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 – November 2015
In this article, I look back to an ending I played in the 4NCL in November 2015. It was a weekend of endgames for me as the queens came off the next day as soon as move 14! I reached the position in the diagram after 31 rather dour moves. I felt my position read more…
A walk through memory lane
Whilst in England for Mother’s Day last weekend, I spent a couple of hours browsing through my old scorebooks again. A lot of memories there, some of which I thought might be interesting to share. As always, playable versions of these games are available at http://cloudserver.chessbase.com/MTIyMTYx/replay.html. We’ll start off with the very first tournament game read more…
Lessons from the 4NCL – March 2017
I didn’t feel in great shape at the last 4 NCL weekend in March, but I did have an interesting middlegame on the Sunday morning which gave me some nice analysis practice on the early morning flight back to Amsterdam! My preparation for the weekend had mainly consisted of analysing games of HE Atkins and read more…
H.E. Atkins, 9-times British Champion – Part II
The Yorkshiremen F.D Yates and H.E. Atkins were frequent rivals in the British Championships from 1909 until Yates’ untimely death in 1932. Yates came second to Atkins in 4 of Atkins’ 9 British Championship victories! The first game in this article is taken from the match played in 1912 to decide the winner of the 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
