Description
The years after the Second World War saw international chess dominated by the Soviets - Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian and then Spassky held the world crown, treating it as if it were almost an integral part of their heritage.There were occasional flashes of brilliance in the West - Reshevsky, Najdorf, and later Larsen - but no one really mounted a serious challenge to the Soviet hegemony.
Then, in the mid-1950s, a lone genius from Brooklyn emerged.Obsessed with chess, all his waking hours were devoted to finding truth on the 64 squares. It was an unrelenting, sometimes frustrating quest, but he persevered, eventually emerging as perhaps the greatest natural chess talent ever. It was clear from his early years as a gifted prodigy through his stormy ascent of the Chess Olympus, no one had ever rocked the chess world quite like Bobby Fischer.His raw genius for the royal game, combined with an indefatigable will to win, made him one of the most feared chessplayers of all time - a genuine living legend.
Now, for the first time, every one of his 736 tournament and match games is presented with insightful explanations and analysis.Best-selling chess author, German International Grandmaster Karsten Muller, annotates each game of the player many believe to be the greatest of all time.These wonderfully annotated games are supplemented by crosstables of every major tournament and match in which Fischer participated, dozens of archival photographs, along with brief comments and observations putting the play of the great champion into historical perspective.
Russell Enterprises, Paperback, 408 pages
Most Interesting Draws of 2012-2015 by Arkadij Naiditsch and Csaba Balogh
Paperback, 240 pages
Arkadij Naiditsch and Csaba Balogh analyse the 50 most interesting draws from the years of 2012-2015. Draw has a very bad reputation in chess and indeed it can be really boring sometimes. However, there are also plenty of fighting games as well, where both players are trying their best in order to win the game, but it finally ends in draw. This kind of extremely tense battles is exactly what the book is about.
208 pages, paperback
The Basman-Sale Variation is a relatively unexplored weapon for Black in the very popular Sicilian Defence. Its advantages are clear: it is surprising, aggressive and easy to learn.
After the perfectly normal moves 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Black lashes out with 4…Bc5! English IM Michael Basman and Croatian IM Srdjan Sale were the pioneers of this cunning opening system.
Compared to the complexity of mainstream Sicilian variations it requires little theoretical preparation, while you don’t run excessive risks. That is why The Lazy Man’s Sicilian is ideal for club players who don’t have much time to study opening theory (or are not too fond of hard work anyway).
This easily accessible and up-to-date book offers everything you need to get started with the Basman-Sale Variation. In well-organized chapters it describes the history and underlying ideas of the variation and explains the pawn structures, the strategies and the tactical themes. What’s more, if you play the Basman-Sale system, there is plenty of room for your own creativity as well!
Ukrainian International Master Valeri Bronznik lives and works in Germany. He has written a number of highly acclaimed books, such as ‘Techniques of Positional Play’. Steve Giddins is a FIDE Master and a former editor of British Chess Magazine. He is the author of several outstanding books and is well known for his clarity and no-nonsense advice.
A Cunning Chess Opening Repertoire for White by Graham Burgess
A flexible repertoire to take your opponents out of their comfort zone
A good opening repertoire need not require an enormous amount of study to be highly effective. A cunning choice of lines and move-orders can steer the game to positions that we like and deny the opponent his preferred strategies.
In this book, highly experienced chess opening writer Graham Burgess presents a repertoire based on 1 d4 and Nf3 with precisely those aims. Black's possibilities for counterplay - and sharp gambit play - are kept to a minimum. Our aim is to give Black exactly the type of position he doesn't want. If he is seeking blocked positions with pawn-chains, we'll keep the game fluid. If he wants complex strategy, we'll attack him with simple piece-play. Simplifications? No thanks, we'll keep the pieces on and intensify the battle. Gambits? Hardly, as we simply prevent most of them!
The main cornerstones of the repertoire are carefully chosen Queen's Gambit lines, the Torre Attack (vs ...e6), and a variety of fianchetto options against the King's Indian and related set-ups. White's position is kept highly flexible, with many possible transpositions to a wide variety of systems that the reader can use to extend and vary the repertoire. The book features a wealth of new ideas and original analysis.
FIDE Master Graham Burgess is Gambit's Editorial Director, and one of the founders of the company. He holds the world record for marathon blitz chess playing, and lives in Minnesota. This is his 23rd chess book.
ISBN: 978-1-906454-63-0, Paperback, 192 pages, Gambit Publications
A Disreputable Opening Repertoire by Jonathan Tait
A highly adventurous repertoire designed to meet 1 e4 with 1...e5 and take the initiative!
The main problem Black faces in answering 1 e4 with 1...e5 is the plethora of opening systems available to White: the Ruy Lopez, Giuoco Piano, Scotch, Ponziani, King’s Gambit, Vienna, Bishop’s Opening and so on. Each is likely to be White’s pet line, which usually means conducting the chess battle on the opponent’s turf.
One solution is to study the main lines of all these openings and hope to remember what to do if they appear on the board. Another, more enterprising approach is to turn the tables and make White fight on your territory.
Adopting the latter course, CC-SIM Jonathan Tait shares their investigations into a myriad of disregarded, “disreputable” responses, which can set White thinking as early as move three. These lines are greatly under-estimated by contemporary theory and include weird and wonderful variations such as the Calabrese Counter-Gambit (1 e4 e5 2 Bc4 f5), the Wagenbach Defence to the King’s Gambit (1 e4 e5 2 f4 exf4 3 Nf3 h5), the Romanishin Three Knights (1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Nc3 Bc5), the Two Knights Ulvestad Variation (1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 Ng5 d5 5 exd5 b5) and ultra-sharp lines of the Jaenisch Gambit (1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 f5).
The theory of the variations in this book is generally poorly understood. This has made them successful at all forms of play, including against online computer-assisted assault.
Jonathan Tait is a Senior International Correspondence Chess Master (2002) and editor for Everyman Chess. They have been investigating and writing about opening theory for over 30 years.
ISBN: 9781781946060, Paperback, 360 pages, Everyman Chess
The Tarrasch Defence is one of the most ambitious ways to play against 1.d4. Black immediately fights for the centre, gets a lot of space and develops his pieces without many problems. Great fighters like Boris Spassky, Paul Keres and Garry Kasparov have played the Tarrasch Defence.
Former Russian Champion Alexey Bezgodov has more than 30 years of experience with the Tarrasch and is one of the world’s greatest experts. The Art of the Tarrasch Defence is a deeply researched journey into the positional structures, the key moments in the fight for the initiative, the players and the variations.
Bezgodov has injected his main line, the neglected Kasparov System, with a lot of surprising ideas and presents new ways to handle White’s offbeat variations. He also shows that quite a few lines for Black with a bad reputation are actually good. He teaches how the giants of chess have exploited the many dynamic possibilities of the Tarrasch Defence, and he includes plenty of practical exercises.
This is a must-have book for fearless players who wish to surprise their opponents and who like to play aggressively with Black -- but only with a reliable opening with a sound positional foundation.
ISBN: 978-90-5691-768-5, Paperback, 320 pages, New in Chess
The Complete French Advance by E. Sveshnikov & V. Sveshnikov
Paperback, 352 pages
The Advance Variation is the most ambitious way to meet the solid French Defence. Its popularity among club players is not difficult to understand: by advancing the e-pawn to e5 on the third move, White not only gains space but also blocks in Black’s c8-bishop and hampers Black’s kingside development by taking away the f6-square.
Grandmaster Evgeny Sveshnikov has played the Advance Variation in countless games with excellent results and is, as former World Champion Anatoly Karpov puts it, ‘the world expert’ in this variation.
Together with his son, International Master Vladimir Sveshnikov, he has thoroughly improved, updated and expanded his earlier investigations that he presented in his first book on the French Advance in 2003. The Complete French Advance includes a lot of powerful new ideas.
The Sveshnikovs present many annotated grandmaster games, clearly explaining the ideas and plans for both sides. They also provide exercises and test positions in order to reinforce what has been learned.
After reading and studying this book, White players, from amateurs to Grandmasters, will be able to make their opponents’ lives even more difficult.
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