BOSCH, GIDDINS - The Chess Instructor 2009

Have you ever wondered why it takes grandmasters just seconds to see what's happening in a chess position? It's all about pawn structures, as Ivan Sokolov explained in his groundbreaking book Winning Chess Middlegames.

In his 2010 bestseller, Grandmaster Sokolov focused on structures arising from 1.d4 openings; in this new companion guide, 1.e4 players get their turn. This new volume covers a dozen topical structures including various pawn formations in the flexible Ruy Lopez, Italian and Petroff openings. But also Black's doubled f-pawn in the Rauzer Sicilian, the notorious Maroczy Bind, the mysterious Hedgehog, the versatile Sveshnikov and the paradoxical French Winawer. Deeply analysed top-level games illustrate the motifs in all these structures.

Club players who study Winning Chess Middlegames 1.e4 or 1.d4 will:

• significantly improve their middlegame skills
• develop an accurate sense of which positions suit their style
• gain new strategic and practical knowledge of openings

Ivan Sokolov's analysis is profound but accessible, and he doesn't take anything for granted. As reviewer Sean Marsh wrote of the first volume: "The lucid and informative explanations convey a large amount of genuine Grandmasterly wisdom. This is easily one of the best middlegame books of recent times."

Ivan Sokolov is a top grandmaster who was born in Bosnia and lives in the Netherlands. He is a former Yugoslav and Dutch Champion and has beaten World Champions Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand. As a coach, he led Uzbekistan to victory at the 2022 Chennai Olympiad. Sokolov has written a dozen highly acclaimed books.

Encore un livre sur le principe “move by move”, créé jadis par Chernev.et repris ensuite par Nunn, McDonald et quelques moindres. C'est ici l'auteur de How to defend in chess et Great Attackers qui s'y colle, avec un certain bonheur - même s'il n'a pu éviter les redites et enfonçages de portes ouvertes qui sont la loi du genre. Reste que les joueurs de tous niveaux trouveront agrément et profit à découvrir ces 33 parties ultra-récentes (2005-08) commentées en (grand) détail.

Instruction + exercises according to the old Soviet chess school Experienced Russian Grandmaster Yakov Neishtadt reveals the training material that was used in Soviet times to build up young masters. In the first part of the book Neishstadt teaches a systematic course on the most important tactical themes. The second part consist of an exam with hundreds of tests from real-life chess, in random order so as not to give unwelcome hints on how to solve them. The solutions are not just lists of moves, but include instructive prose. This edtion has been checked with modern engines.

390 pages

Troisième opus du GMI danois, après les remarqués Foundations of Chess Strategy et How Chess Games are won and lost. Ce nouvel effort (qui surpasse les deux autres par la longueur du titre) est un peu moins original dans le propos (revisiter les grandes écoles échiquéennes et leur influence sur le jeu moderne) mais la réalisation est de qualité - bonne mise en perspective, commentaires détaillés, style fluide Une excellente et très agréable lecture.