Rook Endgames from Morphy to Carlsen (Chess Endings)

Humor & Entertainment

Bogdanov, Valentin

Puzzles & Games

Gambit Publications

Chess Explained books provide an understanding of an opening and the middlegames to which it leads, enabling you to find the right moves and plans in your own games. It is as if you were sitting at the board with a chess coach answering your questions about the plans for both sides, the ideas behind particular moves, and what specific knowledge you need to have. The French Defence is one of the most important chess openings. Its qualities are such that it appeals to a wide range of chess temperaments: it is solid yet uncompromising, and with a variety of chaotic variations to appeal to the most bloodthirsty of players, but also offering more tranquil lines to those seeking a quieter existence. While it is hard for White to avoid at least some imbalance in the position, he also has a wide choice. In some of the most critical lines, he accepts major structural weaknesses in return for piece-play and dynamic chances, while he can also seek to establish a modest space advantage without such heavy positional commitments.

Chess Explained: The French

Eingorn, Viacheslav

Chess Explained books provide an understanding of an opening and the middlegames to which it leads, enabling you to find the right moves and plans in your own games. It is as if you were sitting at the board with a chess coach answering your questions about the plans for both sides, the ideas behind particular moves, and what specific knowledge you need to have. The Grünfeld Defence is one of the most aggressive openings at Black's disposal. He creates immediate imbalance and plans to strike at White's centre with all available resources. An insipid response from White may not even retain equality, so in the main lines he takes up the gauntlet: he creates a large pawn-centre and puts this to use to launch an attack. While the theory of these lines has been extensively developed, there is a coherent logical thread running through them: the Grünfeld is essentially an opening of grand ideas, which need to be understood well in order to get to grips with the theory and handle the resulting positions. This book provides a discussion of all major lines, and a special contribution from Viacheslav Eingorn on the key ideas of the Rb1 Exchange main line, which he was instrumental in developing in the 1970s and 1980s.

Chess Explained: the Grunfeld

The Alekhine is arguably the most forcing and aggressive reply to 1 e4. Black immediately forces the pace and drags the game onto his own favoured territory. This strategy is not without risk, but those who specialize in the Alekhine find that the opening has a real practical sting and quick-strike potential. This book describes the main positional and tactical themes unique to the Alekhine, and the principal directions of play in modern practice. The coverage is even-handed, and there are abundant ideas presented to both sides, including ways for White to seek to consolidate his space advantage, or else to try to blast Black off the board. The author, Valentin Bogdanov, has a wealth of experience with the Alekhine, having played it over the course of more than three decades. Moreover, he was active in Odessa chess at the time when the Alekhine was extensively developed by a group of players including GM Semion Palatnik and three-time US Champion Lev Alburt. Thus he provides us not only with the benefit of his own accumulated wisdom, but also with insights gleaned from work with some of the greatest Alekhine devotees of all time.

Play the Alekhine

A leading Ukrainian trainer explains fundamental endgame principles and why players make mistakes\nUnderstanding the endgame is fundamental to playing good chess, and at its heart lie positions where just kings and pawns remain on the board. Even when a pawn ending is not actually reached, the players must often assess ones that could arise from an exchange of pieces. And an error calculating a pawn ending is normally fatal.\nQuestions of pawn-structure, and thus decisions made early in the game, can be fully understood only when we appreciate how they impact the possible pawn endings.\nThis book takes a practical angle, so is the perfect complement to Secrets of Pawn Endings, which examines their theory in detail. Experienced trainer Bogdanov examines a wealth of pawn endings where strong players made significant errors, and draws lessons and rules of thumb from them. While we are enjoying the entertaining material in this book, we are painlessly absorbing endgame principles and improving our intuitive decision-making skills. We learn how to calculate and identify key positional elements, and appreciate the beautiful tactics and paradoxical ideas that are unique to the world of pawns.\nThe Nunn Convention is used throughout the book, and all the material has been checked in detail with modern NNUE-based engines with access to seven-man tablebases.\nTopics include: Obvious Errors Breakthrough Zugzwang Opposition and Corresponding Squares Spare Tempi The Fight to Promote Changing the Pawn-Structure Calculation Evaluating the Resulting Queen Endings Positional Play 
International Master Valentin Bogdanov has vast experience as a chess trainer, and is from Ukraine. His pupils include grandmasters Moskalenko, Savchenko and Drozdovsky, and he has acted as a second for the well-known grandmaster and theoretician Viacheslav Eingorn since the late 1970s. For 50 years he has been a teacher at the chess school in Odesa (Ukraine), and in 2016 won the European Over-65 Championship. In the same year he also qualified as an International Arbiter and has since then officiated over a great many chess events in his country. This is his fourth book for Gambit.\n"...this gem about pawn endings. Its author has written it from a war zone (Odesa, Ukraine) and since I know that detail I can't stop imagining it with his board and his computer, while sirens and explosions sound in the background. And it makes me want to cry." - FM Luis Fernández Siles @capakhine\n“Ukrainian master Valentin Bogdanov points out that pawn endings are the basis of all other endgames. That makes sense, because from most endings there are possibilities to reach pawn endgames. Knowledge and experience of them is therefore fundamental for playing good chess. This book has a practical angle and is therefore a nice addition to Gambit’s bestseller Secrets of Pawn Endings (by Karsten Müller and Frank Lamprecht) in which the theory is discussed. ... veteran trainer Bogdanov examines a large number of pawn endgames where strong players go wrong. Certain ideas, laws and rules of thumb can be distilled from this.” - IM Herman Grooten, schaaksite-nl\n“a well-written book that can help amateurs play better pawn endgames in a relative short period of time. The author explains each topic in a clear, concise and educative way. Hence, the size of the book is relatively small and the chess player is not intimidated (compared to existing monographs on pawn endings). Whether you struggle with or love pawn endgames, it is the time to read Understanding Pawn Endgames and improve your chess results.” – Miguel Ararat, Florida Chess Magazine\n“A thorough course” – John Elburg, chessbooks-nl

Understanding Pawn Endgames (Chess Endings)

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Books by Bogdanov, Valentin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bogdanov, Valentin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Rook Endgames from Morphy to Carlsen (Chess Endings)

Rook Endgames from Morphy to Carlsen (Chess Endings)

Chess Explained: The French

Chess Explained: the Grunfeld

Play the Alekhine

Understanding Pawn Endgames (Chess Endings)