Two of the most renowned chess trainers in the world, introduce and explain the revolutionary ideas of their old friend and mentor, Igor Platonov. Platonov was one of the most profound thinkers and theoreticians in the old Soviet Union, which held a grip on the world chess championship for decades, as the title passed from one of its stars to another. For intermediate players to grandmasters, Platonov's visionary insights, examined and explained here for the first time, provide you with the keys to understanding the foundational concepts of the game, strengthening your chess understanding and giving you effective methods to help you find the most powerful moves in the game.

The dramatic 2016 World Championship match in New York City stunned the chess world, as Sergey Karjakin fought champ Magnus Carlsen to a tie until matters had to be settled in a rapid-play shootout. You'll learn chess tactics and strategies from the best players in the world, as a top team of writers-including a former world champion--explains the moves.

This book saves you years of hit-and-miss reading and sporadic improvement because it gathers together the crucial, game-winning knowledge in one easy-to-carry volume. Each position gives you an important piece of practical chess knowledge. This time-efficient approach leads to the deepest understanding of the game. This is the sixth but stand-alone volume of the Comprehensive Chess Course.

Chess For the Gifted and Busy cuts through the mysteries of strategy and tactics to show you just what you need to know and delivers all the essential knowledge.

Chess strategy is the long-term planning at the heart of winning chess. Each important idea is clearly explained using games carefully chosen for their instructive clarity and power. This is the fifth but stand-alone volume of the Comprehensive Chess Course, the series that brings readers of English the once strictly guarded Russian training methods.

It's been said that "tactics are 99% of chess." This third volume of the Comprehensive Chess Course teaches you the basic tools of winning chess with instructive and memorable examples. Grandmasters Alburt and Palatnik thoroughly explain hundreds of key positions arranged by difficulty and designed to sharpen tactical recognition and vision in your own games. Nothing is left to chance in this work. All materials have already shown their worth in Russian chess instruction.

GM Alburt's Comprehensive Chess Course brings English readers the once strictly guarded and time-tested Russian training methods, the key to the 50-year Russian dominance of world chess. Comprehensive Chess Course takes you from beginner to master.

Chess Training Pocket Book II is a sequel to the best-selling Chess Training Pocket Book: 300 Most Important Positions and Ideas. In the same tradition, this follow-up volume will save you years of hit-and-miss reading and sporadic improvement because it gathers together for you the crucial, game-winning knowledge in one easy-to-carry book.

It will test, train, and sharpen your thinking skills. Each carefully chosen position offers a crucial building block in your chess knowledge.

This book provides readers with all the essential information they need to learn chess and to start winning-quickly! The contents-tested and proven to work-leave little to chance. The reader learns the rules, how to apply them efficiently, the principles of winning chess, and how to visualize the board and pieces-all prerequisites for success. This is the first volume (Fifth Edition; time-tested for twenty-five years!) of the Comprehensive Chess Course Series: From Beginner to Master and Beyond. Each of its fourteen volumes stands on its own; together, they create a truly unique, and very practical, work.

For the last ten years Grandmaster Lev Alburt has been writing a very special monthly column for the U. S. Chess Federation s magazine, Chess Life. Nontitled readers are asked to contribute their most instructive games, with generous annotations. From dozens of entries, Lev chooses for his column one he considers to be of greatest value for CL s readers, adding his own comments and advice. For this book, Lev has selected forty of his best columns, arranged by theme, and has added some new material, all to make A Fresh Look at Chess truly instructional and also fun to read and learn from. Most chess books have been written by grandmasters and use only the hard-to-understand games of grandmasters to help amateurs. This book uses a new, complementary and very effective approach: amateur games reveal the mistakes your opponents will make, and show you how to capitalize on them."

"Chess Rules of Thumb" gives you the winning principles of chess in clear, short statements. Three-time US Champion Lev Alburt and World Chess Hall of Fame Curator Al Lawrence have put together three centuries of insights from the masters. Fun to browse or to read from cover-to-cover, it's a book that all chess playersfrom beginners to grandmasterslwiull enjoy for a lifetime. Like life, chess has its rules. The difference that your parents probably didn't tell you about chess. "Never cross the street before looking both ways." "Never discuss portable explosives in the airport security line." "Never overthrow the cut-off man." "Never download email from someone you don't know." "Never take the queen's knight pawn." Save hours of head-scratching and uncertainty in your own games and understand why the masters make the moves they do: "The worst square for a White knight is b.2." "With rook vs. two knights, exchanging queens is worth a pawn." "Never capture the b.2 pawn with the queen." "Rooks united on the seventh are blind pigs." "The winner is the one who commits the next-to-last mistake." Backed up with diagrams and illustrations to help you remember key principles, a glossary of essential chess terms and a rundown on all major openings, "Chess Rules of Thumb" will improve your chess play. And it's great fun to read "Never buy a chess book that isn't fun "

Volume 1: Fundamentals of the Game
Volume 2: Beyond the Basics

Increase your skill and understanding of chess with the tactics that have produced unparalleled Russian grandmasters.

Russia's dominance in modern chess was founded on a uniquely successful program of chess instruction. Now this program has been streamlined and adapted for American readers in a pair of books that will help readers develop, step by step, from total novicehood to an enjoyable and competitive recreational level.

Volume 1 covers the fundamentals of the game, from beginning strategies to energetic endgames. Learn from the start not just how the pieces move, but also where and why to move them.

Volume 2 goes beyond the basics to cover advanced strategy, hard-hitting openings, and classic attack and defense tactics. Both books sharpen and test your chess skills with practical, educational "chessercizes" that make your movements more muscular.

Advance in the game—and have fun doing it—using the techniques that produced a long line of Soviet champions.

"Quite simply, the quickest way to learn chess the right way."—Grandmaster Larry Evans, five-time US champion

Volume 1: Fundamentals of the Game
Volume 2: Beyond the Basics

Increase your skill and understanding of chess with the tactics that have produced unparalleled Russian grandmasters.

Russia's dominance in modern chess was founded on a uniquely successful program of chess instruction. Now this program has been streamlined and adapted for American readers in a pair of books that will help readers develop, step by step, from total novicehood to an enjoyable and competitive recreational level.

Volume 1 covers the fundamentals of the game, from beginning strategies to energetic endgames. Learn from the start not just how the pieces move, but also where and why to move them.

Volume 2 goes beyond the basics to cover advanced strategy, hard-hitting openings, and classic attack and defense tactics. Both books sharpen and test your chess skills with practical, educational "chessercizes" that make your movements more muscular.

Advance in the game—and have fun doing it—using the techniques that produced a long line of Soviet champions.

"Quite simply, the quickest way to learn chess the right way."—Grandmaster Larry Evans, five-time US champion

Amateur chess players have a new weapon in the battle to improve their game. Based on the famous, formerly secret "From Beginner to Master" course of study developed over decades in the Soviet Union, the Comprehensive Chess Course provides students with all the essential information they need to learn chess and then to improve their skills steadily and efficiently. The contents of this book and its companion volume 2 (sold separately) include every diagram and every problem, and leave little to chance. The Course is filled with what has worked well in practice in Russian classrooms and teaches all the rules of chess, all the fundamentals, and how to visualize the board and pieces the prerequisite for success in chess.

Russia's dominance in modern chess was founded on a successful programme of instruction. This volume and its companion is based on that instruction programme, which should help readers develop from beginner to expert. It incorporates easy-to-follow strategic concepts to build the player's skills to the tournament level. Through instructional chapters and practice sections featuring exercise and game situations, the book shows how to advance in the game using the techniques that produced champions.