All Chess Books A-Z

Acclaimed author and grandmaster Paul Motwani discusses four elements of successful chess (strategy, tactics, attack, reaction) with the same wit and clarity that has characterized his previous writings on the game. Here he applies his original, mnemonic-based approach to the strategy and tactics of attack, defense and counterattack. This book is packed with instructive model examples starting ...

In his previous work, Secrets of Chess Defence, Mihail Marin examined the task facing the defender. Now he considers the other side of the coin. In this wide-ranging treatise, he discusses many topics including: the balance between attack and defence; the premises for starting a successful attack; advantage in development; intuitive sacrifices; typical scenarios. The book features many practica...

Intuition is central to all chess decision-making, and an understanding of its role is vital in improving one's game. Players who try to calculate everything to a finish are doomed to lose out to those who use their logical and intuitive abilities in harmony with one another. This book, the first devoted to the role of intuition in chess, explains how to allow your intuition to reach its full p...

One of the most important skills in chess is the ability to transform one type of advantage into another. The great champions effortlessly convert an initiative into an attack, an attack into a material gain, and move into an endgame where this advantage can be exploited smoothly. Readers know from their own games that this is not as simple as it looks. It is all too easy to miss the right mome...

How can one determine if a piece is weak or strong? Or if a square is weak or strong? These are the principal questions that grandmaster and trainer Drazen Marovic addresses in this important book. By discussing carefully-chosen games and positions, Marovic explains how to recognize good and bad features of positions, and how to make use of one's advantages and exploit the opponent's weaknesses...

What is the best way to improve your chess results? Memorizing an opening encyclopedia, learning endgame theory, solving puzzle positions...there must be an easier way. How about making the most of your existing talent? In this book, John Nunn helps you to do precisely that. Drawing upon more than three decades of experience, he provides advice that will help players of all standards, playing s...

The first step towards self-improvement is self-assessment, and so Baker starts off with advice on assessing your own strengths and weaknesses. He then discusses how to form and improve your opening repertoire, and how to prepare for competitive play. Next comes advice on how to think at the board, how to cope with time-pressure, and chessboard psychology. A welcome feature is a summary of the ...

In this book, John Nunn, a top-class grandmaster who is also one of the world's finest solvers, explains the methods by which chess problems and studies are solved. The logical and creative methods advocated, while targeted at the solving of composed positions, may also help players find startling tactical solutions in their games. Solving in Style also constitutes an entertaining and insightfu...

Alekhine's Defence is a sharp and controversial opening in which Black attacks from the very first move, provoking White into lunging forward in the centre. White is often able to construct an impressively large central pawn formation, but Black's hope is that this becomes over-stretched and disintegrates in the face of a vicious counterattack. Unsurprisingly, Alekhine's Defence has always been...

This book is a study of all the crucial Benoni systems apart from the Modern Benoni. It presents diverse and practical options against the queen's pawn opening for dynamic, tactical players and solid, positional players alike. Included are such daring defences as the controversial Blumenfeld Counter-Gambit and the Benko Gambit, a favourite with uncompromising Grandmasters such as Veselin Topalo...

The Closed Sicilian is an ideal weapon for players who wish for an aggressive way to attack the Sicilian but have neither the time nor the inclination to learn the seemingly endless mountains of opening theory associated with Open Sicilians. In the Closed Sicilian an awareness of the typical themes is far more important than memorising variations. White's play is logical and the basic strategie...

Are you looking to attack with 1d4? Then look no further....<br> <br> In this book Richard Palliser provides in-depth coverage of three of the most dangerous attacking set-ups available to White: the Colle-Zukertort, the Barry, and the 150 attacks. In recent years these three opening weapons have considerably gained in popularity, especially at club level, and it's easy to see why. They are eas...

How do you react in the line of fire? Are you able to remain calm in a storm? Defending against a threatening attack on your own king is one of the most difficult aspects to master in chess. Yet given the frequency of such offensives, it's certainly worthwhile investing a good amount of time on honing the ability to defend properly. In this valuable and entertaining book, Angus Dunnington arms ...

Ideal for those wanting to understand the basics of the Modern Benoni.<br> <br> The Modern Benoni is one of Blacks most ambitious and audacious defences to the queens pawn opening, and it has been used with devastating effect by such legends as Mikhail Tal, Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov. From the very start Black creates an exceptional imbalance in the position, one which leads to dynamic pl...

"Open Games" refer to a myriad of openings arising after the ever-popular 1 e4 e5: the Italian Game, the Scotch, The Two Knights Defence, the King's Gambit, the Evans Gambit, the Bishop's Opening, the Four Knights, the Petroff and much more besides. In this book, Glenn Flear goes back to basics, introducing the key moves and ideas, and taking care to explain the reasoning behind them at somethi...

The Queen's Gambit Accepted (QGA) is Black's simplest way of dealing with one of White's most fashionable openings, the Queen's Gambit. Black grabs the gambit pawn and thus refuses to succumb to the passive positions so typical of the Queen's Gambit Declined. This direct and uncompromising way of playing gives rise to dynamic positions where both sides have excellent chances to play for the win...

In Starting Out: Sicilian Najdorf Richard Palliser takes a fresh look at this famous opening. The early moves and ideas are introduced and care is taken to explain the reasoning behind them - something that is often neglected or taken for granted. As with previous works in the popular Everyman Chess Starting Out series, the reader is helped throughout with a plethora of notes, tips and warnings...

The Scheveningen is an uncompromising and flexible variation of Black's most popular defence to 1 e4, the Sicilian. It's a firm favourite of the world's greatest ever chess player, Garry Kasparov, who used it many times in crucial games, including his world championship matches against Anatoly Karpov and Vishy Anand. His success rate against Karpov was so good that the former world champion was...

The Colle is a solid, reliable system of development based on the popular opening move 1 d4. One of its major advantages is that although the system is very easy to learn and play, it leads to exciting middlegame positions where White often launches a violent attack against Black's king. The Colle is a particular favorite amongst club players, but is also seen at grandmaster level; perhaps its ...

The French is one of Black's soundest defences to 1 e4 and is very popular at all levels of chess. Club players enjoy its super-solid structure, while at the top it's played by famous grandmasters such as Vishy Anand and the young Russian star Alexander Morozevich. With his first two moves Black obtains a substantial foothold in the centre, and a structure that is incredibly difficult to break ...