SILMAN - How to Reassess your Chess 4th Edition

Turbo-Charge Your Tactics 2 concludes a multi-year effort by GM Mykhaylo Oleksiyenko and world-renowned trainer IM Vladimir Grabinsky to create the perfect chess puzzle books. This second volume builds upon the first, using games from the World Champions and their challengers. Most chess games are decided by tactics, so solving tactical puzzles is the most effective path to improvement.

This book also contains a special chapter with expert guidance on how to use chess engines. The engines might analyse precisely but they can also harm our chess understanding if followed blindly, so we must know when and how to use them. Hardcover 280 pages

En fait de stratégie, c'est plutôt un dictionnaire des concepts échiquéens dont il s'agit. Pour mémoire, car l'intérêt pratique de l'ouvrage semble limité.

Pressure Play by Neil McDonald. Have you ever been tortured at the chessboard? If so, then you have probably been a victim of pressure play.

Elite players are brilliant exponents of pressure play. In situations where they have either a tiny advantage or no advantage at all they are highly adept at constantly setting problems for their unfortunate opponents. The position on the board may appear lifeless but they can probe and find plans and regroupings that will constantly ask their opponents difficult questions. These can be countered only by continual alert and accurate defence and we all know how difficult and wearing that can be.

The arch exponent of pressure play is world champion Magnus Carlsen. Carlsen is superb in this area of the game and consistently defeats world class opposition from simplified positions where he has no advantage whatsoever. How does he do it?

In this book, the highly experienced author and coach Neil McDonald analyses the finest examples of pressure play. In doing so he teases out the fundamental concepts that enable players like Carlsen to torture their opponents mercilessly.

• Paralyse the enemy pieces.

• Target the weakest squares on the board.

• Increase and exploit a space advantage.

Master pressure play and it will be your opponent on the rack, not you.  352 pages

Do you want to do the same chess homework that world-famous grandmasters Fabiano Caruana, Robert Hess and Peter Heine Nielsen did in their formative years as chess players? This book will test you with hundreds of positions created by their coach Miron Sher (1952-2020). Just like Fabiano, Robert and Peter, you are not supposed to stop after the first move. You have to find the last move of the solution!

Miron Sher is one of those legendary coaches who got their chess education in the Soviet Union and in later years spread their knowledge in Western Europe and the United States. He was born in Ukraine, studied in Moscow, coached the Russian national team and emigrated to New York in 1997. There he taught at various schools and worked privately with dozens of students.

Dream Moves focuses on five themes that Sher considered important for chess improvement.

•     An unprotected piece – the trigger to start thinking tactics!
•     In-between moves – they help you spring a surprise on your opponent
•     Open files – a fundamental element of chess strategy
•     The 20% Rule – if your pawn has advanced to the 5th or 6th rank, moving it forward is quite often your best option
•     Dream Move – dream about the final, decisive move, and you will find the way there

The book contains close to one hundred illustrated games and more than three hundred puzzles. Do as the legends did - and use these puzzles to sharpen your tactical skills and improve your understanding of chess.

Miron Sher (1952-2020) is chess grandmaster and legendary coach. He was born in Ukraine, won a dozen international tournaments as a player, and became famous as a trainer in the United States where he lived since 1997. In New York he taught chess at multiple schools, including the Dalton School, IS 318 and Stuyvesant High School. He worked privately with dozens of students such as Fabiano Caruana, Robert Hess and Peter Heine Nielsen. 304 pages

The vast majority of chess games witness familiar strategies and well known tactical motifs. These are the games that you will find in the anthologies and opening repertoires. Sometimes however, games appear that seem to have been played on a different planet. 

Conventional strategies go out of the window. Familiar tactical themes are nowhere to be seen. Chaos has broken out. The pieces appear to be in open rebellion and are steadfastly refusing to do the natural jobs that they were designed for. 

Having to navigate a path in such a game can be a nightmare. Do you rely purely on calculation? Is it better to trust your instincts? Can you assess the position using “normal” criteria?

In order to answer these questions, prolific chess author and coach Cyrus Lakdawala has assembled a collection of brilliantly unconventional and irrational games. The positions in these games appear almost random. Kings have gone walkabout, pieces are on bizarre squares, huge pawn rollers are sweeping all before them. 

Irrational chess is like nothing you’ve seen before. As well as being highly instructive this is a hugely entertaining book. 

Do not adjust your set. It’s chess, Jim, but not as we know it.