my latest books
"Re-Engineering the Chess Classics"
Nominated for the 2023 Chess.com Book of the Year
"The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement"
"Game Changer" won the ECF Book of the Year 2019 and the FIDE Book of the Year 2019
Lessons from Haarlem 2016 – it ain’t necessarily so
Looking through some old analysis, I came across these fragments from a tournament I played just over a year ago. They seemed interesting to me so I hope you like them too! One of them at least is pretty spectacular! From round 1: Sadler,Matthew D – De Roode,Martijn Haarlem 2016 We had read more…
Wedging with Alexei Shirov
While casually browsing through a compilation of positions, I came across this unusual position from the game Shirov-Topalov Bosnia 2000. The game was given as an example of a pawn wedge in the enemy camp which is quite understandable when you see the rest of the game! It’s worth playing it through without comments just read more…
Kingside attacks in the French structure
While idly flicking through recent games of Vishy Anand, my eye was drawn to the position on move 24 in his game against Robert Ruck. It reminded me strongly of a very impressive game that Gawain Jones had played against Boris Gelfand at the 2013 London Classic: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+ read more…
Lessons from the ROC Nova College Open 2017 – Part III
The next instalment in our examination of my games from the ROC Nova College Open in July is my 4th round game, the 3rd game of a rather tiring Saturday! I was desperate to finish promptly and have an early night but as always in such cases, the exact opposite happened! As always, a playable read more…
"The secret of my success: with every move I force the opponent to think for themselves!"
- Alexander Alekhine
about
I am a Chess Grandmaster and writer, and one of England's top players. When I am not doing my job as an IT Consultant, I fill my free time with as much chess as possible
my work
Writing and discussing chess has always been one of my passions. I review chess books in a regular column for New in Chess magazine and have written 8 books myself. I also contribute to chess videos regularly.
contact me
I hope that you enjoy the site. I will enrich its content over time and would love to hear what you think. Let me know whether there are any topics you would like me to cover in my blog.
"How many moves do I consider when analysing? Only one, but it's always the best one!"
- Emanuel Lasker
