The Road To Chess Improvement

In this exciting new book, a US Champion provides solutions to the real-life problem of improving one's chess. Grandmaster Alex Yermolinsky, one of the strongest players in the US, passes on many of the insights he has gained over years of playing and teaching, steering the reader away from 'quick-fix' approaches, and focussing on the critical areas of chess understanding and over-the-board decision-making. A large part of this book discusses a variety of important opening set-ups, including methods for opposing off-beat but dangerous lines, such as the Grand Prix Attack. This entertainingly written book breaks new ground in many areas of chess understanding.

‘How can I learn from AlphaZero’s games, aren’t they too advanced for me?’ many club players asked Matthew Sadler after reading his and Natasha Regan’s groundbreaking Game Changer. Here is the answer: you may not be able to replicate their dazzling deep calculations, but every chess player, from club level up, can improve their game by using engines. You will probably be surprised, there is so much more your engine can do for you than just checking and calculating variations! In this thought-provoking new book, based on many years of working with the world’s best chess software, Sadler presents a unique set of methods to work out using your engine. He shows how in your opening preparation, instead of sifting through masses of computer analysis you should play matches against your engine. He also explains how to train your early middlegame play, the conversion of advantages, your positional play, and your defence. And of course: how to analyse your own games. These generic training methods Sadler supplements with concrete middlegame and opening tools. He explains how the top engines tackle crucial middlegame themes such as entrenched pieces, whole board play, ‘attacking rhythm’, exchanging pieces, the march of the Rook’s pawn, queen versus pieces, and many others. He also opens your eyes to typical scenarios that the engines found and fine-tuned in popular openings such as the King’s Indian, the Grünfeld, the Slav, the French and the Sicilian. Sadler illustrates his lessons with a collection of fantastic games, explained with his trademark enthusiasm. For the first time the superhuman powers of the chess engine have been decoded to the benefit of all players, in a rich and highly instructive book.

Every chess player wants to improve, but many, if not most, lack the tools or the discipline to study in a structured and effective way. With so much material on offer, the eternal question is: ‘How can I study chess without wasting my time and energy?’ Davorin Kuljasevic provides the full and ultimate answer, as he presents a structured study approach that has long-term improvement value. He explains how to study and what to study, offers specific advice for the various stages of the game and points out how to integrate all elements in an actionable study plan. How do you optimize your learning process? How do you develop good study habits and get rid of useless ones? What study resources are appropriate for players of different levels? Many self-improvement guides are essentially little more than a collection of exercises. Davorin Kuljasevic reflects on learning techniques and priorities in a fundamental way. And although this is not an exercise book, it is full of instructive examples looked at from unusual angles. To provide a solid self-study framework, Kuljasevic categorizes lots of important aspects of chess study in a guide that is rich in illustrative tables, figures and bullet points. Anyone, from casual player to chess professional, will take away a multitude of original learning methods and valuable practical improvement ideas.

This new 3rd edition has, besides various corrections and improvements, a new introduction and a brand-new chapter called ‘Total Control’. In this 35-page chapter Grooten adds the final instructive brick to his formidable, yet very accessible, building: inspired by Tigran Petrosian’s playing style he explains amateurs how to exploit small advantages. With a new set of exercises. ---- Every club player knows the problem: the opening has ended, and now what? First find the right plan, then the good moves will follow! With this book, International Master Herman Grooten presents to amateur players a complete and structured course on: how to recognize key characteristics in all types of positions how to make use of those characteristics to choose the right plan His teachings are based on the famous "Elements" of Wilhelm Steinitz, but Grooten has significantly expanded and updated the work of the first World Champion. He supplies many modern examples, tested in his own practice as a coach of talented youngsters. In Chess Strategy for Club Players you will learn the basic elements of positional understanding: -- pawn structure -- piece placement -- lead in development -- open files -- weaknesses -- space advantage -- king safety -- exploiting small advantages. The author also explains what to do when, in a given position, the basic principles seem to point in different directions. Each chapter of this fundamental primer ends with a set of highly instructive exercises.

Traditionally, chess games have been divided into three stages - opening, middlegame and endgame - and general principles presented for how to handle each stage. All chess-players will be well aware that these principles all too frequently fail to help in their selection of the best move. In this important work, Lars Bo Hansen, grandmaster and professional educator, presents chess as a game of five phases, and explains the do's and don'ts in each: * the opening * the transition to the early middlegame * the middlegame * strategic endgames * technical endgames * With a wealth of examples from both his own practice and that of his colleagues, Hansen discusses the typical mistakes and pitfalls, and shows how to handle the subtleties unique to each stage. He also advises on how to work on your chess in each aspect of the game. Of special value is his explanation of how to study typical middlegames, and that middlegame preparation - a neglected area for most players - is both possible and necessary.

In an guide to developing a more effective thinking process for chess, an instructor evaluates how players at all levels approach analytical positions and offers lessons based on his findings to help players avoid typical flaws.

Chess players often reach a certain level and subsequently seem unable to become any stronger. They attain solid and even promising positions without having any well formulated ideas of how to continue the game. They frequently do not understand the strategic requirements of the niceties which go into the building up of a strong position. The Road to Chess Mastery is a collection of 25 games annotated specifically for the purpose of showing how to improve their chess. All phases of chess technique are included: discussions of the basic ideas behind modern openings, explanations of the handling of typical middle game positions, consideration of certain endgames, examples of the kind of technical analysis a chess player must make before deciding on the next move. Through an introduction that explains how the ordinary chess player can improve in the various phases of the game of chess, and in enlightening commentaries far more extensive than space permits in an ordinary annotated game, former World Champion Dr. Max Euwe shows how a chess player should think, by indicating the moves for all but the most obvious moves of each game. By applying what he learns in this work the reader may, indeed, find himself traveling the road to chess mastery.

The chess playing mind does not work like a machine. Selecting a move results from rather chaotic thought processes and is not the logical outcome of applying a rational method. The only problem with that, says International Master Willy Hendriks, is that most books and courses on improving at chess claim exactly the opposite. The dogma of the chess instruction establishment is that if you only take a good look at certain ‘characteristics’ of a position, then good moves will follow more or less automatically. But this is not how it happens. Chess players, weak and strong, don’t first judge the position, then formulate a plan and afterwards look at moves. It all happens at the same time, and pretending that it is otherwise is counterproductive. There is no use in forcing your students to mentally jump through theoretical hoops, according to experienced chess coach Hendriks. This work shows a healthy distrust of accepted methods to get better at chess. It teaches that winning games does not depend on ticking off a to-do list when looking at a position on the board. It presents club and internet chess players with loads of much-needed no-nonsense training material. In this provocative, entertaining and highly instructive book, Hendriks shows how you can travel light on the road to chess improvement!