Attacking Manual 1&2 wins 2010 ECF Book of the Year

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

78 thoughts on “Attacking Manual 1&2 wins 2010 ECF Book of the Year”

  1. Congratulations to you Jacob for this great achievement!

    Now is right time to set a new goal: POSITIONAL MANUAL 🙂

    Nobody dares to write one, nobody dared till now. Please go on with such project and make happy/educate us loyal buyers of the quality chess books.

    PS For the time being don’t launch AM in hardbacks cause I would have to give my softcovers away… firstly I have to read them till end 🙂

  2. Congratulations Jacob! After Attacking Manual, I bought Champions of the New Millennium, a great book too! Positional Manual is a great idea with lots of exercises because there are a few books like this. Any possibility of an updating in hardback of Berlin Wall (this book was a rare opening book running for book of the year!) by J. Cox? 🙂

  3. Congratulations, Jacob! Your hard work has paid off heaps and is truly well deserved!

    Is there any chance of releasing the 2 books as hardcover editions? I would love to have them in hardcover as they’re fairly thick and I gather they would sit very nicely on my desk. 🙂

  4. Ponting is a Legend

    Congratulations Jacob, Tillykke om jeres artig opgave (I tried!) I own both AM1 and AM2 they are undoubtedly the best attacking guidebooks available. Most attacking books explain what to do if you have an attack, but AM1/2 explains how to achieve a position with an attack. 10/10

  5. Thinking Inside the Box will be a positional book. Stop repeating the same questions, I don’t want to repeat the answers!

  6. Jacob,

    Shouldn’t Marin have used more sources for his e4 e5 books? (Rhetorical, don’t answer! :-))

    In all seriousness, congrats on achieving book of the year. I’m not familiar with all the various “book of the year” types (like I’m going thru a book that got BCF Book of the Year, namely My Best Games – Volume 2: Games as Black by Korchnoi), but I’m sure what you achieved is a major accomplishment. It’s kinda like how I couldn’t tell you the difference between the Academy Awards and the Oscars…only one I pay remote attention to is the Grammies.

    Is this your first?

  7. Yes, it is my first. I also consider this the award with most legitimacy and the strongest history. My first World Championship if you like. All the books that have won in the past have been great.

  8. Congratulations on a fine accomplishment, Jacob! Your books have been quite helpful in improving the quality of my play.

    Beyond the individual goal, you have, with your co-authors and publishers, have lived up to your publishing company’s name. If there were an award for Best Chess Publisher, Quality Chess would be a perennial contender.

    Enjoy a bottle of champagne (or Scotch, since you’re a denizen of malt Mecca)!

  9. Congratulations, Jacob. It’s a well deserved award, for you personally and for Quality Chess as the leading chess publisher (maybe outside of Russia, I don’t know). Keep up the good work.

    As I understand it the ECF Awards is indeed the chess book “Oscar”. It’s the one award everybody wants. A better comparison would be the German “Spiel des Jahres” Award for board games, I think. Not many people are aware of the award, but those who are know that only products of outstanding quality can receive it.

  10. Jacob, I’m very very pleased with Jussupow’s trilogy books. Since his “mastery” books are aimed at Elo 2100-2200 players, I was wondering if you can follow in some kind of his footsteps and write a successor for 2300 Elo players.

    Perhaps you could use his own format in 3 books, or you could have titles like:

    a) Training for FIDE Master: Strategy & Positional play
    b) Training for FIDE Master: Tactics & Calculation
    c) Training for FIDE Master: Endgame
    d) Training for FIDE Master: Preparation & Openings

    I suppose that you have wast experience with training and publishing of numerous books, so you are one of the few who can write a decent work as good as Jussupow 🙂

  11. Seriously:
    a) Underway as I have told you thousands of times
    b) = Excelling at Chess Calculation + Quality Chess Puzzle Book + Practical Chess Defence
    c) Excelling at Technical Chess
    d) got me there…

  12. Excelling at Chess Calculation seems very interesting (from my point of view) and I’m very much looking into this.
    Combined with the Attacking Manuals seems to complete a circle towards the improvement of tactical affinity (you learn patterns and methods in the Attacking Manuals and improve calculation with ECC).
    Did I got the point, Jacob?

  13. Abramov Anjuhin

    Jacob Aagaard :Seriously:a) Underway as I have told you thousands of timesb) = Excelling at Chess Calculation + Quality Chess Puzzle Book + Practical Chess Defencec) Excelling at Technical Chessd) got me there…

    I’ve ordered all your books from the “Verbessern Sie …” seires. But you could make a compilation of all your works and write it in Jussupow style: few lessons + excercises. Poeple love it when they have all in one big package, otherwise they must investigate and various authors and sources could easily guide them on false path. Every chess site give its own way of improving and with so many suggestions average chess players stumbels on: “multa, non multum”.

  14. Congratulations! I think beyond the two books this should be viewed as an endorsement of QC and the idea it represents. Well done!

  15. We would like that he better finishes King’s Gambit book, hopefully in the better form and spirit than in Chess Olympiad in Russia:

    **** GM Shaw John Elo 2446; *** Rating performance: Elo 2285

  16. Alan, a better idea if you want to lose than the Damiano is the Borg!

    At least with the Borg, 1.e4 g5, you can give Black the delusional idea that they are winning because they’ll play 1…g5 with the thought in their head that “Resistance is Futile!”

  17. In the Borg, black should always protect the g pawn with f6, it is like planting a little bitty virus into the Collective.

  18. I want to correct Damiano’s reputation. In his book Damiano analysed hiw to win against 2…f6 of course. He never recommended it. As for The Attacking Manual now i’d like to say that i enjoyed reading the two books very much but the most possitive effect on me had Jacob’s book about the Defense which is another great book. Also the idea of the diagramms at the begin of each chapter in the Attacking manuals was fantastic! A similar idea was used in some of Alburt’s and Dzindzi’s books but not as exercises before you read the chapter.

  19. antwerp :
    We would like that he better finishes King’s Gambit book, hopefully in the better form and spirit than in Chess Olympiad in Russia:
    **** GM Shaw John Elo 2446; *** Rating performance: Elo 2285

    Greetings Antwerp,

    My spirit is just fine thanks, though my form was dodgy. Since you are taking a keen interest in my performance, I will note that my true FIDE rating performance was 2377 against 8 rated players and one win against an unrated: still feeble but better than 2285. The 2285 you can see on-line is caused by my win against the unrated player: somehow that means my performance was almost 100 points worse than if I hadn’t played him.

  20. performance rating on chess-results.com is misleading if unrated opponents are faced.

    the unrated player gets assigned an elo of either 1200, or their national elo – depending on how the tournament organizers set up Swiss Manager. In the olympiad, unrated players are tallied as having 1200.

    In John’s case, he faced 8 rated opponents with an average elo of 2420 and scored 43.5%.

    Including a 9th player with a fictitious rating of 1200, his average opponent’s elo is 2284, against which he scored 50%.

  21. Dear Jacob,

    I write to thank you for your books, AM 1&2. I am great admirer of your books, especially Excelling at Chess. I have just started on AM 1. Not to be nitpicking, but perhaps for future editions: p 14, after 15 Nc3, you considered 15 Na3? and you give Black’s reply: 15…Bxd2! 16 Nxd2?! f5 17 Re1 Qe3!. But surely 17 Qe3 is not possible because of 13…Be6 earlier?

    weng siow

  22. I’ve bought many of GM Aagaard’s books from Everyman in ChessBase format, and I’d purchase AM 1&2 in a second if I could buy them in ChessBase format. Is there any chance of Quality Chess publishing in that format in the future?

  23. No. You are one of the few that pay for such formats, unfortunately. Why Everyman continue to do this, I don’t know.

  24. Jacob’s right. Putting books in an electronic format only makes them easier to transfer and download illegally. I’d hate to see chess publishers going out of business because of this. I’ve no problem paying €20 for a chess book, but for a digital format, the temptation would always be there to get it illegally. Personally I’ve only done this once (for an out of print book) as I prefer working with a book.
    I won’t be buying any Quality Chess books again for a while though. I’ve got the first two Yusupov books, plenty of meat in there so I’ll be chewing for a while 😉
    As an aside, I think this workbook format is great; it avoids the whole ‘read and nod’ syndrome and forces the reader to learn actively.

  25. GM Aaagaard,

    Everyman must be continuing to sell Chessbase-format ebooks because they believe they make more money doing this than by not doing it, unless you believe that they continue doing something they know to be losing them money.

    Maybe your assumption that I’m one of the few who pay is wrong? Did you come to that belief on the basis of actual research (or internal knowledge of how many Everyman physical copies are sold when there’s an ebook available as well versus no ebook being available), or is that just an unquestioned assumption?

    I don’t doubt that there’s piracy of that format (but curiously, I just checked the world’s largest torrent site for pirated material and found many PDFs, some scanned from hard copies, and *not a single ebook in chessbase format*). The real question though is not whether there will be piracy (I’m sure you know there is piracy of paper-only books due to people scanning them in), but whether people like me who purchase lots *many more* Chessbase ebooks as a result of their vastly greater utility more than make up for whatever level of piracy there is.

    Anyway, I didn’t mean to turn this into a long discussion of piracy, so I won’t add anything more to this thread.

    Thanks for reading my arguments and for all the great work that you do.

  26. GM Jacob Aagaard,

    I don’t pretend to change your point of view, but I think similarly to Calvin. I imagine that you have you reasons (piracy) to dislike this format, but also, I imagine that if the Everyman people continue working this way is because it produces an income.

    I think that it’s normal to stop using this format because the piracy threat, but being honest with you there some sites where you can find Quality chess books scanned, in fact, I think that you can find like 80% of your titles (or more). If you don’t believe me you can write to my email and I can say you how to find the sites.

    Finally, I want to give a suggestion: try only one book in this format (like an experiment). If after some time you find that it’s negative (for example, you don’t sell enough) you stop, but what if you find that it’s positive for QUALITY CHESS?

    It will be very glad to hear your comments.

  27. @Calvin,

    You’re not searching the right way. Pirated e-books in cbv format get bundled by around 70 books by now. A pity for Everyman I think.

  28. @Joeri
    Calvin is not wrong, he’s only suggesting something that I really believe that it’s a good possibility. As I wrote, I already found like 80 or 90% of the Quality Chess books scanned in the internet.

    Obviously is a decision of the Quality Chess editorial team, but I think that they could try with one ebook and then make a decision.

  29. I suspect Everyman still sells them because most of their print books only sell big numbers close to release. They’re fast food. Maybe they found out they indeed extract more value from print + cbv (despite piracy) than from print alone.

    I doubt it would be the same for QC. They have a different business model.

  30. I am considering taking up Marin’s recommendations against the main line of the Ruy Lopez, 12…Bd7 or 12…Nc6. I was wondering if these lines are still sound or have improvements been found for White?

  31. My royalty cheques have certainly dropped off a cliff since they put my books in Cbv format, and some of the books are not available in hardcopy anymore.

    I think other less copiable formats will emerge over time, and we will not be against going that way. However, we have a business model that really works, for us, for our core audience and for our authors (who are paid a good deal more than Everyman’s authors). We don’t want to risk it with gambles.

    About PDF’s. You can find poor versions of our books online, but they are scanned and ugly always. With Everyman you can find the original files online. This is really strange, but they don’t seem to take digital security very seriously. Their choice, not ours.

    I don’t think the Marin lines are outdated, but obviously things have changed a bit and you need to check the databases and maybe repair a few things.

  32. I think one can find any book illegally online, but it’s hard to read one off a screen (for me anyway) and printing it out can be quite expensive, unless you can manage to do it at work without getting caught! A book is a better quality product anyway than a bunch of photocopies.

  33. These are similar thoughts to me. I think the reason why books online has never been much of a problem for publishers is because you cannot get the same experience with a copy. You can with music and pgn-files.

    If there was a safe digital format, we would find some way of making it available to our customers without damaging our retail network.

  34. I respect your point of view, but you must remember that people can read your scanned books (PDF) as ebooks in for example : IPAD, Amazon Kindle, Sony reader. Concerning the quality of the “Quality chess” scanned books, I can say that, even that it’s not a good thing to scan books, the quality it’s truly good.

    Try to do not misinterpret me, in fact I really love to buy your books, I consider that you are the best chess editorial in the whole world (please continue like that), but you could open your eyes and try to see that it will never exist a safe digital format because always will be people hacking the files.

  35. Too bad that it is not convenient for you to make interactive ebooks, that would be fantastic. You could put marks on the ebooks acording to the buyer though, to keep track of illegal distribution, unfortunately it would be too time consuming for the big amount of buyers I suppose.

    I also think that maybe an “ebook experiment” would be a good idea so you guys can see first hand how things work out. By the way, can you give more info on the “Grand Master Manual”?

    Thanks

  36. I have bought only once an ebook from Everyman and that was “Play the Slav” by Vigus. Eventually i printed it to be able to read it not from the computer but i was unhappy with that. I ended buying it (!)after all in an open tournament when i saw the book in front of me in a book’s stand. This bad experience leads me to think that i’ll never buy again an ebook. The only idea that seems logical to me is a combination of some parts of the book in digital form (for example the games) for those who don’t want to lose time to insert the moves from the book to a chessbase file when they use a computer to study. So, a book together with a small CD within with seems logical but probably it’s too much.

    As for torrents with QC books, these are too few! Also, many of them where online for some time but they soon dissapeared. Also i know not a single person that wants to really read a book and reads it from the PC. Everyone seems to print them, but the cost combined with the quality is not value for money. It’s better to buy it after all! Also this shows respect for the author. Some years ago i got a CD from a friend with many digital books in it. One book i read and liked was Cox’s Starting Out the Alekhine (unfortunately somewhat dated now). I liked it so much that i felt really bad for not having paid for it, so i bought it and felt better at the end!

  37. There is another element to consider: when you read a scanned e-book online you are constantly reminded that this is wrong, and theft. If the format is the same as if purchased, it gives a different feeling to people.

    2010 is the first year I am talking a salary from Quality Chess, and not a director’s salary in any way. What we are doing at the moment works, so we are not wanting to take any unnecessary risks.

  38. I see that Russell Enterprises have converted their books for Amazon’s Kindle reader. They sell for 50% of the retail price. I don’t know how secure this format is considered to be.
    While I could read them on my iPad, I have never been tempted to try it. I may simply be too old to change my ways, but I don’t see the attraction of e-books. I’m only interested in a “real” book.

  39. We only deal with Amazon as far as we have to. It does not make sense to us to spend a week to create a format for them to sell at discount.

    Also, a thing with these e-books is that our books are often twice the size of our competitors. The conversion to e-book would take forever.

  40. Are you sure? AFAIK the kindle is pretty much a pdf reading device using Amazon’s own format. This sounds like the conversion for the kindle should take ca. 30 seconds for typing in a new name. 😉

    Only hearsay, though, and I totally agree that making piracy difficult or unattractive is very important.

  41. Another thought.

    There is an example of a company for whom no DRM works, despite raging piracy in its sector: Good Old Games ( “GOG”), a Polish portal for older computer games which were sold for full price a few years ago.
    GOG sells the games for ca. 5€ and adds an important bonus: The games are slightly updated to make them compatible to Windows 7, XP & Vista.
    It works for them because the service is comfortable (no old floppy disks, no disk check, no DRM) and 5€ basically an impulse buy.

    Transfering it to chess books, digital sales could be an option for out of print titles. You could bundle them together as you see fit. Costs are close to zero, so the few bucks you get are almost 100% profit. You could even give away a whole ebook for marketing reasons at close to zero costs. Example: Play the Semi-Slav .cbv for free 3 months before the 2nd editition comes out (under the assumption the amount of new content is big enough to make the 1st edition obsolet).
    The 20 bucks Everyman charges for an ebook on the other hand sound terribly unattractive. Why would anybody pay this much for an ebook if he can get the paperback for 12€? No wonder this stuff is copied like crazy.

  42. We are talking here about “interactive ebooks” not just scanned ones, Why would anybody pay this much for an ebook? Well I have bought a couple and will do it again when they release the ones Im interested in because its much easier to study ( at least for kind of lazy guys like me ) plus we are not counting shipping fees here so the price is about equal to a paperback.

    The only “interactive” books I wouldnt buy are the woorkbook ones like Yusupovs and Dvoretskys and the “no need a board” ones like “Understanding Chess Tactics”

    Just waiting for Jacob to release the Yusupov boxset and UCT 2nd edition in paperback

  43. I like e-books. But my main responsibility is to the authors. At the moment I can guarantee a suitable salary for them. I am rather risk averse when it comes to other people’s livelihoods.

    All books will be hardback from now on, I think. The Yusupov books will be out in box sets of threes: The Fundamentals (orange ones), Beyond the Basics (blue) and Mastery (green). UCT2 will probably be called something else, for the fun of it, and be 400 pages.

  44. “All books will be hardback from now on, I think.”

    Do you mean they’ll be in both paperback and hardback, or are the days of the paperback over?

  45. I fully understand why QC would not work with Amazon on Kindle. I would not like the format for chess. It is great for reading non chess books and I love it for my alternate history, sci-fi, history and political reading.

    I have mixed feelings about all hardbacks since the paperbacks are of such good quality that they are good working.

  46. I believe it would be worth a try with the upcoming book.
    As a bonus you might consider only offering it to those who order directly from QC.
    It would be a huge help for me as I’ve already copied several QC books (GM 1,2,6 and soon 7 as well) into CB format together with someone else from the QC blog (not sure if he’d agree to being named here).
    Out of curiosity and because I wanted to save myself all the work of copying the books into CB format, I searched for them online but have only found GM 1 as CB format on Torrents so far.
    Just to be clear, it wasn’t my copy, coz I wouldn’t agree to uploading your work.
    It had plenty of mistakes and I was done with most of the work on GM 1 anyways, so it was no big help.
    Admittedly it was a lot of work but I am happy nevertheless to have the book, since I do love the feeling of the book, yet find it easier and quicker to learn from the CB format.
    I suppose we will have to continue to do all of the work ourselves coz I doubt you’ll actually decide to bring out the books in CB format anytime soon, since they’re too many people who’d upload it onto some torrent to get some credit.
    We can only hope to find enough people out there (as it takes a few months to get it done) who are willing to share the copy work, yet without uploading it afterwards. That was one of the first question I put to the guy I’m working with. Gladly we had the very same stance on this issue.

    @AAgaard: Are there any updates for GM 6 in the upcoming newsletters? Coz I think there are still some missing lines that haven’t been covered.
    Maybe I should have started by asking whether there are any more newsletter coming out at all? coz I like them very much 😀

  47. No plans to do this. The way my royalties fell off a cliff from Everyman after they did this still haunts me :-).

    What lines are missing from GM6. I thought I had them all covered by now?

  48. I’m glad you asked, because I believe there are some variations which do deserve at least some sample lines in a newsletter.
    So let’s get down to business 😀

    1.- 1.e4 c5 2.a3!? this variation may be rather rare but Chess Stars published an entire book on it a while ago so it could be useful to have an antidote.

    2.- 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Nxc3 Nc6 5.Nf3 d6 6.Bc4 a6 7.0-0 Nf6 8.b4!? e6!? 9.a3 it’s quite funny that you posted on your webpage the review from chessvibes.com but probably didn’t get around to reading it carefully, since this exact move (that was suggested by Watson) was mentioned to be missing in the book.

    3.- 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 d6 3.g3 Nc6 4.Bg2 g6 5.d3 Bg7 6.Be3 Rb8 7.f4 this could be a bit of a move order trick from White since Black doesn’t play …Rb8 in variation B) 6.f4. Actually I’ve played 9.Be3 Rb8 once and it’s not a bad variation. however if i follow the repertoire i’ll be move-ordered.

    4.- 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Bd3 without Nc3 like in variation D) 6.Bd3 in chapter 9. I mean with Nd2 or c4 and Nc3.

    5.- 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 e6 7.g4 it’s quite similar to the Perenyi Attack but there’s a difference which needs different treatment from Ftacnik’s approach against the Perenyi.

    6.- 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 e6 7.Bg5 this looks like a mixture of 6.Be2 and 6.Bg5. Black could now play 7…h6 and after 8.Be3 it could transpose back to the normal 6.Be2 but the inserted 7…h6 could make some difference to the lines in the book.

    7.- 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 e6 7.Be3 Be7 8.Qd2 planning to castle long and launch an attack on the kingsside. This I believe is the most important missing line. Ftacnik even mentions them in his DVD on the Scheveningen.

    I don’t want to keep repeating myself but I do want to point out that this last line definitely requires mentioning and analysis, which is not to say that the aforementioned ones are not important as well.

    Finally I would like to point out two little mistakes I’ve found in the book (probably others have stumbled over them as well, but didn’t mention them on the QC blog).

    Page 386
    1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 h6!? 8.Bh4 Be7 9.Qf3 Nbd7 10.0-0-0 Qc7 11.Bg3 b5 12.e5 Bb7 13.Qe2 dxe5 14.fxe5 Nd5 15.Ne4 Qa5!? and now 16.Nd6 Nc5 17.Kb1 Rad8=. First of all 16…Nc5 is impossible due to the fact that 16.Nd6 comes with check, not to mention that 16.Nd6 is a really bad move coz it loses a pawn after 16…Bxd6 17.exd6 Qxa2-+.

    Page 418
    1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 Nbd7 7.f4 Qc7! 8.Qf3 h6! 9.Bh4 g5! 10.fxg5 hxg5 11.Bxg5 Qc5! 12.Be3! Ne5 13.Qe2 Neg4 14.Bg1 Bh6! 15.a3 Qg5 16.Nf3 Qa5 17.Nd2 Be6 18.Bd4 Rc8 19.0-0-0 Rc4! 20.Qd3N Ne5 21.Bxe5 Qxe5 22.Kb1 Rd4 23.Qe2 and yet another impossible move 23…Qd8. Instead Black could play 23…Bxd2 24.Rxd2 Rxd2 25.Qxd2 Rxh2 26.Rxh2 Qxh2-/+.

    I hope you’ll find the time to look over my post carefully and will consider my suggestions.
    I’m asking you to view this post as constructive criticism and deal with it seriously, instead of wasting time on professional bashers like F22 on the ChessPub forum (as you did at some point).
    I’m rarely posting on your blog and only for constructive criticism, so this means QC has already reached a fairly high standard, only rivaled to some extent by Chess Stars.

    Even if I may be mistaken here and there, I do hope to get a more detailed statement from you, doesn’t have to be right away… take your time 😉

    PS: One last (quick) question: I suppose you will also include the Anti-KID lines after 1.c4 and 1.Nf3 in the upcoming GM KID Rep. because there are fairly easy to cover. But what about the GM Gruenfeld? I think that’s a big problem for many players.

  49. For Avrukh’s book we have had to make the decision to make it one book, so only from move 3 will alternatives such as 3.f3 be considered. Earlier moves have never been dangerous and old books will contain decent antidotes.

    I think Vassilios is intending to include a lot of anti-lines, but I am not sure to what degree. I basically will print what he writes, after a bit of editing, and be grateful for what he chooses to write about. (Yes, I am a fan, having read the Grandmaster Battle Manual).

    I did put something about 2.a3 in the newsletter, did I not? We have tried to buy the 2.a3 book with no success in first attempt, but will have a second try at some point.

    The rest of your points are all very valid and interesting. I will reply with a December or January newsletter! I hope you understand that I need time to look deeply into all of these issues.

    I also need to get around to putting the various comments on the various books. Probably I will develop a simpler updating system…

  50. Abramov Anjuhin

    Jacob Aagaard :
    For Avrukh’s book we have had to make the decision to make it one book, so only from move 3 will alternatives such as 3.f3 be considered. Earlier moves have never been dangerous and old books will contain decent antidotes.

    Well I think that all minor lines after 1… Nf6 must be covered because the book is called GM Rep, and not “Play the Grunfeld” or something else. Only the best and concise lines should cover minor lines such as Trompovsky, Torre and other dum stuff.

  51. First of all I didn’t even expect such a quick answer. Thanks!

    Regarding the GM Gruenfeld I believe there are a few dangerous anti-lines such as 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Qa4+ and 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Qa4+
    that’s what Khalifman is recommending in the book “According to Kramnik” Volume 1a, 2nd edition. At least these two lines are worth being covered.

    In terms of GM KID, good news!

    As for 2.a3, I double checked everything, so unless you brought out some secret newsletter it hasn’t been covered yet. It’s rather amusing to hear that you weren’t able to buy the book (I could have bought a new copy from someone for 12 Euros), maybe Chess Stars is trying to sabotage you guys 😀

    I’m fully aware that analysing the lines in questions will take some time and rushing you would be a mistake.
    I’m just glad to hear that you’ll take my suggestions into account.

    I’m not trying to ‘kill’ you with some more ‘homework’ during the holiday season, but I found some more missing lines 😀

    8.- 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 d6 3.g3 Nc6 4.Bg2 g6 5.d3 Bg7 6.Nge2 with the plan of playing 0-0,f4,h3,g4,Ng3. But Nge2 could also be played after 6.f4 e6 so in order not to be move-ordered Black has to play a variation with …e6 and …Nge7.

    9.- 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 e6 7.Be3 Be7 8.f4 0-0 9.g4 This is very similar to the 10.g4 that you covered in the newsletter but still a bit different coz after 9…d5 10.e5 Ne4 11.Nxe4 dxe4 White is not obliged to play 12.0-0 Qc7 transposing but also has the options of 12.g5, 12.Qd2 or 12.c3,13.Qc2 and 14.0-0-0 like played in several GM level games. So this might also be interesting to analyze coz with Which castling long it’s a different situation.

    10.- 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.Qf3 Here White again move-ordered Black from B) in Chapter 9 who cannot play the Dragon set-up anymore.

    11.- 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.Bd3 here after 7…b5 8.a4 White is not transposing to a subnote from B3) in the 6.f4 Chapter with 8.0-0 Bb7 9.a3 Nbd7 10.f4 Be7 11.Qf3 Rc8 12.Rae1 0-0.

    12.- 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.Qe2 e.g. 7…b5 8.a3 Bb7 9.f3 Nbd7 10.g4 h6 11.h4 d5

    Hopefully you’re not feeling ‘harassed’ yet 😉

    Best regards

  52. In some ways, what the Grunfeld book is going to cover is actually 100% ideal for my situation.

    I have decided to go back into looking at the Grunfeld for about the 3rd time now. However, I absolutely DESPISE fienchettoing the bishop against d4 and c3 lines. Therefore, I’ll play 2…g6 against 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4, but 2…e6 against 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3, and if they go back to the main lines with 3.c4, I do fine with either the Modern Benoni (with the f4 lines knocked out), Blumenfeld, Queen’s Indian, Nimzo-Indian with Nf3 committed (i.e. that “hybrid” line, it’s the Classical and Rubinstein lines with Ne2 that give me issues in the NID, so Nf3 committed makes life easier for me there), etc.

    Abramov, if you need something against 2.Nf3, or 2.Bg5, and you plan to play 2…g6 against everything, there is a book on the Anti-King’s Indians by I want to say Dembo (don’t quote me on that one – I know the book exists, not sure about the author). The lines are minor enough that they don’t need to be updated every year. I still use Cox’s book on 1.d4 Deviations, and that book is now a good 5 years old. Still works fine (covers non-2.c4 stuff for players that play non-fienchetto lines, like NID, QGD, and other lines with 2…e6, and also covers 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 or 2.Bf4 or 2.Bg5).

  53. “14th Dec: Vishy Anand kindly made the presentation, on behalf of the English Chess Federation Book of the Year Committee, of the 2010 ECF Book of the Year award to GM Jacob Aagaard for his two-volume work ‘Attacking Manual 1 & 2’, published by Quality Chess”

  54. ChessVives posted a video interview with Jacob. Check the London Day 7 video report. The interview is hidden somewhere in the video list on the right.

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