If you want to improve your middlegame play, you will have to develop a FEEL for positions.

That’s what Boris Zlotnik has been stressing during his long and rich trainer’s career. Clicking through concrete variations (a popular pastime in the computer era) is not enough. To guide your thinking during a game you should be able to fall back on a reservoir of typical ideas and methods.

Вниманию читателя предлагается уникальный сборник уроков, лекций, семинаров по всем вопросам шахматного совершенствования, включая психологию, дебютную подготовку, решение проблем в середине игры, повышение мастерства игры в эндшпиле и т. д.Среди авторов уроков чемпионы мира...

Королевская крепость – оборонительная позиция короля в дебюте и миттельшпиле. Ее стены определяет пешечная структура: у крепости № 1 пешки находятся в начальном положении, то есть на f7, g7, h7 (или f2, g2, h2).

In my first volume of the Anti-Sicilians, we will be examining the Rossolimo variation. The Sveshnikov and Classical Sicilians, where Black begins with 2 ... Nc6, have consistently been a popular way for Black to acquire counter-attacking chances straight from the opening. These openings are the favorites of many top level Grandmasters; none more so than Magnus Carlsen, who most famously fashioned the Sveshnikov Sicilian against Fabiano Caruana in the 2018 World Championship match. The Rossolimo variation with 3.Bb5 is the clearest indication that we are attempting to frustrate Black’s counterplay. By delaying opening the center, we can simply wait for Black to show us how he intends to continue before we make any big commitments. Most importantly, we have the positional threat of Bxc6, which Black has to be wary of if he himself tries to open the center too quickly. In nearly all variations our principal aim is to achieve rapid development, ensuring optimal conditions for a timely central break. In the main three systems (3 ... d6, 3 ... e6 and 3 ... g6), my multiple suggestions are based on the dual concepts of playing as actively as possible, whilst simultaneously frustrating Black’s ideals.

A Compact (but Complete) Black Repertoire for Club Players against 1.d4

ZADANIA JAKICH JESZCZE W POLSKICH SZACHACH NIE BYŁO!

Wyjątkowa książka szachowa, w której zadania nie zawsze polegają na znalezieniu najlepszego ruchu. Te zadania wymagają wyjścia poza schematy, myślenia abstrakcyjnego i wyobrażeniowego. Znajdziecie tutaj takie polecania jak zamień figury, zamiana kolorów bierek, a nawet znajdź najgorszy ruch. Ciekawa propozycja dla tych, którym tradycyjne zadania się znudziły i dla tych, którzy nie odnaleźli frajdy w standardowych zadaniach. Autorem książki jest Martin Surman autor takich książek szachowych jak Taktyka w grze środkowej i Łamigłówki debiutowe. 

W książce "Zagadki szachowe - 600 zagadek dla każdego" znajduje się dokładnie 600 zadań, podzielonych na 4 części. Zadania przeznaczone są jednocześnie dla początkujących oraz zaawansowanych. W przybliżeniu sprawdzą się idealnie dla szachistów od V do I kategorii. 

Dodatkowo w książce znajdują się rozwiązania do wszystkich zagadek, a każda część rozpoczyna się opisem danego typu zagadek wraz z wyjaśnieniem.

Книга рассказывает о творческом пути яркого шахматного подвижника, мастера спорта СССР по практической игре и композиции, блистательного журналиста и наставника этюдных чемпионов – Анатолия Георгиевича Кузнецова (1932–2000).

В книге разобраны пятьдесят его партий и фрагментов. Среди соперников Кузнецова много знаменитых матадоров: будущий чемпион мира Борис Спасский, гроссмейстеры Игорь Бондаревский, Александр Толуш, Евгений Васюков, Владимир Либерзон, Владимир Симагин, Леонид Шамкович, Владимир Антошин…

Дополнят творческий портрет маэстро сто избранных этюдов и задач, ставших классикой шахматного искусства. Так, 12-й чемпион мира Анатолий Карпов прокомментировал три произведения Кузнецова для книги «Шахматный этюд глазами гроссмейстера». Также Анатолий Георгиевич был подлинным творцом талантов, среди его воспитанников – международные гроссмейстеры Эрнест Погосянц, Николай Кралин и Олег Перваков.

Книга рассчитана на широкий круг шахматистов, от начинающего до гроссмейстера.

The Scandinavian Defence is one of the most popular chess openings among amateur players, and it is easy to see why. Black players immediately limit the opening theory they have to know because there is no way White can side-step Black’s first move. What’s more, the Scandinavian requires only very little theoretical knowledge, so it has an extremely low maintenance factor. To cap it all, Black gets a solid structure.

And that’s not even the end of the good news, as Thomas Willemze demonstrates in this compact and practical manual. Playing the Scandinavian teaches invaluable techniques that you can use in almost all of your other games. Pressuring the centre, neutralizing your opponent’s initiative, improving your piece coordination, trading the right pieces and exploiting your opponent’s weak points are all typical ‘Scandinavian’ spin-offs that Thomas Willemze teaches you in his trademark lucid style.

The Scandinavian for Club Players offers everything you need to know to be fully prepared to meet 1.e4. The various lines are enriched with verbal explanations, diagrams, flash-cards and exercises that make this book even more accessible. Willemze not just uses examples from the games of elite grandmasters. As an experienced trainer he knows that discussing club player’s adventures are particularly instructive for his target group.

Thomas Willemze is an International Master from The Netherlands. He is an experienced trainer of amateur players and has been the National Youth Coach of the Dutch Chess Federation. He is the author of the acclaimed ‘What would you play?’ column in New In Chess magazine, aimed at helping club players to improve their decision-making skills. In 2018 he published the best-selling improvement guide The Chess Toolbox, also available as a NIC Interactive eBook and a Chessable video course.

“Pawns are the soul of chess.” We have all heard this phrase more than once in our chess life and we owe it to the great French player François-André Danican, so-called Philidor, considered one of the best chess players of the 18th century.

It’s not surprising that with this way of thinking, he revolutionized chess, which until then was almost all about direct attacks on the king. With this, he also changed the way of understanding and playing openings, in which he introduced a new concept for the time – that the pawns should be ahead of the pieces.

Bearing this in mind, the defense he created can be much better understood, in which all these rules are fulfilled and the importance of the pawn structure is maximal.

Keep cool and find creative solutions when under pressure and attack.

Only the very best dared to play for a win against Tigran Petrosian. The 9th World Champion was extremely difficult to beat because his defensive techniques were virtually unmatched. In the rare case that someone managed to bring him into difficulties they ran a serious risk of having to face a vicious counterattack.

New In Chess Yearbook, which appears four times a year, contains the latest news in chess openings. Each issue brings you dozens of new ideas on the cutting edge of modern chess opening theory. Have a look at what this issue has to offer.

Forum

The experiments have continued in the many online events held during the OTB lockdown. That makes excellent Forum material! Han Schut writes about Magnus Carlsen’s 7.g4 in the QGD (it gets played earlier and earlier) and René Olthof was pleasantly surprised by a Vasily Ivanchuk win with the King’s Gambit – an opening on which we also have a Survey, for the first time in ages, by Bogdan Lalic. And be sure not to miss Krishnan Sasikiran’s amazing analysis of a recent correspondence game featuring the Anti-Sveshnikov Sicilian.

From Our Own Correspondent

This time Erwin l’Ami presents a mixture of standard and non-standard openings. You’ll be surprised to know that From’s Gambit seems to hold up even in correspondence games! That is an encouraging thought for all those gambiteers out there. The Catalan and the QGD are also extensively scrutinized, the latter with a correspondence game by the Dutch GM himself, and he concludes with a study of two nice offbeat openings.

Reviews

The same juxtaposition as in the Correspondence column can also be found in Glenn Flear’s reviews this time. A Complete Opening Repertoire for Black after 1.e4 e5! by new author Yuriy Krykun (who will be awarded the IM title soon and has also written Surveys for us) features some fresh out-of-the-box ideas, and this is even more so in the case of Unconventional Approaches to Modern Chess Volumes 1 and 2 by Alexander Ipatov, whose middle name seems to be ‘Unorthodox’. More classical approaches can be found in Martyn Kravtsiv’s thorough work The Italian Renaissance (also 2 volumes!) and Squeezing 1.e4 e5: a solid strategic approach by Alexander Khalifman and Sergei Soloviov.

У вас есть ограниченное время на изучение шахмат, и большая его часть уходит на зубрежку дебютных вариантов? Вот решение: удивите своего оппонента с первых же ходов с помощью дебюта Эльшада! В третьей книге про дебют Эльшада, которая по сути является продолжением первых двух, читатель ознакомится с сотней новых партий, узнает о новинках этого дебюта, увидит поединки, где повержены известные гроссмейстеры, в том числе Сергей Шипов и сам Владимир Крамник! Столкнувшись с новыми вызовами, ваш соперник должен будет полагаться только на собственные силы.

But let me now explain the idea of this second book. I will show you some 18 games with the more or less current trends in the double fianchetto. These games include some openings like the Tarrasch and the King’s Indian, just to name a few.

The main part of the book is divided into exercises and solutions, with 110 positions taken from double fianchetto games. I have divided the exercises into chapters, with each chapter featuring games by players who have deployed the double fianchetto quite often. You will find a lot of typical motifs used by these players.

The difficulty level ranges from very easy through to very tough, but I won’t give points for the solutions. The ideas vary from tactics to important strategic subtleties. The reader decides how honestly he or she tries to solve these exercises. It is also not necessary to solve all of them, but it is definitely important to think about these positions and take your time. The reader should gain an impression of the many ideas and structures which are possible in the double fianchetto positions.

Новая книга известного тренера посвящена такому важному разделу шахматной тактики, как форсированный мат. Варианты с непрерывными шахами не требуют специальной подготовки, они достаточно просты и понятны даже для игроков начального уровня. Сквозь призму многочисленных шахов читатель сможет не только научиться безупречно матовать короля соперника, но и получит базовые знания об остальных приемах, которые неминуемо потребуются для дальнейшего изучения тактики.

The Creative Power of Bogoljubov Volume I: Pawn Play, Sacrifices, Restriction and More (2020) - Grigory Bogdanovich

Efim Bogoljubov was one of the world’s very strongest players in the 1920s and 1930s. Twice he played Alexander Alekhine for the world championship title (1929 and 1934) and he won the famous Moscow 1925 tournament, ahead of Jose Capablanca, Emanuel Lasker and many other stars. He also won the Soviet championship in 1924 and 1925, as well as a host of other international tournaments. His play featured many sparkling combinations, as well as a deep positional understanding.

“To write proper “characteristics”, I had to go over hundreds of games of each player. I wanted to learn what they liked and disliked, how they reacted in different situations, what was their preferred way of playing, how they handled themselves. During the first “scan”, I went relatively quickly over the games, writing down the impression from each game. This is what Botvinnik did when analyzing Bronstein’s play before their match in 1951. I continued with the scan until the moment when I felt that I had “understood” the player. Then I returned to the games that were most relevant for their “characteristics” and I analyzed them deeply.” ~ Alex Colovic

New Ideas, Dynamic Strategies and Powerful Weapons

Street Smart Chess is an expert guide to scoring more points at the chessboard. When does it pay off to play hard for a win? Or safe for a draw? And how do you adapt your playing style accordingly?

GM Axel Smith answers these questions, and more, by using a world-class player as a model for each chapter. Learn how Magnus Carlsen grinds out wins from level positions; how David Navara beats lower-rated opponents, and how Baskaran Adhiban beats higher-rated ones! Or serve-and-volley in the opening like Peter Heine Nielsen.

Playing well is a good start in chess, but you also need to be Street Smart.

Axel Smith is the award-winning author of The Woodpecker Method, Pump Up Your Rating and e3 Poison, which were all enthusiastically received by readers and reviewers. Using the Woodpecker as part of his training, as an adult he improved from a rating of 2100 to becoming a Grandmaster.

Wśród wszystkich typów szachowych końcówek, wieże są najczęstsze, w prawie 50% przypadków i to tam nawet doświadczeni szachiści najczęściej popełniają błędy. Umiejętność kompetentnego grania w te podstępne („złośliwe”!) zakończenia przynosi wiele dodatkowych punktów i połówek. 

Книга предназначена для юных шахматистов (III-I разрядов) желающих повысить свое мастерство разыгрывания ладейных окончаний, а так же тренеров, руководителей шахматных кружков и всех любителей шахмат.

Improving Your Visualization and Calculation Skills

Евгений Гик – знаменитый шахматный литератор и мастер, написавший около 180 книг. В данной работе представлены 266 прокомментированных лучших партий всех чемпионов мира, включая действующего – Магнуса Карлсена. Читатель найдет здесь также удивительные истории про шахматных королей, а также редкие фотографии. Изучая лучшие партии сильнейших гроссмейстеров в истории шахмат, вы бесспорно сможете повысить свой уровень игры, улучшить понимание дебюта, миттельшпиля и эндшпиля.

Для широкого круга любителей и знатоков шахмат.

В своей новой книге гроссмейстер Зенон Франко глубоко анализирует 32 «белые» поучительные победы (включая партии 2020 года) чемпиона мира Магнуса Карлсена. Книга не перегружена вариантами, акцент – на подробных объяснениях в стиле «ход за ходом», что формирует идеальную платформу для изучения шахмат. В «опорных» точках каждой партии читателю предлагаются тестовые вопросы, что помогает и практическому изучению ключевых приемов шахматной игры, и надежному усвоению обретаемых знаний. Вопросы и ответы вовлекают читателя в процесс обучения и помогают ему отслеживать рост своей шахматной силы. 

Большинство партий взято из недавнего творчества Карлсена. Почти все его соперники супергроссмейстеры, – экс-чемпионы мира Виши Ананд и Владимир Крамник, а также Уэсли Со, Максим Вашье-Лаграв, Александр Грищук, Левон Аронян, Борис Гельфанд, Аниш Гири и др.