The difference between endgame theory and practice can sometimes prove to be very difficult. Even the greatest players in the world in several cases go wrong in making decisions that are sometimes taken for granted by the outside world. For example, I think most strong chess players in rook endgames are familiar with the principle of the “shoulder budge” which played a significant role in the famous example Alekhine – Bogoljubow (1929) in which the black player made a historic blunder by taking the wrong “turn” with his king causing him to miserably lose the remaining endgame of rook against pawn. In my book, I refer to this concept in the section on the endgame of “rook against pawn” (p. 94). Afterward, on p. 251, I draw attention to the aforementioned example from the 1929 World Cup game. How great then is my surprise when I see how the very respectable Croatian grandmaster Ivan Saric (didn't he once beat Magnus Carlsen beautifully in the 2014 Olympiad?) appears to have momentarily forgotten175
These book reviews by Matthew Sadler were published in New In Chess magazine 2025#3
To players of my generation, the clash between Nimzowitsch and Tarrasch is still a burning issue! You truly feel some personal connection because you read Nimzowitsch’s My System as an impressionable teenager. Willy Hendriks chronicles the clash in his new book, full of humour and larger-than-life characters.
At such times, a certain gloom (British understatement) about the life that awaits us is unavoidable, but chess books remain a ray of joy. In particular, I’ve loved the attention that authors of the past years have shown to the many facets of chess history. The publishing house Elk and Ruby has brought the grimly fascinating Soviet era of chess to life, highlighting the lives and games of many forgotten figures of that period, while, thanks to books about FIDE President Folke Rogard and Gideon Stahlberg, I seem to have spent many days reading about the Swedish175
After the merger between Quality Chess, Everyman Chess (Now Popular Chess), and New in Chess, the landscape of chess publishing has changed. The goals of the merger have been to learn from each other while maintaining separate identities and keeping the diversity of books released intact.
We want our content to be available in whatever format readers wish to access it. Our books will be available in paperback and hardback, on Kindle, at Chessable, Chesstempo, and Forward Chess. In the search for efficiency as a path to longevity for our companies, we decided to partner with Forward Chess, purchasing a minority share.
This has three practical effects.
The New in Chess App will close at the end of this year. Customers who have purchased the magazine and books on the New in Chess App in the past will still have access to the books on Forward Chess. We are in the process of converting 52 New in Chess books that were on the App but not on Forward Chess.
The highly competent New in Chess175
This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with Czech grandmaster David Navara. For more than 20 years, David Navara has been the leading chess player of the Czech Republic. Thirteen times he won the national championship. In 2015, he was ranked number 14 in the world, with a peak rating of 2751.I spoke to David last week, in Prague, the city where he was born 40 years ago and where he still lives. Over the years, we met on many occasions, but for some inexplicable reason we never sat down for a proper interview. Now we did and to begin with we returned to our first meeting, in 2001 at the European Team Championship in Leon, in the north of Spain, where 16-year-old David was one of the stars as he scored an impressive 7 out of 9. Even if we’d only just met, he kindly showed me three of his games, giving me a first taste of his phenomenal talent.After this nice memory, David talked with great openness about his upbringing, his loving parents, the crises in his175
These book reviews by Matthew Sadler were published in New In Chess magazine 2025#2
In idle moments, I’ve sometimes found myself thinking to which period of chess history I would choose to return if given access to a time machine (well it beats thinking about work I guess!). My choice has fallen most often on the period between the two World Wars. Pretty much everything you could love about chess is in there: fantastic players (Capablanca, Alekhine, Lasker, and a host of other colourful and interesting characters), huge classical tournaments, the emergence of new chess approaches such as hyper-modernism, a growing professionalism in opening preparation leading to new systems and discoveries, but not so much that lifelong King’s Gambit romantics like Rudolf Spielmann couldn’t find a place in the world elite.
However, chess history isn’t even a fraction of the whole story of course and chess players weren’t spared from the horrors of the rise of Nazism and the outbreak of war (the abovementioned175
People sometimes say that all rook endgames are drawn. But is that really the case? Why is this statement so often made? The reason seems clear: some endgames, even with two extra pawns, may appear won but still end in a draw. That makes evaluating of such positions especially tricky. And sometimes a rook endgame with an equal number of pawns is simply lost because one player’s pieces are much more active than the opponent’s. Proper evaluation of such positions requires specific knowledge. Hence the tongue-in-cheek phrase in the title of this article.
In my book Chess Endgames for Club Players, I’ve devoted relatively much attention to rook endgames. There are two main reasons for this:
Statistically speaking, this type of endgame occurs most frequently. This can be explained by the fact that rooks typically enter the game quite late, making it logical that other pieces are exchanged earlier.
Rook endgames contain so many hidden tactical ideas and beautiful techniques that it’s very worthwhile175
This week's episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with Dutch grandmaster Jan Timman.
As one of the world's leading players during the late Soviet era, Jan played and befriended countless legendary players. Today's conversation centres specifically on two of his late colleagues, both of whom passed away recently: the tenth World Chess Champion, Boris Spassky, and the father of Icelandic chess, Fridrik Olafsson.
Interviewed by Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam in his own chess library, old chess books and paraphernalia scattered around the area, Jan fondly remembers the lives and careers of his two late friends. The conversation about Spassky complements the latest edition of the New In Chess Magazine, in which both Jan and Dirk Jan wrote about the late Russian grandmaster.
Enjoy this week's episode of the New In Chess Podcast!0:00 – Intro
1:20 – Jan’s first meeting with Boris Spassky
4:05 – Jan’s assessment of Spassky as a person
5:55 – Spassky’s interest in Russian politics175
In the previous installment of this (short) series on endgames, we talked about pawn endgames. Every chess player knows the dilemma that arises at some point: can he simplify the position by converting to a pawn endgame? Of course, the word “simplify” must be qualified. Because pawn endgames are often far from simple. It depends mainly on two aspects:
How much knowledge a player has of pawn endgames
How good are the player's calculation skills?
If both conditions are met, it becomes much simpler, and a player can confidently go for the pawn endgame, in which he is sure to win! The Dutch grandmaster Jan Timman once wrote that it is not a matter of finding the most optimal way to win but of accurately calculating the variation to the win and getting it right, after which you can play it confidently.
In the examples below, the players with the advantage decide to convert their positions to a pawn endgame that still requires the necessary technique and calculations to force a win. But175
This week's episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with American International Master Kostya Kavutskiy.
Kostya is one of the three "senseis" (teachers) at the ChessDojo, an international chess training program that Kostya runs together with fellow Americans GM Jesse Kraai and IM David Pruess. As a player, he is currently embarking on a "European tour", which has included the recent Reykjavik and Grenke tournaments. His next destination is Spain, where he will be attending the Killer Chess training camp organised by Jacob Aagaard.
Joining us from Hamurg, Germany, Kostya talks to Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam about the origins of the ChessDojo program, his GM ambitions, meeting Vasyl Ivanchuk and much more. Enjoy this week's episode of the New In Chess Podcast!
0:00 – Intro
2:08 – Why Kostya prefers playing in Europe
4:00 – The philosophy behind the Chess Dojo
9:58 – How did Kostya transition from playing to teaching?
11:25 – Drawing inspiration from Mark Dvorestky
12:55 – The175
Select your prefered currency
The prices in the New In Chess webshop are displayed in EUR.
Based on your location you might prefer to display prices in .
