DUNNINGTON - Gambit Play

Books on how to improve your results over the board have been written before but in these changing times when chess has propelled onto the public consciousness, an update is badly needed. Grandmaster Daniel Gormally uses his 25+ years of experience to take the readers through the fires of the tournament cauldron, while illustrating some of his battles with the best players in England.
Along the way he tackles how to approach online play, an increasingly important issue as this form of chess has increased in popularity. Do you need a coach ? Will streamers relly help you to improve ? And should you turn off your computer ? Gormally emphasizes the importance of independent analysis in enabling the player to make progress and explains how he himself suffered in his results due to an over-reliance in chess engines.
And then there is the nitty gritty of tournament play itself. Gormally grapples with subjects that aren't covered in normal tournament books, from what hotels you should choose, to what kind of diet you need to follow, while also concluding that he lacks the awesome physical fitness of the Norwegian chess god Magnus Carlsen.
It all culminates in an explosive Hastings diary, where the author uses his acerbic wit to pull apart the vagaries of preparing for international competition in an account that verges on comic-tragic. 348 pages

Sergei Tiviakov was unbeaten in a streak of more than a hundred chess games as a professional player. Who better to share the secrets of Rock Solid Chess and the activity and value of pieces than Tiviakov?

The highly acclaimed first volume of his chess strategy trilogy dealt with pawn structures. In this second volume, Sergei moves on to discuss piece play and unique chessboard situations. Topics covered include the bishop pair, opposite-coloured bishops, centralization and the almost-ignored question of when and whether to castle.

Tiviakov also demonstrates how the value of pieces can vary drastically depending on their exact position. He shows how the entire assessment of a position, and the correct strategy for playing it, can be changed by moving a single pawn from one square to another.

In the final chapters, Tiviakov discusses how to play cramped and passive positions, how to play for a win with Black and how to choose your strategy, based on the opponent’s style and other psychological factors.

Illustrated with examples from classic games and from his own games, and supported by instructive exercises, Volume Two of Rock Solid Chess offers invaluable and unique instruction on topics not covered in traditional textbooks. These strategy lessons will significantly improve your chess and are suitable for all readers, from club players to grandmasters.

Sergei Tiviakov is a grandmaster, Olympic gold medallist, three-time Dutch Champion and European Champion.
Yulia Gökbulut is a FIDE Women's Master, chess author and sports writer from Turkey.

251 pages

Puisqu'on est dans le pédagogique, signalons donc la (re)sortie du cinquième et dernier tome de la série School of Future Champions - re puisqu'il s'agit en fait de la réédition de Attack and Defense paru naguère (1998) chez Batsford. Recommandable tout de même : les leçons de la Dvoretsky's Chess Scholl ne se périment pas si vite