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 the 4NCL – May 2017
The last 4NCL weekend of the year was a successful one for my Guildford team as we won the league with a round to spare. I made 2,5/3 on Board 1 to round off a good personal season as well. Although none of my games were particularly noteworthy, there were a few interesting episodes which read more…
Szabo’s best game
A few weeks ago, I talked about my visit to the Max Euwe Centre in Amsterdam and my purchase of the Hungarian Grandmaster Szabo’s (excellent) book of his Best Games. A reader Carsten Hansen mentioned that Szabo considered his game against Pirc to be his best achievement of his early years so I thought it read more…
Grinding with the rooks
While rummaging through some old score sheets, I came across a couple of interesting rook endings which I thought were worth sharing. They were both played for Solingen in the Bundesliga just after I retired from professional chess and started a full-time job in Amsterdam. In both cases, I was on the grinding side of read more…
Happy in the past!
I haven’t had much time for chess analysis for the past few weeks as I’ve just started a new job, but I did take a timeout last weekend for a visit to the Max Euwe centre in Amsterdam. After a lovely afternoon with my nose buried in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, I 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
