The always excellent New in Chess magazine arrived in our office yesterday, with another batch of reviews by GM Matthew Sadler. Three of them were about Quality Chess books.
Small Steps to Great Improvement by Sam Shankland
5/5 Stars “A beautifully produced hardback… Shankland wins me over by illustrating these guidelines beautifully… All in all, an excellent, original book.”
Under the Surface by Jan Markos
5/5 Stars “An incredibly creative book… Markos has a host of original ideas about all sorts of chess topics and a wonderfully witty and enthusiastic way of bringing them across… another fantastic book from Quality Chess!”
Playing 1.e4 e5 by Nikolaos Ntirlis
4/5 Stars “It’s probably pretty much the ideal repertoire for a player wanting to take up 1.e4 e5 without having to learn the whole world! … Ntirlis does his normal thorough, creative job.”
5 of 5…5 of 5…FOUR of five?? RIOT!! 🙂
What was the reason for only 4 stars for the Ntirlis book?
@ The Lurker
No specific reason it seems – Sadler didn’t mention any negatives.
@The Lurker
This wasn’t clear to us either, as Sadler only had good things to say about it. Maybe he feels like he should only ever give 5 stars to books which he has read thoroughly, and the length of the reviews in his article suggests that he spent far less time on this than the main three books. My guess is that he would have given it five stars if he’d examined it in more detail, but that’s pure conjecture of course.
I’m really enjoying reading Karpov’s and Tal’s books, they are very instructive, do you have any plans to publish more books about players? It would be great to read books with that level of detail from players like Capablanca or Rubinstein.
Hi Andrew!
Will Nikos be doing a new book soon, and when can we expect it?! :0)
James
The Playing 1.e4e5 book is outstanding. 4/5 is not enough 🙂
Curious to see that he is reviewing an opening book 2 years after it was released.
@James2
We have some ideas about this but are not ready to announce anything at this stage.
Nikos and I are working a lot with lots of things. Latest he was a big part of the team behind the three volume Playing 1.e4 series.
@Jacob Aagaard
Talking of Playing 1.e4, Board 2 of the British Championship, G. Jones – J. Hawkins, followed the anti-Rubinstein French repertoire for 13 moves, then a novelty (but maybe not an improvement) from Black. I think White left the opening with an edge. The game is still underway, with Gawain pressing.
@Andrew Greet
That’s great Andrew. At least there is something in the ether anyway.
On a different matter, can we expect Akrukh to be playing the fianchetto variation against the Benko gambit still, and presumably we can expect to see good coverage of the popular line with 5..g6 6 Nc3 Bg7 7 e4 0-0 8 a7 (hopefully)? This line seems to have become popelar of late and to the best of my knowledge the move order for black with 5..g6/6..Bg7 was not covered in Akrukh’s first book (I checked it just now so if you can find it please refer me to the page).
Thank you very much.
James
Although I don’t know Nikos e4 e5 book (yet), I’m sure it’s on the same level as his d4 d5 book, which is in my opinion outstanding and the ideal opening book for a player lke me ‘who doesn’t want to learn the whole world’.
Happy to see Mr. Shanklands book got that much praise. I’m enjoying it right now. Before he was US Champion I’ve seen a very instructive video by him on youtube, where he analysed a game between Grischuk and Gelfand. I thought ‘hey, this guy is a really good instructor. I would buy a book by him’…but there wasn’t 😉
@John Shaw
Yeah, I remember you telling me that Gawain had good ideas in this line!
@Christian
Play 1 e4 e5 is a really great read. I would highly recommend it to you. Everything Nikos writes I have enjoyed very much.
James
@James2
Would you say the same about his Playing 1.d4 d5? I just recently got it (Monday I believe). Read the intro thus far.
Still been trying to work on finding the ideal Defense for me against 1.d4 and same thing goes for playing White.
Highly doubt I will ever get Playing 1.e4 e5 as I am pretty much set in my ways against 1.e4, being one that is totally addicted to the French with the occasional Petroff (I have no issue against garbage lines like the King’s Gambit) with high levels of success in both that I don’t see the need to learn yet another whole system against 1.e4.
I’ve no idea about this 8.a7 stuff as I’ve never played or seriously studied the fianchetto against the Benko. I assume Avrukh will recommend it again, but won’t know for sure until he delivers the book.
@James2
I will definitely get it, the updated version. I’m in no rush as I’m quite busy with some fine Quality Chess books ATM 😉
By coincidence, I am a 1…e5 player anyway and he recommends variations I already play. Schallop against KG or Breyer against the Spanish just to name two examples.
I honestly thought, ‘omg, Niko is a correspondent player. ‘Playing d4 d5′ can’t be a practical book for club players, no way.’ I was so wrong 😉