avrukh’s book.

    Think of Everyman as Grade School, and Quality Chess as College. You need to learn the basics, like addition, subtraction, the alphabet, etc, and Everyman will do that for you. However, your true success comes from your latter education, and that’s where Quality Chess is out to help you!

  56. I usually don’t like to comment on other people’s book negatively, so whenever this argument has been made, I keep my mouth shut up.

    I don’t like the Starting Out series that much for a simple reason – most of the books are straight theoretical works, just added some nonsense about tricks and tips and statistics that does not help understanding the opening at all. The only issue with this is that they do not do what is said on the tin. The same goes for Gambits series of 25 annotated games.

    If you want a light weight theory book, most of these works are excellent. And at €18.95 they are cheaper than the GM repertoire series. However, I actually think GM 3-5 are more Starting Out than most of the starting out books. Peter Heine Nielsen recommends GM 3 to everyone, but as a middlegame book! I know one top GM used a lot of it as preparation for his biggest success ever. Not to say that Marin was in any way responsible, actually I don’t think the lines really came up much, but to show that serious people think of it as an opening book too. Of course, after Peter reviewed the Marin book favourably, Anand did play one of the lines against Topalov in the match, but with a new idea, of course.

    I am drifting.

    A starting out book should explain a lot about typical ideas and decisions, I think. I ghost wrote a starting out book in the Modern Benoni for Everyman. It was supposed to be a collaboration, but Vegh got caught up in other things and I ended up doing almost all the work. This book is not necessarily great – I am not expert at the MB, but at least it is written as I think a SO book should be.

    SO in the Grunfeld is not a great book. It is a bit of theory at not too deep level and a bit of chat. The author did it for the pay cheque. Also it is out of date. The author should be ashamed, but unfortunately he was a hardened serial writer at the time, who only then started to realise that he actually loved doing what he did…

    I would prefer to follow Avrukh’s book when it comes – but just don’t think you need to understand and remember everything. What I personally do with some of the books I use for my preparation is to make small files of material I want to remember – and just check the rest to understand the finer points. The process of making the files is very useful in itself, but also makes the material easy to review. I prefer for it to be a personal selection, because I want to choose what I think I need to remember.

    Anyway, enough for now…

  57. Hello! How many pages will have Popov’s “Chess Lessons” and how will it be structured? SInce the price is 22 EUros I presume that it will have around 200 pages.

    I’m wonderding what new can Popov add because I think that only Jussupow’s books are THE TRAINING BOOKS, and all other I find just as small tools in big warehouse 🙂

  58. Popov’s book is more articles and writing, where Artur’s books are exercise books. Different approaches, both with their value. But how am I to argue against a personal taste? I like both projects.

  59. Abramov Anjuhin

    Jacob, as soon as I’ll finish with Jussupow books (currently I’m at the beginning of Tigersprung auf DWZ 1800 Band 2), I shall take yours in my hands (the Verbessern Sie… series) 🙂

    To those of you who want to know something more about various areas and density of Jussupow training books, translated from original German text named “Tigersprung” into English by Quality Chess, here I have prepared some statistics:

    TIGERSPRUNG AUF DWZ 1500-1800-2100 Band I-II-III
    Books: 9
    Pages: cca 2665
    Lessons: 216 (24 per book x 9)
    Tests:
    a) Number of tests in one book: 25 (24 + 1 final test)
    b) Number of positions in one test: 12
    c) Number of positions in final test: 24
    d) Number of test positions: 2592 (288 in one book x 9)
    e) Number of final test positions: 216 (24 in one book x 9)
    f) Number of test & final positions: 2808
    g) Number of Opening positions: 360
    h) Number of Tactics positions: 828
    i) Number of Calculation positions: 288
    j) Number of Strategy positions: 288
    k) Number of Positional Play positions: 396
    l) Number of Endgame positions: 432

    Now you can make your training agenda with the Russian school 🙂 just like I did 🙂 🙂 🙂

  60. Patrick and Jacob’s discussion has been lively and interesting. I find that the individual openings like chess in general is an expression of our personality, priorities and beliefs. One IM commented, “I was a Sicilan player but when I had a family, I needed to change to the French.” Openings such as the Colle or London System, the Exchange French or Exchange Classical King’s Indian will often incite a cascade of derision.

    Openings can be a badge for players, identfying who they are as a chess player. I have transitioned in openings including from the Pirc to the French. A master friend commented early in the transition that the French was a natural fit for my style. He was not sandbagging me. I found that personal comfort in the position and individual enthusiasm for a certain variation will have as much influence over the quality of play and results as the objective position (within a reasonable range).

    Learning new openings means learning an array of different middlegame positions and some new endgame positions. If one returns to an old opening, a fresh perspective can result in the opening being improved and refreshed which is reflected in the quality of play and results. Having Quality Chess books around can make the opening journey more interesting.

    Avruch, Marin and Schandorff’s books are not easy, but they are challenging and rewarding. I find Avruch’s lines very challenging to play (especially against the Grunfeld and Modern Benoni. However, I have always found playing against the Grunfeld and Modern Benoni very challenging, Avruch has helped.

    I am not a Grunfeld player and have never been comfortable with the opening. I am leaning to buying Avruch’s books for his ideas and perspective on how black plays the Grunefeld against different challenges. I think there is something for me to gain even I never play 3..d5 as black.

  61. It is indeed lovely when people have strong views, but don’t get offensive or angry if disagreed with :-).

    Our books are not easy. They are not meant to be. They are meant to be rewarding. We do put a lot of effort into making them better structured and clearer, but the chess is difficult, and we don’t really want to change this. We believe there are a lot of bright people out there, who can understand complicated things, if explained reasonably well. By the way, I don’t think a high rating is necessary to understand the deep ideas, if explained well – I think it is most often critical to finding them in the first place.

    I just noticed that Everyman has a new series coming out – Move by Move openings. I hope this should be very good. I thought about doing the same for years (ever since as a writer I gave GAMBIT the suggestion go do a book move by move, and Nunn got a book of the year award for it – and never said thanks), but we decided to go with the GM repertoire style instead. I am not sure it is the ideal way to do introductions, but it should be more of an introduction than the Starting Out series, and is as such, a big step forward. I wish them a lot of success with it.

  62. Few months ago I started a seriously tailored training program and I noticed that I didn’t improve yet, but otherwise I’m being more and more confused and play not so good 🙁

    I have studied one of the Russian school program which includes:
    *********************************************************
    WEEKDAY – HOURS – FIELD:

    Monday: 2 hours studying MIDDLEGAME: Tigersprung auf DWZ 1800 & 2100,
    30 min: solving TACTICAL positions with Chessbase;

    Tuesday: 2 hours studying OPENINGS,
    30 min: solving TACTICAL positions with Chessbase;

    Wednesday: 2 hours studying MIDDLEGAME Tigersprung auf DWZ 1800 & 2100,
    30 min: solving TACTICAL positions with Chessbase;

    Thursday: studying ENDGAME,
    30 min: solving TACTICAL positions with Chessbase;

    Friday: 2 hours studying MIDDLEGAME: Tigersprung auf DWZ 1800 & 2100,
    30 min: solving TACTICAL positions with Chessbase;

    Weekend: 2 hours ANALYSING: Alekhine’s Chess Games 1902 – 1946.

    Is this a normal period just like everybody says? That the accumulation comes after few months or a year? What are you experiences?

    Jacob, can you help with some advice?

  63. Actually there is an important point about learning to be discussed here. Improvement does not come as a steady increase. Rather, initially there is stagnation and most likely a little decrease in results. Over time, when the accumulation of new knowledge turns into something you can do continuously and effortlessly in practice, the improvement comes like an explosion. I have seen it many times.

    My training theory is simple: Do what you know to be right and don’t love heart. Find ways to make it as fun as possible, so you continue past the place of improvement (the most important thing to do – the number of times I’ve seen people fall down because they lose heart is sickening). Finally, when it starts to work – DON’T STOP! (People reverse to old habbits too easily, again it is sad).

    I am wondering when you say solving with CB, what you mean. Otherwise this seems a good program.

    Of course there are things with physical health and so on that can be debated, but they are only for extra improvement.

  64. Abramov Anjuhin

    Thanks for reply Jacob 🙂

    With solving TACTICAL positions with Chessbase I meant solving exercises like Renko’s CD “Killer moves”, “Deadly threats”, “Intensive course tactics 1&2”.

    In few weeks I’ll receive from Germany your books from the “Verbessern Sie…” series and I do hope that I shall find many hints and ways to improve and train, and last but not the least many studying material also.

    Perhaps, if this is not a every trainer secret, we could with you and with us, bloggers, form a weekly-monthly training schedule with must-to-train areas of chess.

  65. I will keep it in mind. It is possible that we could do something relating to improvement in chess, in general. We never claim that we have all the answers here – or at least the only answers – but we have a lot of answers :-).

    As said, I will keep it in mind. We want to make sure that all expansion we do is slow and well thought out. This year obviously it has been the newsletter than has been the main addition…

  66. “I just noticed that Everyman has a new series coming out – Move by Move openings”

    I gave them the suggestion for that series on their forum 3 weeks ago!!! either that or it was a BIG coincidence, I hope they give me a free ebook or any reinforcer 🙂

    Anyway just a quick offtopic question, Jacob or any GM/IM reading this, could you tell me a good opening match up to the colle-zukertort / london system?

    I want to have a low theory opening repertoire and have decided e6 as black ( french/dutch ) and Zukertort/London systems as white but Yusupov said that the Zukertort is not good against everything “against the Slav or Kings Indian Defense its better to look for more active variations” like which ones?

    Thanks for any suggestions guys

  67. @Jacob Aagaard
    Hmm, an update to Schandorff’s work would be an excellent idea and much appreciated of course. Wouldn’t that be a MOUNTAIN of work though?
    Oh, i’m not sure how to introduce this, but if you are seriously considering an update to his work in 2009, then perhaps something like this (after 11…f6 in the mainline 6.Ne5 Slav):
    12.0-0 0-0-0!? (Hector 2009, and Kaufman’s NIC article).
    13.Rc1! Nc5 14.Qc1 a5!? (Suggested by Kaufman)

    —14…g5?!N 15.Bxe5 fxe5 16.b4 Nb3 17.Nb5! Qe7 (…Qg7 18.Qc3 Nxc1 19.Nxa7+ Kb8 20.Nxc6+ bxc6 21.Rxc1 e4 22.Ne5 and Black, despite being up a rook, finds it extremely difficult to continue as a result of poor development and a weakened king) 18.Nxa7+ K8 19.Nxc6+ bxc6 20.Qc3! Nd4 (…Nxc1 21.Rxc1 is similar to before, this time is worse since e4 isnt possible as the rook is on, and white has ideas of Na5 coming) 21.Qe3! with initiative and advantage, (also threatening Na5 soon).

    —14…Nb3? is amusingly bad for Black 15.Nb5! Qe7 16.Nxa7+ Kb8 17.Nxe5 fxe5 18.Nxc6+! bxc6 19.Rxc6 exf4?! 20. Rb6+ Kc8 and 21.Rxb3 is picturesque

    15.Nb5! (good practical chance it seems) cxb5 16.axb5 b6! (otherwise white plays it himself in most lines) 17. b4 axb4 18.Qxb4 g5!? 19. Bxe5 fxe5 20. Qa3! Kd7! (otherwise Rfd1, for example 20…Be7? 21.Rfd1! Qb8 22.Qf3! Bd7?! 23.Bh3!! is quite amusing)
    21.Qe3 Ke6 22.Qxg5 Qe7 23.Qe3 with an initiative. My silicon friend (Deep Rybka 4) tells me that its around equal, although i can’t imagine anyone wanting to play black here. Qc7 looks like the only move, with the lovely task of protecting e5 and b6.

    Anyway, just a few thoughts on a sunday afternoon.

  68. Your thoughts are very appreciated. We have folders with possible updates to all our books – nothing is ever forgotten. One of our competitors once reprinted a best seller with all the mistakes from the first edition, even though a lot of corrections were ready (just needed a quick translation). When I asked them about it, they said there was no need to put in the corrections – it was selling beautifully. I reminded myself never to think like this.

    However, there is of course a difference between re-printing and new editions. When we reprint we don’t put in lots of updated material, unless there is a significant reason to do so – and then we call it a second edition.

  69. I wonder if that competitor was Cardoza Publishing? I wouldn’t be surprised. That type of mentality and high quantity of mistakes can make me think of only one publisher, and one author that writes for that publisher. I browsed one book at a bookstore (Eric Schiller’s “Standard Chess Openings”, published by Cardoza, and this was back before it became obvious that he just wrote books to write books and didn’t care one bit about content, he wanted the fast buck, like James Patterson), made notes, never bought the book, and wrote the following review on Amazon.com on August 21, 2001. I am so glad that Quality Chess hasn’t stooped down to this, and now-a-days, I’d say 80% of books I buy, related to chess that is, are by this publisher.

    Keep in mind, I think there was a re-write in 2002, which this review was before then, but even then, from what I’ve heard, they made a few edits, but that it was still full of errors and junk (hence my saying I wuoldn’t be surprised if it was Cardoza).

    8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
    1 Star – Bad Analysis, Baad Speling, The Grammar Bad!!

    Well, I think you get the point from the heading of this review.

    First of all…the analysis is terrible. For example, in the game between Ivanchuk and Shirov in the section on the Semi-Slav defense, he gives 23…d4!! as such an excellent move…it’s a BLUNDER!!! Black loses 12 moves later with no way to improve his moves. Matthew Sadler in his book on the semi-slav (Game 1) even points out it’s a blunder. Let’s see now…Sadler is in the top 50 in the world, Schiller is a United States National Master (The United States is WEAK compared to other countries, and I come from the USA). I think with White winning, no ?’s by either side after move 23, and Sadler being much higher ranked…I’d trust him over schiller.

    Spelling Issues: I don’t think I need to dive into the “horible mispelings dat dis buuk iz ful of, as the othur revues alrady writen wil point dis out”.

    Grammar Issues: Also all you have to do is read the introduction to already see grammar really really bad.

    Finally, what do you call a dump statement like “some lines I cover more simply because I know them better” in an introduction to a book for what is obviously a beginner? Does this mean that if Schiller say, knows the Torre Attack, but doesn’t know the Trompowsky Attack, he basically would just make up junk as he goes along?

    What is this author trying to do to the chess world? It seems to me that he figures he’s obviously not good enough to write a real book that an expert would read, so let’s just sucker the beginners into buying his books…they’ll fall for buying his junk, waste their money, and will Schiller care…heck no!!! He’s got all the money win the world now.

    DON’T BUY THIS BOOK!!!!!!!

  70. Ok, I won’t but it. I also will not disclose what publisher I am talking about, only say that many publishers have done similar things, where they have printed stuff they knew was wrong.

    Obviously there will be mistakes in our books, sometimes too many mistakes. This is what happens when you are ambitious. However, we will not print mistakes knowingly. It is not worth getting out of bed for in the morning…

  71. @Jacob Aagaard
    I see. I apologise So, Schandorff’s book is quite excellent, however i am curious as to what classifies as a significant reason to publish a second edition!? As the Queen’s Gambit is quite a popular opening i imagine that there have been (and will continue to be) significant leaps ahead in the Semi-slav, Mainline Slav, a6 Slav and Noteboom amongst the most prominent covered in Schandorff’s book. At the risk of repeating myself, The Semi-Slav is going to be covered in Vigorito’s book, but obviously this is written from Black’s perspective. Everyman (Flear) is going to publish a book on the noteboom in the next 6 months, and as Schandorff recommends a sideline against it i was curious what to do about that particular opening.
    Anyway, it is obvious that Quality Chess has a lot to do, (in particular yourself, i just thought about writing a manual for the Ruy Lopez, and i decided i would probably recommend 2.Nc3 instead; but not to worry everyone knows that your book (if you’re still planning to write it) will be excellent once it’s completed) but Schandorff’s book is almost 2 years old now and as far as mainline openings go thats quite old. So, any ideas for the aspiring QG player? Oh, thanks for taking the time to reply to our blogs, i’m sure that i would certainly not have the patience/endurance/motivation.

  72. Jacob,

    I’m well aware that any book is bound to have mistakes, analytical, typographical, etc.

    However, there is a huge difference between a book like “Standard Chess Openings”, where I, an expert, not GM, can crack the book and browse for 20 minutes, and rip apart the entire book, and where the book has assessments like !! when they should be ??, and a book like the ones you publish here.

    Take GM Repertoire 3. I’m at the bottom of page 51 in that book (taking his advice of reading it in order), and in only 1 case in the first 51 pages am I a tad skeptical about the assessment. Bottom of page 27, like A12 of Chapter 3, sideline where Black plays 14…Bxg2. I ran my engine after 17.c5 (Rybka 4), and he is right that they are skeptical at first (giving -/+ in most cases early on), but after going thru many lines, much deeper in (as he mentions), it changes from -/+ to = as opposed to going from -/+ to +/-, like his assessment of the position.

    Something like that is no big deal. Ok, so I have an equal game in one spot out of 480 pages (probably more like 5 to 10 spots when the book is completely read) where it’s equal instead of advantage, as claimed by the author. Also, I’m an Expert, Marin is a GM, it’s very, very, VERY likely that I’m just missing something in one spot for White, and Rybka may jump to +/- by move 25 or 30.

    Being “a tad skeptical” about a few positions in a book is a good thing if you ask me. It shows that the reader is putting thought into the position, not just “pushing wood” on the chessboard because the book says to, and then just brush off any assessment, like “Oh yeah, White must be better here”, when it’s not blatant.

    Being “a tad skeptical” is also a LOT different than being able to pick out moves that are just outright wrongfully assessed (Like the example I gave in the previous message with 23…d4 from Standard Chess Openings, 1st edition).

    So hey, keep up the good work! Quality Chess has the best books out there today. If I need material on a subject, here is where I always look first now. The only time I go to other publishers now is either they have a subject not covered in any book here (like offbeat openings, or the Black side of the Latvian Gambit – I do play correspondence as well), or some Game Collections (like Korchnoi’s excellent 3-book series by Ohms – If you can’t tell from here and message 78, I have gone thru a good number of Korchnoi’s games, and still do).

    I’m glad to see that there’s a publishing company with good editors. Everyman, Gambit when they existed, etc have “decent” editors (better than Cardoza by a landslide), but nobody beats you guys.

  73. Martin Cacheiro

    Hi,
    I’ve just received two books, Play the Scandinavian and Shaw’s puzzle book and have a question and a suggestion:
    The question:
    Why “Play the Scandinavian” is not a GM Repertoire book? I also have the GMR – Caro -Kann by Schandorff and I don’t really see why this one is a GM book and Bauer’s is a Play the… book.
    The suggestion:
    I bought hard copies of all three books (Bauer’s, Schandorff’s and Shaw’s + the two Avrukh’s which I hope are on the post) and I very much prefer the quality of the paper of the Schandorff’s book rather than Bauer’s and Shaw’s. The paper on these two last ones is thinner and you can notice what’s written on the next page, the contrast is not very good. Does it really make a huge difference (economy-wise) to use a slightly thicker paper?

    Thanks a lot in advance and congratulations for the books, I’m really enjoying them!

    Martin Cacheiro

  74. Really enjoying Play the Scandinavian. Just been through the 5.Bd2 chapter so far as I seem to get this a lot and I prefer the Bauer coverage to Houska’s. Prefer his writing as well.
    The only negative thing I would mention isn’t only related to this title, but to most of the recent QC books I have bought; the quality of the paper (and especially the covers) is below that of older titles (such as Berlin Wall and Beating the Open Games) in my opinion.
    It’s a minor point and one which many readers may disagree with, but I find the paper is too glossy and smooth and the pages don’t turn as easily. The covers are also very smooth to the touch and I have to be careful not to drop the book when I pick it up.
    Minor points, then, but I know Jacob welcomes such feedback and is quite particular with the paper choices the company makes for its output so I thought I’d mention it. Both books I received this morning (Bauer and Marin Vol2) had production blemishes on the front covers which don’t appear to be as strong and protective as those used on the older titles.
    Aside from this quibble over production values, though, I couldn’t be more pleased with the content of the books.

  75. I am sorry to hear about the problems with the Marin books. If you want to make a complaint, please send us an e-mail.

    About the covers. It is possible that they are less sturdy now than previously, but there are some design, look and user friendly features about this material that I prefer. We also suspect that it sells better – and I take my responsibility to put money in the authors’ pockets VERY seriously, as you would guess.

    About the paper. What happened was that there was a strike and also an end to product range, so we had to switch for a little while. We say advantages and disadvantages to the new type of paper. I find the books easier to handle, more flexible. It is a bit too shiny for my liking, but the majority view goes against the professional view, preferring shiny. And we don’t just do the books for our own sake. We want to provide a service and improve chess culture. So we need to reach people and give them enjoyment.

    Another concern is size. Notice this is not linked to weight oddly enough. The argument goes two ways. I think bigger looks more impressive, so it could help sales. However, no proof of this exists in our statistics. On the other hand, size is important for the retailers when it comes to shipping, storage, shelve space and so on. And I care deeply about our retail customers. Without them chess would be much worse off.

    I hope sharing these thoughts help explain our thoughts, and also why the paper has changed. I do strongly suggest you to get the hardbacks. They are far superior books and will in the future be only 5-6 euro more than paperbacks. We just want to not lose money on printing them…

  76. We are still considering something on the Slav/Semi-Slav – but this was going to be an in-house project, and with so many excellent projects getting offered to us, we have had to put this on a back burner for the moment.

  77. Talking about Semi-Slave … another book has been announced. I hope it’s okay to mention the competition on this blog. Otherwise feel free to delete this comment.

    The Meran and Anti-meran for Black. An Insider’s view by Alexey Dreev

  78. Andre :
    The Meran and Anti-meran for Black. An Insider’s view by Alexey Dreev

    If you combine that with his book on Moscow and anti-Moscow that should be a complete semi-Slav repertoire for Black.

  79. Well, the blemishes I mentioned on the covers arent of enough concern to me to complain about formally, just disappointing that I feel the production quality has taken a small step backwards. I should add that I do indeed own a hardback (Caro) and it’s beautifully made, so I agree with you on that. I simply can’t afford to buy all of my selections in hardback 🙁

  80. Which is why I am going to bring the price of them a bit down to +5 euro of the paperback, just about covering the cost.

  81. Abramov Anjuhin

    I bought GM Najdorf in soft&hardcover. The softcover is very poor regarding front cover which is badly glued with the rest of paper. In comparison with Marin’s “Beating the Open Games” it’s low quality, and I think that htis is a big problem, so Jacob please taka care about that.

  82. I can’t speak from as much experience as some of you. I own the following from Quality Chess:

    Paperback Only:
    – Play the Semi Slav
    – Beating the Open Games
    – The Berlin Wall
    – Experts vs the Sicilian (2nd edition)
    – Tiger’s Modern
    – Grandmaster Repertoire 1
    – Practical Chess Defense

    Hardback Only:
    – Grandmaster Repertoire 4
    – Grandmaster Repertoire 5
    – Play the Scandinavian

    Both Paperback and Hardback:
    – Grandmaster Repertoire 3

    My comparison analysis is that the Hardbacks are obviously better in the one sense that they lay flat, even on early and late pages, which I wasn’t convinced about until a friend of mine showed me with his hardcover book on the Caro-Kann. That’s when I started going hardback. You can keep the book open without br

    As for the paperbacks. I have not had any glue problems, or pages sticking, or anything of that nature. The laminating (or whatever the outer part is that makes it smooth and glossy on the cover) is slightly starting to come off the edge of the book in 2 small places (on the back cover, the size from where you open the book), for “The Berlin Wall”. The rest of them has remained 100% intact aside from normal wear and tear of a paperback.

    This is a LOT better than typical problems I have with paperbacks of other publishing companies.

    For Example: I probably have more everyman books than anything else. While “The Berlin Wall” has 2 small “bubbles” where it looks like the cover is seperating, a few of my everyman books have it happening all along the edge of the cover (I’m not at home, so I couldn’t name all of them, but I know it’s happening with The Rubinstein Nimzo Indian book [Red cover from 2004 or so], and not quite as bad, but worse than “The Berlin Wall” for Davies’ book on the Reti).

    Another common thing that I have happen with some of my books by Everyman that I have yet to see happen with Quality Chess is splitting of the cover (not the lamination, but actual splitting of the paper layers) at the corners.

    The hardbacks are absolutely worth the money, but compared to other publishers, the paperbacks still outbeat them.

    Lastly, certain types of paper seem to resist heat better than others. You leave any book in a 140 degree car for 8 hours laying out on the seat with the car parked at an angle where the sun is beaming on it, then any book you get will warp, but when not in the extreme worse scenario, some books are better than others at resisting heat and having the paper warp. The worst here were those old books published by Henry Holt in the early 90s (like Uhlmann’s Winning with the French, or Kosten’s Winning with the Philidor, or Kosten’s New Ideas in the Nimzo-Indian Defense). I have yet to see any Quality Chess books have their pages warp, but at the same time, I try to keep my books out of the heat.

    I can see, looking at GMR 4 and GMR 5, the complaint about paper thinness, and being able to see thru the page, but you really have to look hard to do that. I personally don’t see it as a distraction. In some ways, it lower’s the weight of the book. If you look at GMR 3 vs GMR 4, the latter is about half the thickness and half the weight of the former, but yet it’s only between 40 and 50 pages less. You start carrying around all 3 of them, and the weight adds up, so in my opinion, lighter is better.

    Keep up the good work. I may give the Grunfeld a 3rd or 4th try when it comes out, not sure yet, but if not, hopefully in a couple of years I’ll get books from you on defenses to 1.d4. With the 3 books on the English, I really don’t use any other opening books of mine at all for White. That’s how good these books are.

  83. Thanks for your input Patrick. The Berlin was of the past front cover, which we don’t use anymore. There are definitely advantages to both form of cover, and some have been mentioned about the old, some on the new. For us the main thing was that the books are better bound (more compact) with the new covers. GM1 and GM2 are about the same size – but GM2 have 150 pages extra!

    Regarding paper and weight. The paper we use is 80g per sq. m. and has been so for a very long time, only different types. The Berlin Wall thus is bigger than GM4, but at 561 grams vs 719 it is a good deal lighter.

    However, by being more compact, the new paper allows more books to fit into the boxes and thus makes shipping easier, better and ultimately cheaper as well.

    I don’t think there is a significant difference in seethroughness between the various types of 80 gram paper. Not enough for me to say that one is good and the other worse. I can probably see a difference if I try, especially in flurescent lighting, but not enough for me to think that it is not worth the other user friendly effects of the compact book – such as being far more flexible and better at staying flat. The economic benefits to us personally are very slight.

    The hardbacks are here to stay.

  84. Just randomly, you know what would be the best ever?
    GM Repertoire 1.d4 d5!. Perhaps go with mainline slav after 7…Qc7, cover the london, Veresov etc. THAT would be mad.

  85. Hi Jacob, John and the rest.
    Here are my questions for the upcoming books. Before them, let me point that I am rather a typical Fischer rep person (e4 as white, Najdorf and KID as black) but lately I started to work on the Nimzo to add it to my black rep. So, regarding your schedule, as for the relevance to the mentioned rep:
    1- Is GM KID 1-2 rep from Kotronias gonna include lines for the Anti-KID, as the Sicilian Book of Ftacnik did with the anti-sicil? Could you tell us, if not about the main classical, about the Saemisch and the Fianchetto, whether he intends to suggest the Panno (incidentally the name is applicable for both cases) or else?
    2- Is the Cutting Edge 4 – The Nimzo-Indian (Brunello) supposed to be a rep for white, as the spirit of Pavlovic earlier series start?
    3- Is “Experts on the Anti-Sicilian” gonna differ considerably from Ftacnik suggestions about those?
    4- This is less a question than an anxiety claim, as the following book is the core of my craziness because it hits when I play against myself: in, similar terms to question 4:, is The Cutting Edge 3 – The Najdorf Sicilian with 6.Bg5, gonna be a book mainly for white? Can’t wait for it!

    Best regards,

    Adolfo.

  86. 1) Yes to anti-lines. We don’t announce lines before excerpts
    2) We are unsure what we are doing here at the moment, actually
    3) Yes, not the least because a lot of the material is from White’s perspective
    4) Objective

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