Emanuel Lasker was world champion for a remarkable 27 years (1894-1921) and is generally regarded as having been way ahead of his time in his understanding of chess. He primarily regarded chess as a fight and considered that the strongest move in a position was the one that created greatest problems for the opponent and not necessarily the one that was objectively “best”. His strengths included: * His skill at accumulating small advantages with quiet manoeuvring. * His astonishing ability to find tactical resources in defence. * His uncanny knack of provoking errors in balanced positions. Lasker was, essentially, a complete chessplayer and his games feel thoroughly modern. Indeed many contemporary elite players (the most obvious one being the current world champion Magnus Carlsen) exhibit a very similar style. The Move by Move series provides an ideal format for the keen chessplayer to improve their game. While reading you are continually challenged to answer probing questions – a method that greatly encourages the learning and practising of vital skills just as much as the traditional assimilation of chess knowledge. Carefully selected questions and answers are designed to keep you actively involved and allow you to monitor your progress as you learn. This is an excellent way to study chess while providing the best possible chance to retain what has been learnt.   448 Seiten, kartoniert, Verlag Everyman Chess

Ian Nepomniachtchi, challenger to Magnus Carlsen’s World Championship title in 2021, is an outstanding chess talent. “Nepo” as he is universally known is a fascinating player and this book assesses his career and analyses his original and creative style in great depth with numerous deeply annotated games.Nepo is one of the very few players in the world to hold (at least prior to the match) a plus score (four wins to one with six draws) against Carlsen in classical chess. Nepo and Carlsen are peers and first started playing each other in the Under-12 category of the World Youth Championship in 2002. In that event, Nepo edged out Carlsen on tie-break. At that time he out-rated Carlsen by 100 points and was generally considered to be the more promising of the two prodigies. Nepo is a fascinating player who loves open and irrational positions and excels when on the attack. Unsurprisingly, he cites Mikhail Tal as his all-time favorite player and says Tal is the player who has exerted the greatest influence on him. As with that great Latvian genius, Nepo thrives on anarchy and chaos and has frequently got the better of Carlsen in games with mind-boggling complications. He is also lethal when he has the initiative. Nepo has steadily climbed the world rankings and his finest achievement was his victory in the 2020/2021 Candidates’ tournament with 8½/14 points (+5-2=7) which gave him the right to challenge Carlsen for the world title. 430 Seiten, kartoniert, Verlag Everyman