Saturday, May 14, 2011

1324-SP-Perfect Your Chess - Volokitin & Gabinksy (Gambit 2007)

Hardbound: 160 pages,  Php 300.00



Andrei Volokitin is one of a rare breed of players: he achieved a ranking in the world's top 20 while still a teenager, playing dynamic and often brilliant chess. Although we cannot all aspire to emulate his achievements, there is much that we can learn from his training methods, his games and his general approach to chess. These topics are the subject of this book, written in collaboration with his trainer.

The core material of the book is 369 positions where the reader is given a task or asked a question. These tasks resemble those that players regularly face over the board, and are especially useful from a training viewpoint. Sometimes we are told we need to find a combination, but often the task is simply to decide on a move. It is for us to determine whether to play quietly or stake everything on a sacrificial attack!

The examples are all from recent years, and so even the most zealous reader of chess literature will have seen few of them previously. Many of the positions are from Volokitin's own games, so we get the 'inside story' on some truly spectacular chess. We are also presented with fine examples from Grabinsky's training files, carefully collected and graded over the years for their instructive merit. The commentaries and detailed solutions explain the key issues in each position, and also convey the authors' philosophy of chess and their love for the game.

Grandmaster Andrei Volokitin was born in 1986 in Lvov. In 2004, he won the Ukrainian Championship and was a member of the team that won the Chess Olympiad in Calvia. In the January 2005 rating list he was, at age 18, placed in the world's top 20 for the first time. He has won many prizes in junior championships and major international events.

International Master Vladimir Grabinsky is the coach of the Ukrainian youth team. In addition to Volokitin, his pupils include several other players who have achieved international titles at an early age.

email:  kingandbishop@gmail.com          cell:  0939 8411 677

1337-SP-The King's Indian - Bologan (Chess Stars 2009)

Hardbound: 360 pages,  Php 550

The famous Grandmaster Victor Bologan (Elo 2690) offers a complete Black repertoire based on "probably the most romantic response to 1 d4" (Bologan) - the King's Indian Defence. He explains the concept of the book as follows: "I have tried to reveal to you the true spirit of the King's Indian Defence - to uncover for you its secrets and to show you its typical resources. The Yugoslavian "Chess Encyclopedia" devotes almost a half of Volume 5 to the K.I.D., with indexes from E60 up to E99. However, I did not feel bound by these frames, despite their size, and I have tried to explain to you when Black should direct the fight in the spirit of the Benko Gambit or the Modern Benoni... The book is written for chess players of all levels, since the principles of the King's Indian Defence are equally applicable to the amateurs as well as to the super-grandmasters."


email: kingandbishop@gmail.com            cell: 0939 8411 677