Improve Your Play in Complex Endgames: Mikhail Botvinnik's skillful piece play

Here is another sample video from my latest Ebook  called "Rook and Knight Endgames - Strategy and Tactics"

Chess Strategy and Tactics: Ebook about rook and knight endgames

I added a new ebook to my list of my publications, this one is called "Rook and Knight Endgames - Strategy and Tactics".

This ebook is a follow up to my ebook about endings with each side having a rook and a bishop of opposite color - Bishop endgames - Do the opposites Attract?. The idea behind these series is the approach that Nimzowitsch used to call "a radioactive method" - selecting a rather narrow topic, and by learning a lot about it, understand chess much better in general. This time I would like to look at endings with rook + knight Vs. rook + knight. This material balance is also a quite frequent guest in tournaments, and some classical ideas and endgames have become well-known. Nonetheless, there is some lack of discussion of this topic in chess literature. Mikhail Botvinnik was well known for his great technique in this type of endings, and I would strongly recommend to the reader to study two famous endgames Botvinnik-Alekhine 1938, and Botvinnik-Levenfish, 1937. Instead of these, I included several less known examples from his career. Also games by other famous players such as Korchnoi, Morozevich and Anand are featured.

Sample game video:

Chess World Championship Preview - Combinations by Anand and Carlsen

The World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand has been anticipated throughout the chess world since Carlsen qualified from the London Candidates tournament, and there has been no shortage of forecasts. Rather than try to predict the winner, I released a new ebook that gives a preview of the match by showing the best combinations of each player - collected throughout their entire careers. You get a chance to play like the current world champion, or like the future one, if the title changes hands in the 2013 match.

Over 130 annotated test positions will help you better appreciate the enormous tactical strength of both players, while also serving as a tribute to the careers of both players. This is my 6th book on Amazon; other books are described in my older post From Blogging to Ebooks.

You can get the book from Amazon here: World Championship Preview - Combinations by Anand and Carlsen 

Here are a couple of sample puzzles/combinations from the book (Hint – there is a similarity between the two puzzles as the same piece is being sacrificed.

Anand, Viswanathan - Kasparov, Garry 1991 , B82

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. f4 e6 7. Bd3 Nbd7 8. O-O Qb6 9. Be3 Qxb2 10. Ndb5 axb5 11. Nxb5 Ra5 12. Rb1 Rxb5 13. Rxb2 Rxb2 14. Qa1 Rb6 15. Bxb6 Nxb6 16. Qc3 Be7 17. Rb1 Nfd7 18. Qxg7 Bf6 19. Qh6 Ke7 20. Bb5 Rg8 21. Rd1 e5 22. f5 Nc5

White to move. See the solution and full game here.

Carlsen, Magnus - Andriasian, Zaven  2003 , D17

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. a4 Bf5 6. Nh4 e6 7. Nxf5 exf5 8. e3 Bd6 9. Bxc4 O-O 10. Qf3 g6 11. h3 h5 12. Bd2 Nbd7 13. O-O-O a6 14. g4 fxg4 15. hxg4 hxg4 16. Qg2 b5 17. Ba2 c5 18. Ne4 Qe7 19. Nxd6 Qxd6 20. dxc5 Qe7 21. Bc3 Rac8 22. Rxd7 Qxc5 23. Kb1 b4

White to move See the solution and the full game here

Improve your Chess with a Free Chess Database program - Scid Vs Pc

Scid Vs. Pc is a Chess Database program. You can get it at http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net . In this video I give an overview of the program, show how to enter new games, annotate the move, and batch annotate the games with an engine (aka "annofritz").

Topalov Defeats Anand - Bishops of Opposite Color Endgame

This game in the video is taken from my E-book about endgames with bishops of opposite color.
http://www.amazon.com/Bishop-Endgames...
The book is formatted for electronic readers and can be read on devices of various sizes, from tablets to phones. The free sample includes 3 thoroughly annotated games and the full book comes with dozens of training positions to help develop a good sense for positions with bishops of opposite colour.

This bishop endgame is a good illustration of thinking in schemes. Black had to keep track of the functions of each of his pieces - in the final position the king had to block the pawn 'd', and the bishop - defend the 'h7' pawn. Because they reversed the roles after Anand's mistake, White had an option of breaking through to the 'd' pawn and winning a piece.

Chess Position Trainer - Study and Practice Chess Openings

 The video shows how to 
- review and import a repertoire in Chess Position Trainer 4.0
- train against an existing repertoire, from a specific position
- review statistics to see how well you know your repertoir
I use Slav exchange for Black to illustrate the tool's main capabilities.

From Blogging to Ebooks

You may have noticed a certain lack of updates on this blog in the past year or so. This has been mostly related to my attention being focused to writing chess Ebooks.

Today I would like to overview what I had published in the past year. While blogging is a simple way of sharing chess knowledge, it is less appropriate for explaining a topic in more details. This is where ebooks come in.  My books so far have been focused on three main themes - endgames, tactics and opening/middlegame. I plan to continue expanding on these themes further.

Tactics

It is essential for every chess player to be continuously working on their tactics, so I wrote a couple of books that allow readers to easily practice their skills on the Kindle, or on any IOS or Android Mobile device.

• Counterattack with Alexander Morozevich - tactics from the perspective of a single player playing with the Black pieces.
• Tactics from Chess World Cup - tactics from a single tournament where players of various strengths are participating, and are playing with different time controls

Openings

Every game has an opening stage, and it's important to be prepared for anything an opponent can surprise you with, and also to have a few ideas of your own.

• Spanish Opening - Strategy and Tactics - a major opening covered from White's perspective, with several key games showing the main ideas behind every variation that Black can choose.
• Exchange Slav - Strategy and Tactics  - a more detailed study of a single variation in an opening. The focus is on themes - pawn structures and plans.

Both opening books contain a large number of puzzles, to reinforce the ideas of each opening.

Endgames

In my opinion, it makes sense to cover endgames based on material, and from learning one material balance it is possible to understand endgames deeper in general.

•  Bishop Endgames - Bishops of Opposite Colour is the theme I chose.

The book also has a lot of endgame puzzles to solve.

I would be very glad to hear your feedback and suggestions for future books!