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Gambit Chess Books - Chess Strategy
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How to Use Computers to Improve Your Chess
by Christian Kongsted
Editorial Review:
Computers have permeated almost every facet of modern chess, yet few players know how to gain the maximum benefit from working with them. Computers function as playing partners, opening study tools, endgame 'oracles', tactics trainers, sources of information on opponents and searchable game databases. Kongsted provides practical advice on how to use computers in all these ways and more. He also takes a look at the history of the chess computer, and how its 'thinking' methods have developed since the early days. The book features an investigation of human vs. machine contests, including the recent Kasparov vs. Deep Junior and Kramnik vs. Deep Fritz matches, in which honours ended even.
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The Grandmaster's Mind
by Amatzia Avni
Publication Date: October 30, 2004
Editorial Review:
This book investigates how chess-players find good ideas. Amatzia Avni, a psychologist by profession, pursues this goal by interviewing top players and analysts. The discussion focuses on their most interesting and instructive games and compositions.
Avni has been careful to allow his interviewees to convey their own thoughts, rather than direct their answers to comply with any pre-existing theories. We experience the events on the board through the vivid recollections of the player. This gives us a realistic view of each struggle and how the critical decisions were really made.
Avni also presents the players with some unfamiliar positions, and records their reactions upon encountering these new situations. Once we have heard from the grandmasters, Avni discusses the essence of what was said, and provides some insights and recommendations.
The interviewees include famous grandmasters such as Boris Gelfand, Ilia Smirin and Lev Psakhis.
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How To Play Dynamic Chess
by Valeri Beim
Publication Date: October 2004
Editorial Review:
Chess is fundamentally a dynamic game. Each move changes the situation and the possibilities for both sides. No piece is ever identically as valuable as any other, and their scope changes from move to move. The current generation of supergrandmasters plays unrelentingly dynamic chess, but a great deal of chess literature still deals with chess as if it were a predominantly static game. Much traditional chess teaching is based around rules of thumb that might work well 'on average' or in 'typical' situations, but these rules may not equip players for the specific and sometimes exceptional situations that they face in their games. In this book, Valeri Beim explains how to factor in dynamic considerations, and weigh initiative and time against material and other static factors. Topics include: dynamics, development, the king as a target, breakthrough, and the initiative.
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Modern Chess Analysis
by Robin Smith
Publication Date: September 2004
Editorial Review:
Chess analysis is nearly as old as the game itself, with many of the pioneering works by the giants of chess history being devoted to the analysis of positions, openings and endings. Personal computers and powerful chess software are having a profound effect on chess analysis and theory - most grandmasters use them extensively. However, this book does far more than explain methods for computer-assisted analysis. Readers will develop a deeper understanding of the strengths and limitations of the human mind, and a greater understanding of many areas of chess while working through the examples that Robin Smith presents. The many topics in this wide-ranging book include: Schematic thinking; Dynamic play vs. quiet manoeuvring; Fortresses; King Hunts and 'King Drift'; The Problem of Exchanging; Interactive Analysis.
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Secrets of Chess Transformations
by Drazen Marovic
Publication Date: July 2004
Editorial Review:
One of the most important skills in chess is the ability to transform one type of advantage into another. The great champions effortlessly convert an initiative into an attack, an attack into a material gain, and move into an endgame where this advantage can be exploited smoothly. Readers know from their own games that this is not as simple as it looks. It is all too easy to miss the right moment to make the transformation, and suddenly encounter unnecessary difficulties. In this wide-ranging text, experienced trainer Drazen Marovic discusses all aspects of chess transformations, enabling readers to sense when they are necessary, and to decide how to bring them about. This understanding will also help them to frustrate their opponents' plans, and put up a resilient defence in difficult positions. Topics include: pseudo-sacrifices, sacrificial risks, real sacrifices, counter-sacrifices, development advantage, overextension, and simplification.
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Understanding Your Chess
James Rizzitano
Publication Date: April 2004
Editorial Review:
Rizzitano presents lessons from his own experiences that will be most relevant to club and tournament players. He shows how by analyzing their own games, players can gain a greater understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, and he explains they can shape their approach to chess to make the most of their abilities. Major topics include: Developing a reliable and coherent opening repertoire; The importance of understanding opening theory rather than simply memorizing it; Theoretical novelties: finding your own, and facing the opponent's; Opening selection depending upon the nature of the game and event; Risk management and 'playing for a win'; Competing successfully against higher-rated opposition; Accumulating small advantages: a safe method when the opponent plays for a draw; The power of the initiative: lighting a fire and keeping it burning.
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Secrets of Positional Chess
by Drazen Marovic
Publication Date: December 2003
Editorial Review:
How can one determine if a piece is weak or strong? Or if a square is weak or strong? These are the principal questions that grandmaster and trainer Drazen Marovic addresses in this important book. By discussing carefully-chosen games and positions, Marovic explains how to recognize good and bad features of positions, and how to make use of one's advantages and exploit the opponent's weaknesses. One repeatedly sees 'weaknesses' that are unexploitable (and therefore are not weaknesses at all), possibilities of surrendering certain squares in order to gain more important ones, and material sacrifices to exploit major weaknesses. Topics include: outposts; strength and weakness on files and diagonals; vulnerabilities on the first and second ranks; static weakness and attack; and characteristics of the pieces.
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Decision-Making at the Chessboard
by Viacheslav Eingorn
Publication Date: December 2003
Editorial Review:
Chess is a game of decisions. As well as deciding about which move to play and which plan to adopt, players must also make practical decisions about how to use their clock time and whether to use intuition rather than trying to calculate every line to a finish. Viacheslav Eingorn draws upon his vast experience to provide guidance on how to weigh the various factors in positions and decide on the best course of action. He examines many practical examples and explains how the critical decisions were made, and investigates whether they were correct. By following Eingorn on this voyage of discovery, the reader will gain a greater understanding of decision-making and develop an enhanced feel for the harmonious use of intuition and calculation.
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Lessons in Chess Strategy
by Valeri Beim
Publication Date: November 2003
Editorial Review:
Following on from his successful book Chess Recipes from the Grandmaster's Kitchen, Valeri Beim serves up a further series of lessons on important general chess topics. His helpful advice will help you to handle a whole range of typical situations with greater confidence and understanding. These include: geometry of the chessboard; symmetrical pawn-structures; space advantage; central passed pawn in the middlegame; static and dynamic features. In each chapter there are exercises for the reader, with full solutions given.
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Essential Chess Sacrifices
by David Lemoir
Publication Date: November 2003
Editorial Review:
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.
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Chess Books 
