Grandmaster Alexander Panchenko (1953-2009) was one of the most successful chess trainers in the Soviet Union, and later in Russia. Panchenko ran a legendary chess school that specialised in turning promising players into masters. The secret of his success were his dedication and enthusiasm as a teacher combined with his outstanding training materials. ‘Pancha’ provided his pupils with systematic knowledge, deep understanding and the ability to take practical decisions. Now, Panchenko’s classic Mastering Chess Middlegames is for the first time available in translation, giving club-players around the world access to this unique training method. The book contains a collection of inspiring lessons on the most important middlegame topics: attack, defence, counterplay, realising the advantage, obstructing the plans of your opponent, the battle of the heavy pieces, and much more. In each chapter, Panchenko clearly identifies the various aspects of the topic, formulates easy-to-grasp rules, presents a large number of well-chosen examples and ends with a wealth of practical tests. The brilliance of Alexander Panchenko’s didactic method shines through in this book. It is hard to give better advice for ambitious chess players than to follow this tried-and-tested and highly instructive road towards mastering the chess middlegame.

This book enables keen students to improve their understanding of the middlegame. It develops themes originally discussed in Improve Your Middlegame Play.

Grandmaster Johan Hellsten is convinced that mastering chess strategy - just like chess tactics - requires practice, practice and yet more practice! This outstanding book is a product of his many years' work as a full-time chess teacher, and is specifically designed as part of a structured training programme to improve strategic thinking. It focuses on a wide range of key subjects and provides a basic foundation for strategic play. Furthermore, in addition to the many examples, there's an abundance of carefully selected exercises which allow readers to monitor their progress and put into practice what they have just learned. Following such a course is an ideal way for players of all standards to improve. Although designed mainly for students, this book is also an excellent resource for chess teachers and trainers. An essential course in chess strategyContains over 400 pages of Grandmaster adviceIncludes more than 350 training exercises

Mastering Positional Chess is a serious, but entertaining chess instruction book. Daniel started writing it when he realized that his lack of positional understanding was causing him to lose many games.

AWARDS: Shortlisted for the Guardian Chess Book of the Year Award Runner-up for the English Chess Federation 2009 Book of the Year Award CHESS Magazine: Best Books of 2009 Back in Print! Ever wondered why grandmasters take only seconds to see what’s really going on in a chess position? It’s all about structures, as Grandmaster Ivan Sokolov explains in this groundbreaking book. ‘Winning Chess Middlegames’ addresses the often ignored but extremely important topic of pawn structures, divided into four main types: doubled pawns, isolated pawns, hanging pawns and pawn majorities. With its highly accessible verbal explanations and deep analyses of top-level games, this book helps you to solve the basic problems of the middlegame: space, tension and initiative. Club players studying this book will:greatly enhance their middlegame skills, develop an accurate feeling as to which particular positions suit their style and acquire new strategic and practical opening knowledge. Ivan Sokolov explains matters profoundly, honestly and objectively including lots of inside stories from top-level chess, neither sparing his colleague grandmasters nor himself in his comments. With a foreword by British Grandmaster Michael Adams.

The first edition of this book was widely hailed as one of the most useful guides to the middle game ever written. nRewritten to incorporate new material from contemporary tournaments, this classic work now steps into the 21st century. Along with over 300 instructive and entertaining examples, Littlewood offers a wealth of general advice and specific hints at the end of each chapter. Taking a fresh and original approach, he inspires the reader - club and tournament players - to look at chess in an imaginative and creative way.

The three-times World Chess Solving Champion distils the most useful middlegame concepts and knowledge into 100 lessons that everyone can understand. Following on from his successful Understanding Chess Endgames, John Nunn turns his attention to the middlegame - the phase of the chess battle where most games are decided, yet the one that has received the least systematic treatment from chess writers. With the outstanding clarity for which he is famous, Nunn breaks down complex problems into bite-sized pieces. In the case of attacking play, we are shown how to decide where to attack, and the specific methods that can be used to pursue the enemy king. Positional play is described in terms of the major structural issues, and how the pieces work around and with the pawns. Nunn explains how to assess when certain pieces are better than others, and how we can make use of this understanding at the board. Readers will never be short of a plan, whatever type of position arises. Each lesson features two inspiring examples from modern chess, annotated honestly and with a keen focus on the main instructive points. Both sides' ideas are emphasized, so we get a clear picture of the ways to disrupt typical plans as well as how to form them.