A break is generally an unexpected or sacrificial pawn move that can serve multiple purposes, including, but not limited to: Opening up files or diagonals - Directly attacking opponent's king - Gaining space - Freeing up a square (e.g. as an outpost for a knight) - Undermining opponent's pawn structure/chain - Creating a passed pawn Inspiration for this book came from reading Vladimir Kramnik's collection of games, which featured a special section on the pawn breakthroughs. Later studying the games of Mikhail Botvinnik, Carl Schlechter, the author also spotted their great ability to play with the pawns. In the book, the chapters are presented starting with Schlechter and ending with Kramnik, to reflect the development of chess thought. Sacrificial pawn breaks are very common in chess and happen in a wide variety of positions, from sharp opening theoretical positions - to seemingly calm endgames. The challenge in writing this book was not in finding examples, but rather in constraining from adding more and more illustrative games. That means that once you study this topic, you should be able to frequently use the acquired skills in many of your tournament games, making this knowledge of great value for a practical player. The book is filled with dozens of training questions so that before seeing the move played by the grandmaster - the reader can practice their skill and come up with an answer on their own. To see the solution to a position - just go to the next page in your e-reader.

Opening preparation in chess is always difficult and a lot of books have been written about this topic. The goal of this book is to illustrate how specific pawn structures should be studied for typical themes even if they arise from different openings. The pawn structure with (typically) White's isolated queen pawn on the 'd' file has been known for over a hundred years, and different players have shown best plans for both sides over the years. Historically, Mikhail Botvinnik popularized White's play, and positional players such as Karpov have performed well on the Black side of the same structure in several modern openings. At the same time, all strong modern grandmasters are well familiar with the principles of this pawn formation for both sides, and the goal of the book is to translate that knowledge on to the readers. Positions with isolated pawn test both positional and tactical skills of both sides. Despite the dynamic balance often present in these structures, whoever is more familiar with their ideas usually comes out on top. Given the wide prevalence of positions with isolated pawns, developing a skill for handling them is nearly guaranteed to improve your results, and the goal of this book is to guide an unfamiliar player through the basic ideas, as well as to explain the subtler points to those already familiar with the common plans in IQP structures. Tactical exercises throughout the book should reinforce the acquired knowledge. At the end of studying the material presented here, the reader should be able to not only find correct plans once the IQP structure appears on the board, but also correctly assess various transformations to and from the IQP positions and therefore be much more confident in a wide range of openings or structures that can lead to IQP or emerge from it. The publication is a follow up to the book 'The Break - Learn From Schlechter, Botvinnik and Kramnik', which also looks at various themes related to pawn structure.

One of the greatest books ever written about a world championship match. In 1960 Mikhail Botvinnik was the pillar of "scientific " chess and the ironwilled champion of the world. The young attacking genius Mihail Tal, the "Wizard of Riga," put the magic back into the game by defeating Botvinnik with spectacular tactics in one of the most dramatic and celebrated world championship matches of all time. This is Tal's own classic work on the contest. In it he sets the stage and explains every one of the 21 games, telling both the on- and off-the-board story of this tatanic clash of styles and thought. Take a trip with the Magician from Riga as he invites you to share his thoughts and feelings as he does battle for the world title. "Mikhail Tal's splendid account of his world championship match victory is one of the masterpieces of the golden age of annotation - before insights and feelings and flashes of genius were reduced to mere moves and Informant symbols. This is simply the best book written about a world championship match by a contestant. That shouldn't be a surprise because Tal was the finest writer to become world champion." - From the Foreword by International Grandmaster Andy Soltis

World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik writes the story of his three clashes for the world title with fellow Russian Vasily Smyslov. Botvinnik, one of the greatest chess players of all time, analyses all the games, reveals his match strategy, and comments on the strategic choices of his opponent. Not only an important historical document on the pinnacle of chess of the mid-20th century, but also a fascinating and highly instructive report.

The Life & Games of the Seventh World Chess Champion Vasily Smyslov, the seventh world champion, had a long and illustrious chess career. He played close to 3,000 tournament games over seven decades, from the time of Lasker and Capablanca to the days of Anand and Carlsen. From 1948 to 1958, Smyslov participated in four world championships, becoming world champion in 1957. Smyslov continued playing at the highest level for many years and made a stunning comeback in the early 1980s, making it to the finals of the candidates’ cycle. Only the indomitable energy of 20-year-old Garry Kasparov stopped Smyslov from qualifying for another world championship match at the ripe old age of 63! In this first volume of a multi-volume set, Russian FIDE master Andrey Terekhov traces the development of young Vasily from his formative years and becoming the youngest grandmaster in the Soviet Union to finishing second in the world championship match tournament. With access to rare Soviet-era archival material and invaluable family archives, the author complements his account of Smyslov’s growth into an elite player with dozens of fascinating photographs, many never seen before, as well as 49 deeply annotated games. German grandmaster Karsten Müller’s special look at Smyslov’s endgames rounds out this fascinating first volume. [This book] is an extremely well-researched look at his life and games, a very welcome addition to the body of work about Smyslov... – from the Foreword by Peter Svidler

In the course of a game of chess, questions continually arise that test a player's reasoning skills. Questions such as: - "Who has the better position?"- "Should I resolve the tension in the center?"- "How can I improve the placement of my pieces?"In this long-awaited extension of the classic Best Lessons of a Chess Coach, the reader is invited to take a seat in the classroom of a renowned chess teacher, and learn how to answer such questions while experiencing the beauty, logic, and artistry of great chess games. When Sunil Weeramantry lectures on the games of top grandmasters, one can imagine making decisions alongside them. When he lectures on his own games, one can also experience the personal excitement, disappointment, and satisfaction of a well-contested game of chess. The cumulative effect of studying these lessons is to give the aspiring player a wide range of tools with which to win.

When Mikhail Botvinnik lost the world championship in 1960 to the dazzling attacking player from Riga, Mikhail Tal, there seemed little chance of him regaining his title. Yet in the Return Match a year later, with a surprising demonstration of aggressive chess, Botvinnik completely outplayed his young opponent and ran out the easy winner. All 21 games of the match are deeply annotated.

Classic introduction offers superb coverage of all aspects, especially Middle Game, combination play. Hundreds of games analyzed. Over 340 diagrams.

The French Defence is a classical opening that has featured in the repertoire of many elite grandmasters. Black generally concedes a slight spacial disadvantage early but in return gains a sound structure and middlegame opportunities to undermine the white centre. A close study of the French Defence can be very rewarding for all players as the structures and themes that arise are found in numerous other openings. In this book grandmaster Damian Lemos guides the reader through the complexities of this dynamic opening and explores all the important variations. This series provides an ideal platform to study chess openings. By continually challenging the reader to answer probing questions throughout the book, the Move by Move format greatly encourages the learning and practising of vital skills just as much as the traditional assimilation of opening 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 any chess opening and at the same time improve your general chess skills and knowledge. * Essential guidance and training in the French Defence * Analyses all key variations * Utilizes an ideal Q+A approach to chess study

Magnus Carlsen is arguably the strongest player of all time. His dominance is such that every loss comes as a shock. They remind us that even he has his weak moments. In fact, identifying the root causes of his losses holds valuable lessons for all players. Cyrus Lakdawala’s search starts with a series of Magnus wins and draws to give the reader a feel for how incredibly difficult it is to beat him. The World Champion’s arsenal is awesome: a superlative ability to concentrate and calculate, near-perfect intuition, probably the best endgame technique ever, a wide and creative opening repertoire, a willingness to unbalance the position almost anytime, and last but not least: his unparalleled will to win. How to Beat Magnus Carlsen has a thematic structure, which, together with Lakdawala’s uniquely accessible style, makes its lessons easy to digest. Sometimes even Magnus gets outplayed, sometimes he over-presses and goes over the cliff’s edge, and sometimes he fails to find the correct plan. And yes, even Magnus Carlsen commits straightforward blunders. Lakdawala explains the how and the why. This fascinating collection includes the game that put an end to the longest non-losing streak in classical games in chess history. It lasted more than two years and 125(!) games, and ended when Jan-Krzysztof Duda beat Magnus Carlsen at the Altibox tournament in Stavanger on October 10, 2020. It’s wonderful to have a World Champion who is not just incredibly strong but who is also happy to experiment and take risks. That’s what makes Magnus Carlsen such a fascinating chess player. And that’s why he is the hero of this book. There is no doubt that Carlsen has examined all his losses under a microscope. If he benefits from this process, then so will we.