I have published two middlegame books on my own (these books help to find the right study plan and teach how to think correctly!) and four openings ones for major publishing house Everyman Chess. Here is some info about them:
- My first chess book, “The Very Unusual Book About Chess”, is about the tactical (advanced level) middlegame and contains several interesting methods of playing this part of the game, complimented by many instructive examples by the world’s leading players (Kasparov, Anand, Kramnik, Shirov, Sutovsky etc.) on each method.
The chapter breakdown is as follows:
- Gifted Moves (Gifted Ideas)
- Special Chapters (“Easy But Nice”)
- “Kasparov’s Rook”
- g5-g6 followed by h5-h6 in positions with opposite-side castling
- Kings Can Do Even The Impossible
- f4-f5 in the Sicilian Defence
The book is available in English and Russian (see the covers below). It is 136 pages long and includes detailed verbal comments and the special “Dembo-rules”! The english version costs 15 euros, including postage & packaging. You can view some samples from the book in PDF format:
from the Preface (english)(russian)
from the first chapter “Gifted Moves” (english)(russian)
from the fifth chapter “f4-f5” (english)(russian)
My second book is titled “Conversation with a Professional Trainer – Methods of Positional Play” and is on basic and advanced strategy. Here are the contents:
The Purpose of this Book 7
Preface 8
Chapter One – Opening Problems 9
Chapter Two – How to Improve Part One 13
Chapter Three 25
How to Improve Part Two: Evaluation
Material Balance 25
Positional Pluses and Minuses 26
The placement of the kings 26
The situation in the centre 34
Development advantage 41
Piece placement 49
Inactive pieces 55
Pawn structure 60
Presence of a passed pawn 64
Open and semi-open files 66
Outposts on open and semi-open files 73
Diagonals 76
Weak squares 79
Chapter Four 82
How to Improve Part Three: Choosing a Plan
Playing on the Kingside 82
Pawn majority on the kingside 82
Qualitative pawn majority on the kingside 84
Attacking a fianchetto with the h-pawn 88
Advancing pawns to gain space 88
Positions with opposite-side castling 89
Piece concentration on the kingside 91
Weaknesses in the opponent’s castling position 94
Playing on the Queenside 96
Pawn advances to gain space 96
Positions with opposite-side castling 97
Piece concentration on the queenside 98
Playing in the Centre 101
Blows in the centre with pawns 101
Chapter Five 104
How to Improve Part Four: Recommendations
Creating problems to the opponent 104
Conversion of extra material 105
Two knights vs two bishops 112
The problem of exchanging 113
Chapter Six – How to Improve Part Five 124
Index of Players 133
The cost of this book is 15 euros, including postage & packaging.
These two books are not available commercially and it is not possible to order them through this website either. If you are interested, you should email me directly. Payments are possible through PayPal.
In late 2006 I started working for Everyman Chess, the most significant chess publishing house of our times. The products of our cooperation so far:
- Play The Gruenfeld was my first opening book, released in mid-2007! It provides a complete repertoire in the Gruenfeld Defence for the player with Black.
- Fighting the Anti-King’s Indians: How to Handle White’s tricky ways of avoiding the main lines, which covers all of White’s possibilities after 1 d4 Nf6, with the exception of 2 c4, as well as advice and King’s Indian solutions to 1 Nf3 and 1 c4. The book was published in the second half of 2008.
- Next one was a contribution of a few chapters in Dangerous Weapons: The King’s Indian. Other contributing authors are GM Glenn Flear and IM Richard Palliser. The book was published in 2009.
- My latest work was The Scotch Game with IM Richard Palliser as the 2nd author. The book was published in March 2011.