I read this book when considering going back to the French Defense a couple of years ago, and found many of the recommendations intriguing. Ultimately, I recognized that this kind of play is just not my style and I didn’t adopt the book’s suggestions … but if uncompromising play with Black is your style, you will be very happy with your purchase!
Even though I haven’t “used” this book, I don’t regret buying and reading it. Good repertoire books are hard to find, but I know one when I see it.
About the Author
Simon Williams. Photo: ChessBase
Simon Williams is well-known as a chess commentator, having teamed up to cover events with Irina Krush, Jovanka Houska, Elisabeth Pähtz, and Fiona Steil-Antoni, among others. He is a mainstay of the Gibraltar Chess Festival.
He is an unabashed attacking player, and has scored wins against chess heavyweights like Ivan Sokolov, Boris Gelfand, and Radoslaw Wojtaszek in classical chess.
Committed attacking or counterattacking play can be exciting and very effective! Attacking Chess: the French is a good example.
Jacob Aagaard (1973 – ) was born in Horsholm, Denmark but for many years has represented Scotland. He earned his grandmaster title in 2007.
Aagaard’s most notable achievement as a player was his clear first place in the 2007 British Championship. He has also won the Championship of Scotland.
Not only does Aagaard have a great legacy as an author in his own right, he co-founded Quality Chess after writing a dozen books for Everyman Chess.
Quality Chess recruits top authors, including Marin, Boris Avrukh, Vasilios Kotronias, Artur Yusupov, and more.
A chess fanatic could safely buy a Quality Chess book sight unseen. I would not make this claim about any other chess publisher. Quality Chess also prints hardcover editions of their books: they have proven conclusively that players will pay for high quality work.
Anyway, this post is about Jacob Aagaard the author, so let’s get started, shall we? After all, he has won several Book of the Year awards from various entities.
Openings
From 1998 through 2004, Aagaard produced “typical” opening guides for improving players. I haven’t read any of these, because they didn’t cover subject matter that interested me at the time.
I really enjoyed this book, because Aagaard’s struggles as a non-descript IM battling both his opponents and himself hit close to home.
The book is also remembered for the author’s criticisms of John Watson’s books — and good for him, I think Watson is one of the most overrated chess authors.
Some people didn’t like the “philosophical” bent of this and similar books, but Excelling at Chess was named 2002 ChessCafe.com Book of the Year.
Excelling at Positional Chess was in my wheelhouse, and I enjoyed it even more than the original Excelling at Chess! Aagaard’s presentation of examples is sublime. I have not read Excelling at Technical Chess, but have been wanting to do so for years! So much for willpower.
Aagaard helped launch Quality Chess with Practical Chess Defence (2006). While interesting, it was perhaps slightly disappointing. I would think writing about defense is harder than writing about attacking.
Still, one must admire Aagaard for never shying away from taking risks and expressing his chess ideas.
In 2008, the new Grandmaster kept firing with The Attacking Manual 1: Basic Principles and The Attacking Manual 2: Technique and Praxis. In my opinion, these works raised Aagaard from popular writer and chess thinker to elite trainer. I didn’t get through much of these two books, but I did work through a handful of chapters — Dvoretsky-esque in many ways, but also more straightforward. This is no accident: Aagaard has been very open about his admiration for Mark Dvoretsky over the years.
As attacking-challenged as I am, these works did help. I imagine serious study would reap huge rewards. This pair of books won English Chess Federation Book of the Year for 2010.
What a way to cap off a successful career! Surely Aagaard would now focus on running Quality Chess and not write too much more, right?
Grandmaster Preparation
Well … Aagaard is more of a field general, it seems!
Starting in 2012, he produced a series of training manuals for improving players — even up to GM level and beyond. I think there’s even a reference to Boris Gelfand using some of Aagaard’s material to help prepare for his 2012 World Championship match with Viswanathan Anand…
I bought Grandmaster Preparation: Calculation (2012) in hardcover, and it was so worth it. A beautiful book worth the $40 or whatever I paid for it. The little bit I worked through stretched me and restructured some of my thinking processes! Wow!
I’m not exaggerating: I think serious worth with this book could take an Expert like me and raise him or her to 2200-2300. All ambitious players should get it, say, 1800 and above.
That it won the 2013 Association of Chess Professionals Book of the Year award is almost an afterthought.
I haven’t bought any other books in the series, because I hardly work on chess any longer, but they are:
Jacob Aagaard has established himself as one of the best and most influential chess authors of his generation. What do you think of his work? Comment on this post!
Gashimov reached a peak rating of 2761 in January 2012, the same month as Wijk aan Zee. As it turned out, this would be his last tournament … epilepsy and a brain tumor forced him to retire from chess at just 25 years old. He died two years later, only 27, reminiscent of Pillsbury, Charousek, and other top talents a century before.
His notatble tournament victories include the Cappelle la Grande Open (2007 and 2008), the FIDE Grand Prix(2008) in his home city of Baku, and Reggio Emilia(2010/2011). He also won the decisive last round game that clinched gold for Azerbaijan at the 2009 European Team Championship.
The Gashimov Memorial has been held annually since 2014 in Shamkir, Azerbaijan.
Gashimov wins a minature against the formidable Boris Gelfand. The Belarusian-Israeli legend was only the fifth player in chess history to achieve a 2700 Elo rating (after Fischer, Karpov, Tal, and Kasparov). He nearly reached the chess Olympus in 2012 when he drew a 12-game World Championship match with Viswanathan Anand (+1 =10 -1) but lost the rapid tiebreak.
White to play. How did Gashimov end the game quickly after Gelfand’s untimely castling?
From 1998 through 2004, Aagaard produced “typical” opening guides for improving players. I haven’t read any of these, because they didn’t cover subject matter that interested me at the time.
Jacob Aagaard’s breakout title was 
Aagaard helped launch Quality Chess with 
In 2008, the new Grandmaster kept firing with 
Starting in 2012, he produced a series of training manuals for improving players — even up to GM level and beyond. I think there’s even a reference to Boris Gelfand using some of Aagaard’s material to help prepare for his 2012 World Championship match with Viswanathan Anand…
I bought 
