Artur Yusupov Build Up Your Chess The Fundamentals

I just spent most of this afternoon working through the first chapter of this fine workbook. I'm really enjoying it so far. I know somebody else said they had or were considering this book so thought I'd put a quick review up here.

So far it looks excellent and more immediately suited to my level than the ICS course, being a book aimed at giving you all the knowledge you need to reach 1500.

It's not really an instructional book, there is very little prose basically it covers 24 fundamental themes, gives you a few examples and then gives you 12 questions per chapter of varying difficulty, with a 24 question final test at the end.

Most pleasingly to me I aced the first test for chapter 1, Mating Motifs scoring maximum points

This is much more encouraging to me than working through the more advanced ICS stuff and barely scoring any points at all

So for now I'm going to focus on this book, I reckon I can finish it in around 6-8 weeks if I spend around 3 hours a day on it.

I think if I work through this and then come back to the ICS material with this foundational knowledge it will make a lot more sense.

I'd recommend the book to anyone who wants to improve the technical aspects of their game whilst learning the higher level strategies from the ICS course.

Just a brief overview the workbook covers basic mates and tactics, discovered check, double attacks, the pin, combinations etc, some basic endgames, key strategic themes like centralisation, outposts, weak points etc.

As I say its not an instructional book but just a workbook which I think is incredibly useful so far.

Thanks for the review - I've been considering it for awhile. Probably a good candidate for my next book spending spree.

Thanks for the info. Some reviews of the book:
http://www.jeremysilman.com/book_reviews_js/Build_Up_Your_Chess_1_Fundamentals.html

http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1226389259.shtml

While I am not on the lookout for yet another chess program (that's a problem I have is the chess instruction switching disease), this does look interesting and I hope I see it at a bookstore so I can peruse it.

Ok I did the second chapter today, more basic mating motifs.

DAMN this was MUCH harder. After acing the first chapter's test I thought I'd storm through these just as quickly but they were so tricky.

Often I got the mating idea right but missed a critical defensive chance for the opponent so you really had to play the exact correct move at the exact correct time.

I would definitely recommend this book to everyone.

This will give you the technical grounding and perfect technique necessary to get the most out of the ICS's higher strategic and positional instruction.

If you can't tell the difference between a Boden and Blackburne mate, and you don't know about Lolli, Legal, Greco and Damiano I'd say you need to sharpen your knowledge of basic mating ideas.

The next chapter is about opening play and I can't wait!

I've now gone through the third chapter on basic opening principles. I love this stuff!

There's not much written instruction you are expected to work most of it for yourself and I think that makes it so good as you're forced to really work to understand the material.

This chapter featured lots of wonderful attacking games, especially from Paul Morphy and he annotates them quite extensively.

There's so much practical benefit from each chapter, it's information I can use immediately.

Simple King and Pawn endgames is up next!

Someone else hurry up and start this book too so we can work through it together!

ICS + Yusupov Build Your Chess Series = My chess club is soon to have a new number one

I'm thinking of getting the Yusupov book this week! I definitely need to cover a few holes!!!! Many many holes in my game.

Interesting the views of others on study. I may be considered mean but I promised myself 'no more books purchased until I finished the course'. If I need to supplement I'll use all of my old endgame or tactics books or ct-art.

2 reasons for this
1) Cost - I am not buying anything to convince myself about the justification for the investment
2) No distraction. I took this course as I believed it was right for me and that to pick & choose what I study will simply allow me to focus on those things I like ( example - ridiculously complicated openings) and not on those areas I need.

Is anyone else taking a similar approach or am I just being naive and mean?

Hoopy: I'm trying to stay away from other stuff, except maybe opening supplements. I already have plenty of books on mating motifs, tactics, endgames, and such. No more needed here.

Hey guys, I think it all depends on where you think you are currently at.

I believe I still have certain fundamentals to learn before I carry on with the course, just the first two chapters of this Yusupov volume convinced me of that, I didn't know hardly any of these 'basic beginner' mating motivs!

I've completed the first 4 chapters now, chapter 4 being simple king and pawn endgames and I really feel I'm learning some great stuff here.

I'm going to keep the ICS stuff ticking over until September when I reckon I will have finished this workbook and then back onto the ICS fresh in the knowledge I know all the fundamentals and essentials before I get back to more advanced stuff.

I've ordered Volume 2 of this series now as well. I absolutely love it! I've finished the simple endgames and am about to go onto chapter 5, Double Attacks and Double Checks.

I think this material is gold, it compliments the ICS stuff so well. The ICS module is about strategy in a sweeping sense, whereas Yusupov's workbook is all about technique.

Basically I think without Yusupov's stuff the ICS material for me is a little too general, it gives the grand plans and ideas but you're already expected to know the basic fundamentals and techniqies.

So it's a combination of both for me.

Today I finished off the Simple Endgame chapter from Yusupov, then went over Yusupov's game against Rozentalis in Month One of ICS again.

Tomorrow I'll go over the Alekhine Znosko Borovsky game and start chapter 5 of Build Up Your Chess.

I also watch Daniel Kings Powerplay series a lot whilst eating or lying in bed and the ideas are all starting to fuse in my brain.

If you can't tell the difference between a Boden and Blackburne mate, and you don't know about Lolli, Legal, Greco and Damiano I'd say you need to sharpen your knowledge of basic mating ideas. - I dont even know what they are much less how to execute them. Are you saying that I crossed 1900USCF without knowing the basics? eeek

Kaspy: my hunch is you know them already, maybe not the names. Chandler's great book 'How to beat your dad at chess', despite the name that makes it sound for kids, is a wonderful overview of all these mating motifs. Strangely, that's all the book is, even though the title makes it sound like a general chess book. That book opened my eyes to the beauty of attack in chess.

I've got my copy of "Build up your chess Volume 1" just yesterday and spend some time looking at it.

This is my first book from "Quality Chess" publishing and overall the physical quality of the book is excellent! Top notch!

About half of the 24 lessons are purely tactical, like pins, discovered attack, stalemate, mate in 2. So, even if there is nothing really new for me here, at the very least this will serve as another set of tactical puzzles. I'm trying to do tactics daily now so it will be great. All examples are from actual games, so it's definitely a plus.

The other half of the book covers mating motives, endgames, and some simple positional ideas.

Even if I saw most of the things before there are definitely holes in my chess knowledge. I mean even with basic stuff. Mating motives is one glaring example!

So, I'm planning to work through the book. Hopefully quickly because I'm anxious to get volume 2!

Here is a review of volume 2:

http://grandpatzerchess.blogspot.com/2009/07/build-up-your-chess-2-by-artur-yusupov.html

And you could see the contents of upcoming Volume 3 here:

http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/docs/10/free_ebooks/

I just received my copies of Yusupov 1 and 2, and the Grooten book as well.
I had planned these purchases a while ago, but it seems this forum is creating wavelengths of synergy out there.

It'll be interesting to follow my progress with these forum topics.


The following comes from the publisher's site of Yusupov's books, posted by J Aagaard:

*******

The series will be in total 9 books, 3 of up to 1500, up to 1800 and up to 2100. The reason why we have not been too outspoken about these limits, as Artur has with the German books, is that we think he has misjudged this range a bit. If you can do what is in the first book, you will definitely be more than 1500 rated. And some things in the last, u2100 book, I find challenging.

The latest book is a u2100 book [he's talking about vol 3 which is out already - cofresi] , but the level in it is rather high at places. In gerenal I would recommend anyone wanting to work with these books, to go through them all. If some of them are a bit easy, you will get through them quite quickly anyway .

Nice to see some of you other guys jumping on board here too!

I'm loving the Yusupov book 1, so far it's pitched at my level very well.

Unfortunately a hard drive failure this week meant I lost all of my chess data

I had a database for the Yusupov worbooks and had lovingly converted the first 5 chapters onto database form as I read them, including ALL of Yusupov's comments, variations etc.

My entire ICS study so far was also wiped along with all my club games played since early March, (thankfully only 9 games and I've been able to recover a further 3 already with promises from other players that I can get the details of our past games from them so in time I can hopefully rebuild it all).

But I will not be deterred, I have bought a new harddrive and will continue onwards and upwards!

My experience so far in the first 5 chapters of Yusupov is that some parts, such as the Double Check in Chapter 5 and Mating Attacks 1, are pitched at a pretty easy level, certainly they shouldn't trouble anybody.

But Mating Attacks 2 I certainly found more difficult, and I really think I learned a lot from that chapter.

Also I love Chapter 3 on basic opening principles, his game analysis although light on words was ecellent on all variations and I loved studying through Paul Morphy's games.

I think Quality Chess are a superb publishing house, maybe number one right now, certainly I've loved the books I've bought from them so far, and the quality of the binding etc is also excellent, although i have had a couple pages from Yusupov's book start to fall out, as I'm always folding the book down flat so I can work from it without the book closing all the time, annoying when I'm trying to enter all the variations etc onto database.

Bilbo,

Sorry to hear about your hard drive failure. Always make backups with either CDs, DVDs, or external hard drives!

I'm just got my "Chess College" 1,2, and 3 by Grivas in the mail and they look great! Thin but the material seems nice. You can buy them used very cheaply.

Looks like I'm going to be a busy guy the upcoming weeks! My wife is going to kill me!

I bought the Grivas material at a Congress last year, not used them though.

For me hands down my favourite thing to work with is Yusupov's stuff because it's proper chess study, just you sitting there pouring over a board trying to come up with the solution rather than reading an instructive book.

I feel I am learning more from this method than any other.

I feel I can wait on the ICS material for a little while. The first month is great and I wil continue to go over and over that module but the future months might still be pitched a little too advanced for me.

Not that I can't understand it, I can without problem, its just ICS already assume certain fundamental knowledge and so don't teach it, and I don't want to have gaps in my chess knowledge.

Like KasparovisGod said earlier he has managed to break 1900 USCF without knowing anything about the basic mates, and probably a lot of other basic knowledge, although I imagine he's got there as a process of experience and trial and error. He may likely have gaps in his knowledge.

I started playing last September and I want to be plus 2000 within a year or so, so definitely don't want to be going down the trial and error and learn from experience route. I want a well worked out progressive learning plan from the start that gives me results fast and ensures I'm learning everything in the most efficient way possible.