Perfect Your Chess
Frankly, I’m not a big fan of books written by top players. They spend most of their time studying theory and I doubt they can afford switching to explanatory mode. I often browse list of Gambit Chess Publications where I spotted “Perfect Your Chess”
I ordered the book and started solving the examples. Unlike the usual study (opening lines…. boring!), this work was so smooth and enjoyable. And the solutions are not only dry move lines, authors are exercising great sense of humor - about king walk: “It is polite to come out and greet guests, but it should be better to stay indoors on this occasion…”.
From Introduction: “Therefore, in this book, we shall not try to teach you how to play better chess. Rather, we shall do something more valuable: we shall give you material, which will help to develop your thinking”. I think this is basically the only secret of the Soviet Chess School - they simply analyse a lot. Don’t get hooked with the flashy book titles by GM Lev Alburt and others, it’s only a cheap marketing trick. Better buy “Perfect Your Chess”
I should add that this book is aimed at the club players rated above 1800. Enjoy analysing!
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Perfect Your Chess - Sample « Chess Strategy said,
Wrote on October 2, 2007 @ 7:56 pm
[…] In yesterday’s post I recommended “Perfect Your Chess” by GM Andrei Volokitin and IM Vladimir Grabinsky. Here is one sample from the first chapter “Make a Move”. From the chapter intro: We set ourselves the task of choosing positions where it is sufficient to suggest only one move. Just as in a game, a player has to solve problems of various types, so here you will find a mix of quiet moves, zwischenzugs, winning moves, prophylactic moves, etc. […]
armis said,
Wrote on October 4, 2007 @ 10:00 am
Looks like an interesting book. My favorite books are the positional exercise ones. I think this is the most valuable chess lessone one can get from a book. “Perfect your chess” in another one of the kind, thanks for mentioning
Exercise IV « Chess Strategy said,
Wrote on October 9, 2007 @ 6:40 am
[…] Another sample from “Perfect Your Chess”. GM Volokitin and IM Grabinsky are commenting game moves as the best continuation, but I think there is even prettier tactical motif. […]
Modern Chess Planning « Chess Strategy said,
Wrote on November 10, 2007 @ 11:38 pm
[…] On Creta I had a chance to meet and talk to many Grandmasters. Andrei Volokitin, member of the Ukranian national team, is one of the authors of “Perfect Your Chess” that I praised so much. He prefered to give more writing credit to his coach IM Vladimir Grabinsky. […]