Sacrifice and Initiative in Chess


Book Description

lThe sacrifice is one of the most beautiful, rewarding and complex aspects of chess. During a game the decision to give up material in order to get an advantage is probably the most difficult one a player has to take. Often, you have to burn your bridges without being able to fully calculate the consequences. Risks and rewards are racing through your mind, fighting for precedence while the clock keeps ticking. Now is the moment, because after the next move the window for this opportunity may be closed. In this book Ivan Sokolov presents a set of practical tools that will help you to master the art of sacrifice. By concentrating on the aim you are trying to achieve, rather than on the opening you are playing or the piece you might be going to sack, he teaches you how to come to a reasonable risk assessment and how to trust your intuition. There is a separate part on seizing the initiative without actually giving up material. Ivan Sokolov has written an entertaining and instructive guide, packed with useful advice and lots of practical examples.




The Art of Sacrifice in Chess


Book Description

The 21st Century Edition of Spielmann’s Classic Work Austrian Grandmaster Rudolf Spielmann’s The Art of Sacrifice in Chess first appeared in the mid-1930s. It was immediately recognized as a classic, a masterpiece that examined the nature of chess sacrifices. In this modernized, 21st century edition, all of Spielmann’s original work has been preserved. The antiquated English Descriptive Notation has been replaced with modern Figurine Algebraic, and German grandmaster Karsten Müller has added his own notes to Spielmann’s original text. But the German grandmaster has gone far beyond simply inserting clarifying commentary. Müller has virtually doubled the size of the original work by adding eleven new chapters, including: The Greek Gift Sacrifice Bxh2/7+; Disaster on g7; The Achilles’ Heel f7; Strike at the Edge; Destroying the King’s Shelter; Sacrifices on f6; Sacrifices on e6; The Magic of Mikhail Tal; Shirov’s Sacrifices; and The Fine Art of Defense. There are exercises at the end of each new chapter to help you hone your skill of sacrificing. “Grandmaster Karsten Müller’s notes to the original text, along with the new material, brilliantly complements Spielmann’s classic work. A welcome addition to any chessplayer’s library...” – Garry Kasparov




Essential Chess Sacrifices


Book Description

Sacrifices are an essential part of chess. Those who never consider sacrificing will miss countless opportunities and find that promising positions repeatedly slip away. Players who do not appreciate their opponents' sacrificial possibilities will be unable to see danger signs, and find themselves on the wrong end of too many king-hunts. Rather than merely cataloguing the various possibilities and providing examples, LeMoir discusses the possible follow-ups to the sacrifices, the defensive options against them, and the positional factors that might suggest whether the sacrifice will be sound or unsound. There are many important types of chess positions that can only be played well by those who understand the thematic sacrifices that are possible.




Find the Right Plan with Anatoly Karpov


Book Description

• One of the world's greatest chess players reveals the secrets of how he plans his play • Packed with invaluable information on how to mobilise your forces, avoid threats and win the game • Illustrated with a wealth of annotated examples from the author's own games The legendary Anatoly Karpov has won over 250 Grandmaster tournaments, many more than any other player in chess history, and his games are characterised by his gradually and patiently pushing an opponent back to the wall, before finally finishing him off with a deadly blow. In this unique book, aimed at ordinary club players, Karpov gives a wealth of tips on how to incorporate this dramatic style of play into your own repertoire, through careful planning and evaluation of positions: looking at the fire-power of your forces, being aware of threats to your own king and how to safeguard it, and careful control of open lines. As he says himself: 'Finding the right plan is the key to success'. Warmily and accessibly written, but with Karpov's usual air of authority, this book makes you feel like you are spending an evening with the man himself, and will help you to absorb a little bit of the Karpov magic.




Beyond Material


Book Description

In order to win a game of chess you very often have to sacrifice material. Gathering the courage to do so while accurately assessing the potential benefits is a real challenge. The big question is always: what’s my compensation? Generations of chess players grew up with the idea that a sacrifice was correct if the material was swiftly returned, with interest. Almost by reflex, they spent lots of time counting, quantifying the static value of their pieces. But is that really the best way to determine the correctness of a sacrifice? In this book, Grandmaster Davorin Kuljasevic teaches you how to look beyond the material balance when you evaluate positions. With loads of instructive examples he shows how the actual value of your pieces fluctuates during the game, depending on many non-material factors. Some of those factors are space-related, such as mobility, harmony, outposts, structures, files and diagonals. Other factors are related to time, and to the way the moves unfold: tempo, initiative, a threat, an attack. Modern chess players need to be able to suppress their need for immediate gratification. In order to gain the upper hand you often have to live with uncertain compensation. With many fascinating examples, Kuljasevic teaches you the essential skill of taking calculated risks. After studying Beyond Material, winning games by sacrificing material will become second nature to you.




Winning Chess Middlegames


Book Description

AWARDS: Shortlisted for the Guardian Chess Book of the Year Award Runner-up for the English Chess Federation 2009 Book of the Year Award CHESS Magazine: Best Books of 2009 Back in Print! Ever wondered why grandmasters take only seconds to see what’s really going on in a chess position? It’s all about structures, as Grandmaster Ivan Sokolov explains in this groundbreaking book. ‘Winning Chess Middlegames’ addresses the often ignored but extremely important topic of pawn structures, divided into four main types: doubled pawns, isolated pawns, hanging pawns and pawn majorities. With its highly accessible verbal explanations and deep analyses of top-level games, this book helps you to solve the basic problems of the middlegame: space, tension and initiative. Club players studying this book will:greatly enhance their middlegame skills, develop an accurate feeling as to which particular positions suit their style and acquire new strategic and practical opening knowledge. Ivan Sokolov explains matters profoundly, honestly and objectively including lots of inside stories from top-level chess, neither sparing his colleague grandmasters nor himself in his comments. With a foreword by British Grandmaster Michael Adams.




Mastering Positional Sacrifices


Book Description

Most chess games of beginners and post-beginners are decided by fairly straightforward tactics. Anyone who wants to progress beyond this level and become a strong club player or a candidate master, needs to understand that somewhat mysterious-looking resource, the positional sacrifice. International Master Merijn van Delft has studied and loved positional sacrifices for as long as he can remember. This non-forcing tool is not just a surprising and highly effective way of creating a decisive advantage during a game. Positional sacrifices are also instruments of superior beauty. Van Delft has created a unique thematic structure for all types of positional sacrifices. He shows the early historical examples, explains which long-term goals are typical for each fundamental theme and presents lots of instructive modern examples. He then concentrates on those sacrifices that have become standard features of positional play. Solving the exercises he has added will further enhance your skills. Playing a positional sacrifice will always require courage. Merijn van Delft takes you by the hand and not only teaches the essential technical know-how, he also helps you to recognize the opportunities when to take the plunge. Mastering Positional Sacrifices is bound to become a modern-day classic.




Bullet Chess


Book Description

Chess in the Fast Lane! Can anyone play a decent game of chess in one minute? Surprisingly, the answer is "Yes" as this unique book reveals. "Bullet” chess, where each player has one minute for the entire game, has attracted thousands of followers since it was popularized on the internet a decade ago. In this book the authors discuss the relationship between the position on the board and time on the clock, the techniques and dangers of "pre-moving,” bullet openings, the importance of the initiative and consistent strategy, and how endings are different in bullet chess. The authors also explore the psychology of bullet chess and the most common causes of tactical oversights and blunders. The many examples illustrate the principles of bullet chess and how they may even apply to blitz chess and time scrambles in standard chess. Most of all, bullet chess is shown to be entertaining and addictive, and not at all as random as it first appears.




Chess Analytics


Book Description

Analytics The Method of Logical Analysis You are invited to take an instructive journey with one of the most successful chess coaches of our era, Greek grandmaster Efstratios Grivas. Over 40 critical aspects of the royal game are examined by this experienced, well-respected trainer. Grivas presents almost 240 games, most with complete scores to assist comprehension, illustrating his themes with practical, insightful examples and explanations. And the convenient structure of the book is such that the reader may pick and choose the topics in any order. There is a broad range of the subjects which are covered. You will find well-known subjects like back rank mate combinations, chapters about isolated pawns, strong squares, etc., as well as less commonly presented patterns, such as the chapters �False Guards” or �The King�s Golden Cage.” Topics include: Pinning, Shattered Pawns, the Weak d5-square, Doubled f-pawns, the Double Exchange Sacrifice, the f4 Break, Planning, Opening Diagonals, Small Advantages, Sacrifices for the Initiative, Rook vs. Bishop Pair, Pawns on the Seventh Rank and many more! The guiding principle of these themes is their practical value. This is particularly true in the endgame section where the author deals with structures which occur relatively often but are rarely presented in chess literature. The structure of each chapter is clear and methodical. The concept is explained in a few lines and illustrated in carefully selected, annotated master games. A conclusion with practical hints rounds off each section.




The Complete Book of Chess Strategy


Book Description

An easy-to-understand guide to chess strategy -- conceptual planning -- has always been the amateur's dream. This book makes that dream a reality. This comprehensive guide in dictionary form, the first of its kind, makes all aspects of chess strategy quick, easy, and painlessly accessible to players of all degrees of strength. Each strategic concept is listed alphabetically and followed by a clear, easy-to-absorb explanation accompanied by examples of how this strategy is used in practice. Such great World Champions as Steinitz, Capablanca, Petrosian, Fischer, and Karpov have used these strategies in virtually all of their games. Now you can arm yourself with their weapons. As you incorporate these weapons into your own play, they will enrich your appreciation of the game and lead you to one beautiful victory after another.