"How can I improve my game?" is a perennial question facing chess-players. While there are no easy answers, Grandmaster Alex Yermolinsky is better qualified than most to offer advice.

Having found the famed 'Soviet School of Chess' wanting, he trained himself, slowly but surely raising his game to top-class grandmaster standard.

In this book he passes on many of the insights he has gained over the years, steering the reader away from 'quick-fix' approaches and focusing on the critical areas of chess understanding and over-the-board decision-making.

Topics covered include:
-- trend-breaking tools
-- the burden of small advantages
-- what exchanges are for
-- classics revisited
-- computer chess.

A large part of the book discusses a variety of important opening set-ups, including methods for opposing offbeat but dangerous lines, such as the Grand Prix Attack.

Alex Yermolinsky is one of the strongest players in the United States. He was US Champion in 1996, and won the US Open Championship in 1995 and 1997. He has represented the USA in four Olympiads, and played board 2 for the team that won the World Team Championship in 1993.

GM Matthew Sadler, New In Chess:
"This is a magnificent achievement, by far the finest book I've ever seen on the subject of practical play."