How and When to Break the Rules in Chess

Publishing: December 2019 Europe, January 2020 US

9781781945056, $29.95/£19.99, 564 Pages

How and when to break the rules in chess

Two great books from the Everyman Chess Library, Play Unconventional Chess and Win by Noam A. Manellla and Zeev Zohar and Break the Rules! A Modern Look at Chess Strategy by Neil McDonald, brought together in one volume.

The computer has changed the way top players think about chess. The silicon mind has no psychological barriers. It is "willing" to check moves that most humans, including top players, consider absurd and reject instantly. Thus this brave, new computer era inevitably leads to a reassessment of old axioms, principles and evaluations.

In Play Unconventional Chess, the reader will discover the incredible power unconventional moves can have. These moves contradict the most fundamental principles of the "old chess", and yet most of them played by leading grandmasters.

At first sight these moves look so strange that the reader can not avoid asking, "Was this grandmaster was inspired or drunk?" The answer will definitely surprise you.

As we progress as chess players we quickly learn a set of guidelines which help us to formulate plans, develop typical strategies and recognize key tactics. However, chess is not an easy game, with fixed 'rules' that can be applied to every single position. In fact, blindly following such rules proves to be counterproductive and prevents a player from moving on to the next level, whereas knowing when to 'break' these rules is precisely the skill which separates the best from the rest.

In Break the Rules!, Grandmaster Neil McDonald studies in depth the key components of successful rule-breaking in chess. Drawing upon his own experience and using illuminating examples from modern grandmaster chess, McDonald examines how to avoid stereotypical thinking, how to exploit typical thinking patterns, and how to confuse and beat opponents with surprising ideas.