"Chess Openings" explains the principles which underlie correct opening play and shows how they can be developed to produce strong positions for attack and defense in different situations. Mike Basman consolidates these lessons by investigating five classic openings--the Queen's Gambit, Giuoco Piano, Nimzo-Indian, Morra Gambit, and Sicilian Dragon--which together can be used to form the basis of a formidable opening repertoire.

Proper handling of Bishops in the Endgame is an important feature in today's chess and a must for every chess player who wants to climb the world's chess hierarchy. This book deals with all important themes and ideas on the world of Bishop endings.

Vassily Ivanchuk has been one of the World's leading chess players for over two decades. He announced his arrival as a 21-year-old when he defeated Garry Kasparov on the way to winning the Linares Super-Grandmaster event. In a distinguished career he has won countless elite tournaments and was a FIDE World Championship finalist. Ivanchuk is considered by many contemporaries to be a chess genius, and he has acquired a huge fan base that delights in his enterprising and creative play. His original style has helped to create games full of brilliant attacking chess and masterful strategy. In this book, Junior Tay invites you to join him in a study of his favourite Ivanchuk games, and shows us how we can all improve by learning from Ivanchuk's masterpieces. Move by Move provides an ideal platform to study chess. By continually challenging the reader to answer probing questions throughout the book, the Move by Move format greatly encourages the learning and practicing of vital skills just as much as the traditional assimilation of knowledge. Carefully selected questions and answers are designed to keep you actively involved and allow you to monitor your progress as you learn. This is an excellent way to improve your chess skills and knowledge.

This is the second book of the Thinkers' Chess Academy series. In the first book we started at a beginner's level with checkmates in 1, 2 or 3 moves and the most common tactical motifs. If you have already worked with the first book you will now be much more experienced and ready for some more difficult lessons. We will start with 50 combinations to refresh our memory of the motifs from the first book. Th e chess friends who have not read the first book can treat it as a kind of self-test. If you cannot solve many of the examples it may be better to go back and work through the first book again. It is not a good idea to leave basic knowledge out. It will certainly hinder your progress if you do so. In this book we will not only show you more tactical motifs, but we will also give you an introduction to the basics of chess strategy. You will learn the most important elements of strategy which will help you to find better plans and to understand positions better. At the end of the book a chapter with 50 checkmates of 5+ moves will show you techniques of how to attack or hunt the opponent's king and also how to improve your calculation skills and your imagination at the chessboard. Now enough of the prologue, let us go to work and learn lots about chess tactics and strategy! Have a lot of fun while studying chess and enjoy your improvement! Yours, Thomas Luther Grandmaster and FIDE senior trainer

The Najdorf is one of the most respected variations of the Sicilian Defence. Over decades it has remained a sound yet attacking weapon in the hands of the world's finest players including several world champions. Join Robert James Fischer, Kasparov, Anand, Topalov, MVL and legions of club players by playing for a win with Black using the Najdorf. Expert and Grandmaster Milos Pavlovic will be your practical and honest guide in this fifth book for Thinkers Publishing.

The Queen's Gambit Declined is one of the central pillars of chess opening theory. Virtually every world champion has played the opening with both the white and black pieces and it is a great favourite at all levels in chess. The reason for its enduring popularity is that it is rich in the classic strategic themes. Either side can end up with an isolated d-pawn, White can pursue a queenside initiative while Black counters on the other wing or White can attempt to build a powerful centre that Black hopes to undermine. ----- The Move by Move series provides an ideal format for the keen chessplayer to improve their game. While reading you are continually challenged to answer probing questions - a method that greatly encourages the learning and practising of vital skills just as much as the traditional assimilation of chess knowledge. Carefully selected questions and answers are designed to keep you actively involved and allow you to monitor your progress as you learn. This is an excellent way to study chess while providing the best possible chance to retain what has been learnt. ----- * Everything you need to know about the Queen's Gambit Declined . --- * The Q and A approach emphasizes plans and strategies. --- * Written by an expert on the opening.

If you have just picked up this book, the chances are that you are the proud owner of a piece of chess software. Whether this is the latest release of a sophisticated database package or a playing program that came free with a magazine, then this book will help you make the most of it.
Even basic chess software packages now usually have numerous interesting features and working out how to use these effectively is no easy task. Many players simply use a playing program to practice against and a database program just for storing and replaying games. Yet there is much more that can be achieved with such packages and this book will show you how the experts do it.
With this book you can: learn powerful techniques for organizing and managing your chess data; discover proven, effective methods to study the middlegame and endgame; learn how to most effectively harness the power of a chess engine; efficiently analyze your own strengths and weaknesses.

This book covers more than a hundred years of chess in the Civil Service, with information about the clubs, the individuals, the events they contested, the successes, and the arguments that sometimes resulted. Clubs regularly featured leading players of the day and the Civil Service representative team frequently beat strong counties in 50-board matches, as well as participating in a mammoth 500-board match against the rest of England. Names of chess clubs bring a whiff of nostalgia, with India Office, War Office and Civil Service Rifles no longer in existence. Leading players served their country not only in their departments, but at establishments like Bletchley Park in the Second World War. Several civil servants represented their country in international matches. Over a thousand players participated in the league at one stage.