Muller & Schaeffer - Man vs. Machine

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.

Mikhail Tal is one of the most celebrated World Champions in chess history, who confounded his opponents and dazzled chess fans around the world. Seemingly breaking every rule in the book, yet also breaking records with his accomplishments, Tal truly was The Chess Alchemist.

In this unique book, Oleg Stetsko has compiled 80 of Tal’s most interesting games, as annotated by the Magician himself in a variety of sources, many of which have been translated into English for the very first time here.

Mikhail Tal became World Champion in 1960 by defeating the great Mikhail Botvinnik. Tal’s play is famed for its sacrificial brilliance, and he is also renowned as a witty and lively writer. 384 pages

I sincerely hope that you, dear readers, will enjoy the wonderful masterpieces you will find in this book. In addition to the authors, some of Drasko’s contemporaries were also involved in the writing, and they immediately responded with pride and love to the request to keep the memory of the Serbian genius alive. I would like to thank all those who participated in this project.

To the Grandmasters who wrote down their own memories of Drasko Velimirovic, which you will find in this book in special ”boxes”. To the contemporaries, friends, and comrades-in-arms of ”Boss” who remember this or that anecdote, this or that event, this or that memory.

This second volume covers Drasko’s life and chess from 1976 until 2011. 380 pages