About Willy Hendriks

Willy Hendriks’s debut Move First, Think Later was an instant success. In a highly original and witty manner, the book examines the sense and nonsense of methods for improving in chess. The book won the 2012 ECF Book of the Year Award and was runner-up in the 2012 ChessCafe.com Book of the Year competition.

In the meantime, Hendriks has written three more books, page turners that challenge the traditional view of chess history. All three have received widespread acclaim. First there was On the Origin of Good Moves (2020), which was followed by The Ink War, Romanticism versus Modernity in Chess (2022), starring William Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort, and most recently, The Philosopher and the Housewife (2025), a riveting tale about Tarrasch, Nimzowitsch, and the evolution of chess expertise.