TAYLOR - Pawn sacrifice !

La ressemblance (sans doute voulue) du titre avec la classique trilogie de Max Euwe est superficielle : ici, sept des auteurs de l'écurie Quality Chess viennent nous parler de leur passage (plus ou moins lointain) des rangs amateurs au statut de grand maître, et tentent d'en tirer des enseignements utiles au commun des mortels. Inévitablement, le résultat est inégal, mais l'ensemble se laisse lire, et le joueur ambitieux pourra sans doute en retirer quelques précieuses leçons.

The seconds tick down relentlessly toward zero just as your game approaches the critical stage. Your higher-rated opponent is putting your game under severe pressure, so extreme accuracy is needed to hang tough and avoid falling into a losing position. What do you do now – should you exchange pieces to relieve the pressure, lash out with a sacrifice, probe for weaknesses in the opponent's camp, or maybe just give up and get a lesson on how to bring the point home?

The answer is… none of these! At such do-or-die moments, says Steve Hrop, the first thing to do is to sit on your hands and take a few deep breaths. In Defending Under Pressure and Managing Your Emotions at the Chessboard, the author uses critical moments from his own tournament games (most of them against players rated above 2200) to describe the difficulties of thinking straight when the enemy is at the gates, and then outlines methods and techniques to clear your head, evaluate the position, and find your way to the best move. Techniques include how to avoid redundant pieces that critically limit your mobility; when visualization is more important than calculation: and “freeze-framing” positions to eliminate blunders.

Save the draw – or turn a looming defeat into an astonishing victory – with the tips in this practical training manual! 236 pages

This second-volume workbook in Davorin Kuljasevic's How to Study Chess on Your Own series is optimized for chess players with an Elo rating between 1500 and 1800 but is helpful for anyone between 1200 and 2000.  The astounding success of his How to Study Chess on Your Own made clear that thousands of chess players want to improve their game and like to work on their training at least partially by themselves. 199 pages

In this book, Jacob Aagaard digs deep into the most complex area of chess thinking. The games and exercises in this book transcend regular chess skills, such as pattern recognition, calculation and positional analysis. Building on the two previous books in the Grandmaster Preparation series, this book challenges the reader to explore the complexities of chess, offering clarity and understanding through Aagaard’s straightforward approach.

Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard won the British Championship at his first and only attempt. He is the only chess author to have received the Boleslavsky Medal as well as the Guardian, ECF and ChessCafe Book of the Year awards. He is a FIDE Senior Trainer, and on his retirement from professional chess he has taken up the post of trainer for the Danish elite. His training material is used by amateurs, grandmasters and World Champions alike.

The Grandmaster Preparation series is aimed at ambitious players.

En fait de stratégie, c'est plutôt un dictionnaire des concepts échiquéens dont il s'agit. Pour mémoire, car l'intérêt pratique de l'ouvrage semble limité.