COLLINS - Gambit Busters

The English Opening is very popular nowadays, but 1.c4 e5! is a serious challenge and not to everyone's taste. Here comes 1.Nf3, with the idea to transfer the game into the English with c2-c4 to follow. The only hurdle on that path is 1...d5. Then White is at a crossroads. 2.c4 allows 2...d4 3.b4, while 2.e3 is an attempt to deny ...d4. Black can revive the threat with 2...c5, and again, White has a choice. 3.c4 d4 4.b4! leads to the Blumenfeld with reversed colours. Or he can continue to fight against ...d4 with 3.b3. White's decisions on the second and third move depends on the way he wants to meet the Queen's Gambit and the Slav/Meran/Chebanenko. Semkov covers in detail the different options, and also devotes several chapters on 1.Nf3 d5 2.e3 Nf6 3.c4 c6 and 3...e6 4.b3! (avoiding the innocuous version of the QGA after 4.Nc3 dxc4). There is another chapter on 1.Nf3 d5 2.e3 Nf6 3.c4 dxc4, where the absence of Nc3 allows White to get some pressure by refraining from d2-d4. 244 pages

Coach Christof has thoroughly revised and updated his 2018 best-selling chess opening manual. It covers everything you need to know when opening with 1.e4. You will get a complete White chess opening repertoire.

Why is this opening repertoire called simple? For the simple reason that the variations are easy to remember and require little or no maintenance.

International Master Christof Sielecki has created a hit series with his reliable opening lines for chess players of almost all levels. He developed this repertoire by working with students looking for something easy to understand and learn. Sielecki always clearly explains the plans and counter plans and keeps you focused on the position's requirements. Ambitious players rated 1500 or higher will benefit from studying this extremely accessible book.

Christof Sielecki is an International Master from Germany. He has taught and trained chess for many years and runs a popular YouTube channel called ChessExplained. He won numerous awards with his course on Chessable and has created three volumes of the Keep it Simple opening manuals.

Hardcover 630 pages

Improve Your Chess Now is a modern chess classic and one of the most inspiring chess improvement manuals. Adult improvers frequently name this book as one of their primary sources in the popular Perpetual Chess Podcast of Ben Johnson. The author is an American grandmaster now living in Norway. With infectious enthusiasm, Tisdall covers a wide range of topics, including visualization and calculation, pattern recognition, the psychological aspects of chess, the art of defence and the wisdom of blindfold chess - all still relevant more than 25 years later. The 1997 classic is reprinted with a modern design and a new foreword by the author.238 pages

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.

The g2-g4 (or ...g7-g5) pawn push is considered unconventional and often associated with backroom chess games or old-fashioned openings like the King’s Gambit.

Despite being one of the most weakening moves available, g2-g4 has been seen more frequently at the top level of chess.

While g2-g4 (or ...g7-g5) can lead to interesting fights, it also entails considerable risk and often results in messy, non-traditional positions with higher chances of mistakes.

It's crucial to remain objective and not get carried away by the excitement of launching an attack, as aggressive pawn pushes can quickly backfire.

The book aims to cover a wide range of chess openings involving g4 (...g5), regardless of whether the idea is strong, interesting, or unadvisable.

Over 50 games are analyzed, showcasing different scenarios where the g-pawn push is utilized, including attacking a short-castled king, challenging the stability of a knight on f3 (or ...Nf6), and seizing space on the kingside.

The examples illustrate a mix of these three reasons, with one prevailing in each case.

The authors, Pierre Laurent-Paoli & Christian Bauer, hope readers will enjoy exploring the lines presented in the book and implement them into their own play. 359 pages Hardcover

Q&A with the author, Alexander Delchev:

What does it take to become an expert in opening preparation? 

How can we learn the secret methods which allow the top players to dominate everyone else in the opening? 

Books can hardly be useful in this regard because modern books on openings, regardless of the level of the author, are very standard and straightforward. The title of this book claims to answer this question. Your author will then back up his claim with proof in the form of analysis from a strong engine. You are then left to decide whether or not to include these ideas in your opening repertoire. 

What is missing is some sort of guidance and advice relating to what sorts of tour­naments and against what sorts of players this idea should be employed. Moreover, every one of you has likely noticed that even the best opening idea still has a rela­tively short life span and can hardly be used in more than a few games. So far I have published about 10 books on openings and for me it is not a problem to publish another 10 or even more. However, in the modern era I believe the lifespan of an opening book is incredibly short as new games are constantly being played and new ideas are being found. 1 feel it would be much more useful to you if I uncover a new approach to opening preparation, which will be more long-lasting and will improve your play as well. 

The method of opening preparation I have used throughout my entire chess-playing career {1997 - 2018) allowed me, with relatively little effort, to be unpredictable the re by winning the psychological battle of the opening. Luring my opponents into prepared opening tricks and traps was great fun ! 

In the method which I will introduce you to in this book, the first and most im­portant aspect is adapting your approach to each individual opponent and perfect prediction of the opponent's opening choice, to the smallest details.