Product Description

John Nunn is one of the most highly regarded chess writers in the world. He has carefully selected thirty modern games to help the reader understand the most important aspects of chess and to illustrate modern chess principles in action. Virtually every move is explained using words that everyone can understand. Jargon is avoided as far as possible. Almost all the examples are taken from the 1990s and show how key ideas are handled by the grandmasters of today. The emphasis is on general principles that readers will be able to use in their own games, and detailed analysis is only given where it is necessary. Each game contains many lessons, but to guide the reader through the most important ideas in each phase of the game, the thirty games are grouped thematically into those highlighting opening, middlegame and endgame themes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25053 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 239 pages

From the Publisher
Gambit Publications specialises in chess and has an unrivalled reputation for originality and editorial excellence. The company is owned and staffed entirely by leading chess masters and grandmasters.

About the Author
John Nunn is a grandmaster from England. He has won four individual gold medals and three team silver medals at Chess Olympiads. In the Chess World Cup of 1988/9, he finished sixth overall, ahead of several former World Champions. He is arguably the most highly acclaimed chess writer in the world, with two of his books receiving the prestigious British Chess Federation Book of the Year Award.

Customer Reviews

An alternative way of learning chess
There are three ways of learning to play chess?

One: Reading and learning from instruction books. This is a good method. And for some topics like openings and middlegame the only method.
Two: Training with a coach who can instruct you and can analyse the games and point out the errors you made and the weaknesses you have to work on.
Three: Studying grandmaster games. This can't be done without the help of an instructive commentary from someone at grandmaster level. UCMM fits the bill. Contrary to other game-collections the games are ordered thematic. At the same time John Nunn has taken care to select games from a wide variety of openings. The games are also selected that the wins are against significant oposition. In many game collections and chess manuals, themes are clarified by games where a strong player defeats a weak player. This helps to clarify the theme, but also obscures the difficulties to convert an advantage against strong oposition.
Finally John Nunn has been able to strike a good balance between verbal explanations and detailed variations, depending on the sort of position he examines.
In short I can't think of a better and more instructive collection of games.

Absolutely magnificent!
Here is another very impressive book by Dr. John Nunn. It contains 30 games annotated move-by-move. This book is appropriate for all levels of chess players. Dr. Nunn explains modern chess strategy deeply and also gives a good deal of analysis of variations. My only complaint is that there could be more games (perhaps a total of 50) in this book, especially with a bit more endgame coverage (there are only three games particularly focusing on the aspects of the endgame.)

The best book for the ambitious club player
John Nunn has produced a magnificent work. This book contains 30 games, that deal with 30 aspects and elements of the game (for example The strong centre, the two bishops, defence and counter-attack, pawn-chain play, the power of passed pawns in the endgame...). There are more, but those 30 games are enough for the reader to get some very important lessons in basic chess strategy. Thanks to the detailed annotation and comments per move, the reader can understand the ideas behind each and every move, why a move or a plan might be good or bad....There is also a short introduction before every game, where Nunn mentions a few things about the element that the following game is going to deal with, as well as a short overview of the game in the end, summarising the important lessons that the reader should take from it. To sum up, I think this is the best book ever writen for the average club player and I strongly recommend that every player rated 1300-2000 should read it, for he has much to gain and nothing to lose from doing that. i was 1300 when I studied that book and I quickly noticed an amazing improvement in my play. Thanks for this great book John!