If you want to become a chess master, there are certain things you need to know – essential tips and techniques that the masters know, and you need to learn. This incredibly useful book collects all these techniques together in one volume, so you can try them out, tick them off, and start on your path towards chess greatness. Arranged in chapters covering every aspect of chess, from openings to endgames, renowned chess author Andrew Soltis provides top 20 rundowns of these specific positions and techniques: chapters include Top 20 Sacrifices, Top 20 Crucial Middlegame Decisions, Top 20 Endgame Techniques and Top 20 Exact Endgames. Written in Andrew Soltis's eternally engaging and accessible style, this book will prove invaluable to any player who wants to become a chess master.

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

Ilya Maizelis's masterpiece is the definitive introduction to the game of chess. It has inspired generations of Russians to take up the game, including arguably the two greatest players of all time, the 12th and 13th World Champions. In the original Russian, this landmark work is simply called "Chess"--no other explanation was considered necessary. The Soviet Chess Primer is a modern English translation of Maizelis's witty introduction to the royal game. This new edition of a timeless classic includes an original foreword from the 2nd World Champion, Emanuel Lasker, as well as an introduction from the most celebrated chess trainer of modern times, Mark Dvoretsky.

Grandmaster Alexander Panchenko (1953-2009) was one of the most successful chess trainers in the Soviet Union, and later in Russia. Panchenko ran a legendary chess school that specialised in turning promising players into masters. The secret of his success were his dedication and enthusiasm as a teacher combined with his outstanding training materials. ‘Pancha’ provided his pupils with systematic knowledge, deep understanding and the ability to take practical decisions. Now, Panchenko’s classic Mastering Chess Middlegames is for the first time available in translation, giving club-players around the world access to this unique training method. The book contains a collection of inspiring lessons on the most important middlegame topics: attack, defence, counterplay, realising the advantage, obstructing the plans of your opponent, the battle of the heavy pieces, and much more. In each chapter, Panchenko clearly identifies the various aspects of the topic, formulates easy-to-grasp rules, presents a large number of well-chosen examples and ends with a wealth of practical tests. The brilliance of Alexander Panchenko’s didactic method shines through in this book. It is hard to give better advice for ambitious chess players than to follow this tried-and-tested and highly instructive road towards mastering the chess middlegame.

Today’s young players have benefited greatly from working with chess computers. There is little doubt that advanced software and electronic training programs have significantly contributed to the rise of the overall standard of play. But there is a downside as well. Many young chess players see the computer as the ultimate answer to nearly everything. They think that computer analysis is the best and fastest way to find the truth in any position on the board. Inevitably, those players have gradually stopped thinking and analysing for themselves. The prominent Russian chess trainer Alexander Kalinin argues that what you need to make real progress is not more computer input, but increased understanding. To fully digest all available data and to discover the ultimate secrets of chess you must dislodge your decision making from your addiction to the computer and (re)develop the habit of using your own brain. Kalinin helps players seeking the master title by showing how concrete knowledge leads to improved decisions at the board. He stresses the essence of the classics and the importance of human interaction in reaching analytical mastery. Kalinin provides a wealth of training material. The vast majority of his examples has never been published before. He reveals the mistakes he himself made as a candidate master and mostly uses games of players who themselves are on the road to chess mastery.

A complete, easy-to-use program for teaching and self-study of chess, in this series of books co-written by Roman Pelts and Lev Alburt, Grandmaster of Chess and three-time U.S. Chess Champion.

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

Based on six games played by the “Kasparov generation” of Soviet chess players, America’s foremost chess coach and game strategist for Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit presents a complete course in intermediate chess logic.​ The “Kasparov generation” of Soviet chess players is perhaps the best-trained crop of young players ever to come out of the country, holding the world title for 55 of the last 60 years. With the clarity of instruction for which he is renowned, Bruce Pandolfini illustrates such concepts as Light Squares, Time, Attack, Pawn Advances, and Counterattack in six chapters structured around each of the six games. Featuring a Grandmaster Glossary, 101 diagrams, an index, and algebraic notation throughout, this uniquely crafted volume puts the most valuable concepts in world-class chess at the intermediate player’s fingertips.

The world's top trainer, Mark Dvoretsky, and one of his best-known pupils, grandmaster Artur Yusupov, present a five-volume series based on courses given to talented young players throughout the world. The books contain contributions by other leading trainers and grandmasters, as well as games by pupils who have attended the courses. In this first volume the reader is shown how to assess his strengths and weaknesses, analyze his own games, and learn from the rich heritage of the past by a study of the chess classics. Over a hundred graded test positions provide ample material for self-improvement.

*****English Chess Federation Book of the Year 2021***** In his three-volume treatise, leading Russian chess historian Sergey Voronkov vividly brings to life the long-forgotten history of the Soviet championships held in 1920-1953. Volume I covers the first 10 championships from 1920-1937, as well as the title match between Botvinnik and Levenfish. The key contestants also include world champion Alekhine and challenger Bogoljubov, lesser-known Soviet champions Romanovsky, Bogatyrchuk, Verlinsky, and Rabinovich, and names that today will be unfamiliar yet were big stars at the time: Riumin, Alatortsev, Makogonov, Rauzer, Ragozin, Chekhover, and many others. This book can be read on many levels: a carefully selected collection of 107 of the best games, commented on mostly by the players themselves, supported by computer analysis. A detailed and subtly argued social history of the Soviet Chess School and of how chess came to occupy such an important role in Soviet society. A discussion of how the chess community lost its independence and came to be managed by Party loyalists. A portrayal of how the governing body and its leader, Nikolai Krylenko, strived to replace an entire generation of free-thinking chess masters with those loyal to the state. A study of how the authorities' goals changed from wanting to use chess as a means of raising the culture of the masses to wanting to use chess to prove the superiority of the Soviet way of life. Or a sometimes humorous, often tragic history of talented, yet flawed human beings caught up in seismic events beyond their control who just wanted to play chess. This book is illustrated with around 170 rarely seen photos and cartoons from the period, mostly taken from 1920s-1930s Russian chess magazines. As Garry Kasparov highlights in his foreword "this book virtually resembles a novel: with a mystery plot, protagonists and supporting cast, sudden denouements and even 'author's digressions' - or, to be exact, introductions to the championships themselves, which constitute important parts of this book as well. These introductions, with wide and precise strokes, paint the portrait of the initial post-revolutionary era, heroic and horrific at the same time. I've always said that chess is a microcosm of society. Showing chess in the context of time is what makes this book valuable even beyond the purely analytical point of view."