Search results for ""new in chess""

If you want to improve your middlegame play, you will have to develop a FEEL for positions. Thats what Boris Zlotnik has been stressing during his long and rich trainers 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. That is exactly what this book offers you: Zlotniks legendary study material about the middlegame, modernized, greatly extended and published in the English language for the first time. As you familiarize yourself with the most important strategic ideas and manoeuvres in important basic opening structures, you will need less time to discover the clues in middlegame positions. You will find it so much easier to steer your game in the right direction after the opening has ended. Zlotniks Middlegame Manual is accessible to a wide range of post-beginners and club players. It is your passport to a body of instructive material of unparalleled quality, collected during a lifetime of training and coaching chess. A large collection of exercises, carefully chosen and didactically tuned, will help you drill what you have learned. With a foreword by Fabiano Caruana.

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Jan Timman is one of the greatest chess players never to win the world title. For many years the Best of the West belonged to the chess elite, collecting quite a few super tournament victories. Three times Timman was a Candidate for the World Championship and his peak in the world rankings was second place, in 1982. For this definitive collection, Timman has revisited his career and subjected his finest efforts to fresh analysis supported by modern technology. The result is startling and fascinating. From the games that he chose for his Timmans Selected Games (1994, also published as Chess the Adventurous Way), only 10(!) made the cut. Some games that he had been proud of turned out to be flawed, others that he remembered as messy were actually well played. Timmans Triumphs includes wins against great players such as Karpov, Kasparov, Kortchnoi, Smyslov, Tal, Spassky, Bronstein, Larsen and Topalov. The annotations are in the authors trademark lucid style, a happy mix of colourful background information and sharp, crystal-clear explanations. Once again Jan Timman shows that he is not only one of the best players the game has seen, but also as one of the best chess analysts and writers.

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It took AlphaZero only a few hours of self-learning to become the chess player that shocked the world. The artificial intelligence system AlphaZero had been fed nothing but the rules of the Royal Game when it beat the worlds strongest chess engine in a prolonged match. The selection of ten games published in December 2017 created a worldwide sensation: how was it possible to play in such a brilliant and risky style and not lose a single game against an opponent of superhuman strength? For Game Changer, Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan investigated more than two thousand previously unpublished games by AlphaZero. They also had unparalleled access to its team of developers at DeepMind and were offered a unique look under the bonnet to grasp the depth and breadth of AlphaZeros search. Sadler and Regan reveal its thinking process and tell the story of the human motivation and the techniques that created AlphaZero. Game Changer also presents a collection of lucidly explained chess games of astonishing quality. Both professionals and club players will improve their game by studying AlphaZeros stunning discoveries in every field that matters: opening preparation, piece mobility, initiative, attacking techniques, long-term sacrifices and much more. The story of AlphaZero has a wider impact. Game Changer offers intriguing insights into the opportunities and horizons of Artificial Intelligence. Not just in solving games, but in providing solutions for a wide variety of challenges in society. With a Foreword by former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov and an Introduction by DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis.

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Why is it that most amateur chess players love opening and middlegame tactics but hate endgames? Why do you usually look at only a couple of pages in any endgame theory book you see? Sit back, forget about theoretical endgames, and enjoy the entertainment of real life chess in Endgame Tactics! There is no substitute for hard work in getting better at chess, as a wise grandmaster once said. But you always work harder at something you enjoy. Make the first step towards improving your endgame play (and beating more opponents) by learning to love the endgame. Endgames are fun, and the examples from everyday practice in Endgame Tactics prove it.

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The Complete Manual of Positional Chess, probably the most thorough grounding in the history of teaching chess, was recently created for chess teachers at the DYSS, the special sports school for young talents in Russia. Konstantin Sakaev and Konstantin Landa present a complete set of instructions and tips for trainers and self-improvers. The reader will learn not only how to enhance fundamental knowledge and technical skills, but also how to work on physical and psychological conditioning. The book is full of basic and advanced tools to improve in a wide array of areas, like handling different pawn structures, exploiting weaknesses in the opponent's position, attacking the enemy king, detecting dynamics and tactical motifs, finding resources for defence and counterattack in precarious positions and, last but not least restricting the role the chess computer plays in our life.

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Spend more study time on whats really decisive in your games! The average chess player spends too much time on studying opening theory. In his day, World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker argued that improving amateurs should spend about 5% of their study time on openings. These days club players are probably closer to 80%, often focusing on opening lines that are popular among grandmasters. Club players shouldnt slavishly copy the choices of grandmasters. GMs need to squeeze every drop of advantage from the opening and therefore play highly complex lines that require large amounts of memorization. The main objective for club players should be to emerge from the opening with a reasonable position, from which you can simply play chess and pit your own tactical and positional understanding against that of your opponent. Gerard Welling and Steve Giddins recommend the Old Indian-Hanham Philidor set-up as a basis for both Black and White. They provide ideas and strategies that can be learned in the shortest possible time, require the bare minimum of maintenance and updating, and lead to rock-solid positions that you will know how to handle. By adopting a similar set-up for both colours, with similar plans and techniques, you will further reduce study time. Side-stepping Mainline Theory will help you to focus on what is really decisive in the vast majority of non-grandmaster games: tactics, positional understanding and endgame technique. Gerard Welling is an International Master and an experienced chess trainer from the Netherlands. He has contributed to NIC Yearbook and Kaissiber, the freethinker's magazine on non-mainline chess openings. Steve Giddins is a FIDE Master from England, and a highly experienced chess writer and journalist. He compiled and edited The New In Chess Book of Chess Improvement, the bestselling anthology of master classes from New In Chess magazine.

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Magnus Carlsen: A Life in Pictures tells the story of the reigning World Chess Champion. Magnus Carlsen, born in 1990 in Oslo, Norway, became a Grandmaster by 13. Carlsen was crowned World Champion in 2013, when he defeated Anand and has successfully defended his title three times. He currently plays again for the title in Dubai. Carlsen is a family man, often surrounded by his father, mother and sisters. As a sports fanatic he plays and follows football and basketball. He doesnt shy away from his celebrity status, and was both a G-Star model and a Real Madrid VIPguest. But his most genuine smile breaks through when he talks chess with his youngest fans, the kids in a chess tournament. For this book, publisher New In Chess, part of the Play Magnus Group, had access to pictures of the Carlsen family archive and to all pictures of the best chess photographers.

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The Complete Manual of Positional Chess, probably the most thorough grounding in the history of teaching chess, was recently created for chess teachers at the DYSS, the special sports school for young talents in Russia. Konstantin Sakaev and Konstantin Landa present a complete set of instructions and tips for trainers and self-improvers. The reader will learn not only how to enhance fundamental knowledge and technical skills, but also how to work on physical and psychological conditioning. The book is full of basic and advanced tools to improve in a wide array of areas, like quick development and fighting for the centre in the opening, clean calculation and decision-making in the middlegame, tackling the fear of disturbing the material balance, and, last but not least how to restrict the role the chess computer plays in our life.

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The upgraded 2024 edition of a modern classicWe''ve managed to keep the upgraded paperback edition at the pre-inflation price. On top of that, this modern classic is now available in hardcover as well.The best advice for chess players who want to improve quickly is: get better at tactics! Because the vast majority of amateur games is decided through tactics you will immediately start beating moreopponents when you improve your tactical skills.Improve Your Chess Tactics presents more than 700 decisive combinations from tournament practice and is a self-tutor and a sparring-partner in one. Experienced Russian chess master Yakov Neishtadt has selected those examples that have the biggest instructional value for club players.In the first part of the book Neishtadt teaches a systematic course on the most important tactical themes. The second part consists of an exam with hundreds of tests from real-life chess, in random order so as no

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Every chess player, from club level up, can improve their game by using engines. That is the message of Matthew Sadlers thought-provoking new book, based on many years of experience with the worlds best chess software. You may not be able to replicate their dazzling-deep calculations, but there is so much more your engine can do for you than just checking variations! Matthew Sadler, co-author of the ground-breaking bestseller Game Changer, presents some unique methods to improve by using your engine. He explains how in your opening preparation, instead of sifting through masses of computer analysis you should play training games against your engine. He also shows how to train your early middlegame play, the conversion of advantages, your positional play, and your defensive skills. And, of course: how to analyse your own games. These generic training methods Sadler supplements with concrete techniques. He explains how the top engines tackle crucial middlegame themes such as entrenched pieces, whole board play, attacking rhythm, exchanging pieces, the march of the Rooks pawn, queen versus pieces, and many others. He also opens your eyes to typical strategies that the engines found and fine-tuned in popular openings such as the Kings Indian, the Grünfeld, the Slav, the French and the Sicilian. Sadler illustrates his lessons with a collection of fantastic games, explained with his trademark enthusiasm. For the first time, the superhuman powers of the chess engine have been decoded to the benefit of all players, in a rich and highly instructive book.

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Chess Opening preparation is probably the most difficult aspect of chess training, as the possibilities are endless. There is an abundance of training material, and especially adult improvers and regular club players find it challenging to study openings efficiently. International Master Jeroen Bosch gives them all the tools they need to dominate the opening phase of the game. He presents a structured approach to the study of openings and the preparation for a club match or tournament game. Every time-strapped chess improver will love his advice on opening preparation. Instead of studying more hours or memorizing more lines, they will have to start making smart choices.

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Special hardcover edition of Improve Your Chess Calculation, winner of the 2022 Chess.com Book of the Year Award. The jury states that "a lot of resources can help you improve your chess, but books continue to be one of the most effective. And if your New Year's resolutions include getting better at the royal game, you should read Improve Your Chess Calculation by GM R.B. Ramesh".

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If you are aware of endgame patterns, you spot key moves quicker, analyse and calculate better, avoid making errors and memorise what you have studied more fully. The Queen's Gambit is easily the most talked-about chess opening since the immensely popular Netflix TV series of the same name became a hit. The screen adventures of Beth Harmon have inspired thousands to start playing the Royal Game but didn't offer any information on this highly popular chess opening. This book fills that gap. German Grandmaster Michael Prusikin presents a solid but dynamic opening repertoire for Black against the Queen's Gambit. He wants you to understand rather than memorize what is important. His primary focus is on explaining the relevant pawn structures and the middlegame ideas behind the lines he recommends. Prusikin deals with every single variation of the Queen's Gambit in a way that is highly accessible for club players but at the same time surprisingly effective and concise: the Catalan, Tartakower, Carlsbad, London, Colle, Veresov, and all the others. As a bonus, the FIDE Senior Trainer also provides responses to openings such as the Bird, Réti, and Nimzo-Larsen. It may seem unlikely, and yet it is true: in less than 200 pages, Countering the Queen's Gambit has Black covered for really every first move except 1.e4! To test your newly acquired insights in the tactical motifs and strategic ideas of the Queen's Gambit, you are invited to solve 36 exercises in carefully selected key positions from actual games.

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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 Blacks first move. Whats 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 thats 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 opponents initiative, improving your piece coordination, trading the right pieces and exploiting your opponents 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 players adventures are particularly instructive for his target group.

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If you are aware of endgame patterns, you spot key moves quicker, analyse and calculate better, avoid making errors and memorise what you have studied more fully. Most of the patterns Jesus de la Villa presents in this new book are from the phase of the game just before a theoretical endgame turns up. Knowing these practical endgame fundamentals will enable you to fully reap the benefits of what you learned in De la Villas widely acclaimed classic 100 ENDGAMES YOU MUST KNOW. Studying patterns only makes sense if you are going to encounter them frequently. De la Villa presents those that have the greatest practical importance and explains and illustrates them with carefully selected examples. To show the patterns as clearly as possible, he mainly concentrates on positions in which both sides have just one piece. Presenting positions with more pieces risks blurring the picture and making motifs less straightforward. The fact that players think in patterns has an important side-effect: their endgame errors tend to repeat themselves. Thats why De la Villa has not just included examples from games of elite GMs but also of amateurs. Errors are always instructive and working with this book will seriously reduce the number of typical mistakes you are prone to make. The many practical exercises that De la Villa has selected will help you improve and retain what you have learned.

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Working on chess tactics and checkmates will help you win more games. It develops your pattern recognition and your board vision -- your ability to capitalise on opportunities. This Workbook features a complete set of fundamental tactics, checkmate patterns, exercises, hints, and solutions. Peter Giannatos selected 738 exercises based on ten years of experience with thousands of pupils at the prize-winning Charlotte Chess Center. All problems are clean, without unnecessary fluff that detracts from their instructive value. The Workbook has ample room for writing down the solutions to the exercises. This is helpful for both students and coaches, who can assign homework from the book without having to worry about being unable to review the solutions. And writing down the correct chess moves will greatly accelerate your learning process. This book offers you a treasure trove of chess knowledge and more than enough lessons to keep you busy for a year!

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Surprise yourself and reach higher! This book is based on real amateur games and shows you how an average club player can proceed through the ranks and reach Candidate Master level. Its a hard struggle, nothing comes for free and your path will be strewn with setbacks and disappointments. Just like in real life. Alex Dunne guides you in the more than 50 games that you will be playing and offers lots of practical, straightforward and effective advice. Slowly but surely, you will improve in all phases of the game: the opening, the middlegame and the endgame. Dunne explains when and how to activate your pieces and how to recognize and punish the errors your opponents are bound to make. At the end of the book, having absorbed these lessons, your experience, technique and confidence will have improved in such a way that your first win against a master will not come as a big surprise.

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Your performance at the board does not only depend on your pure chess skills. Being a winner also requires a mindset that is able to cope with lots of stress and setbacks during hours of uninterrupted concentration. Just like technical chess skills, mental toughness can be trained. There are simple steps you can take that will help you to better realize your potential. Professional mental coach and chess player Werner Schweitzer has been working with chess teams and individual players for many years. In this book Schweitzer presents practical tips and tools that will help you to improve your mental power during a game. You will learn how to: increase your concentration and stamina; recognize your own strengths and weaknesses; cope with losses as well as victories; increase your self-discipline when studying; handle disturbing thoughts and feelings during a game; boost your self-confidence; avoid underestimating (and overestimating!) your opponent; make better decisions while under pressure and other mental skills. These lessons and simple mental workouts will help players of all levels to unlock the full power of their brain and win more games.

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Viktor Moskalenko is one of the leading chess instructors of our time. Not only has he coached Masters and Grandmasters, including Ukrainian star Vassily Ivanchuk, he has also taught hundreds of classes for amateurs and his best-selling books have inspired thousands of ambitious club players all over the world. Moskalenkos previous and highly popular chess opening books were mainly written for the Black pieces. Now he presents an extremely powerful set of lines for White. The guiding principle of his 1.d4 repertoire is: be bold and put pressure on your opponent as early as possible. Moskalenko does not shower you with long computer-generated variations but has a keen eye for the essence of positions. His talent to find new resources in well-known lines results in a host of novelties, daring recommendations and cunning tricks. When you play his lines and follow his recommendations you will frequently surprise your opponent and build up positions full of swing. Studying An Attacking Repertoire for White with 1.d4 is a delight because this is a typical Moskalenko book: practical, accessible, original, entertaining and inspiring. Viktor Moskalenko (1960) is an International Grandmaster and a FIDE Senior Trainer. The former Ukrainian champions recent books include The Even More Flexible French, The Wonderful Winawer, Training with Moska and The Fabulous Budapest Gambit.

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Techniques of Positional Play, an improved edition of a Russian classic, teaches amateur chess players 45 extremely effective skills in a crystal-clear manner. It is reliving quite heavily and doing very well after a 2023 video by famous YouTube star Andrea Botez. Quite a few of the techniques will be revelations for club players, as they offer solutions for problems amateurs are often only subconsciously aware of. The techniques are easy to understand and memorize. The authors present a wealth of practical examples and do not burden the reader with unnecessary deep analysis. There is a special training section at the end of the book where you can test your newly acquired skills.

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