In this remarkable book, Soviet grandmaster Lyev Polugayevsky, one of the world's leading players over the past two decades, describes his highly personal approach to chess, which is based on meticulous Practice. In the opening he is constantly striving to surprise his opponents, and this has led to his developing one of the sharpest lines in the Sicilian Defense. which has rightly become known as the Polugaevsky Variation. Here we can share the author's joys and disappointments as he attempts over a period of many years to uphold his brain-child against attempts to: bury it. The author then delves into the technique of analyzing adjourned positions, illustrating this by several fascinating. and at times fantastic, examples from his own games. The final chapter describes how he prepares. both technically and psychologically, for decisive encounters where everything is at stake. He illustrates this with games against many leading grandmasters, including seven World Champions.

Have there been times during a chess game when you have calculated for half an hour, only to find that most of what you were thinking was of little use? This book will offer you practical advice and an effective training plan to think differently and make decisions far more efficiently. Thinking methods such as Candidates, Combinations, Prophylaxis, Comparison, Elimination, Intermediate Moves, Imagination and Traps are explained, with a carefully selected series of exercises.

Have there been times during a game when you have calculated a position for half an hour, only to find out that most of what you were thinking about was of little use? If you have not, maybe the only way to improve your calculation is to upgrade your processor. But if you are human, then this book will offer you practical advice and an effective training plan to think differently and make decisions far more efficiently.In Calculation thinking methods such as Candidates, Combinations, Prophylaxis, Comparison, Elimination, Intermediate Moves, Imagination and Traps are explained to the reader, and ownership of them is offered through a carefully selected series of exercises.

Jacob Aagaard describes his chess improvement philosophy, developed over twenty years of thinking about one question: How do we make better decisions at the chess board?He delves into such topics as: Chess psychology The four types of decisions we take at the board How to play simple positions What is calculation? How to analyse your gamesThinking Inside the Box is the ultimate self-improvement guide, written for amateurs as well as world-class players

Jacob Aagaard presents the reader with a few key concepts in the endgame in chess and invites him to test his skills with a lot of examples from recent tournament practice. Where many endgame books are theoretical and emphasize memorization, Endgame Play is based entirely in the real world, where the ability to react precisely in technical positions is a life skill.

Have there been times during a game when you have tried to calculate like mad, but can find no rhyme or reason to your lines? Have you ever felt that the computer's suggestions in your post-mortem analysis make no sense to you? Ever felt like the man with a hammer, suspecting that the world may not be made up entirely of nails after all?In Positional Play Jacob Aagaard shares his simple three-step tool of positional analysis that he has used with club players and famous grandmasters to improve their positional decision-making. Working from the starting point that all players who aspire to play at international level have a certain amount of positional understanding, Aagaard lays out an easy-to-follow training plan that will improve everyone's intuition and positional decision-making.

This is a well-established training manual which encourages the average player to understand how a grandmaster thinks, and even more important, how he works. Kotov tackles fundamental issues such as knowing how and when to analyze, the tree of analysis, a selection of candidate moves and the factors of success.