Grandmaster Secrets: Winning Quickly at Chess

By John Nunn

Published by GAMBIT

John Nunn is a grandmaster from England. He has won four individual gold medals and three team silver medals at Chess Olympiads. He is arguably the most highly acclaimed chess writer in the world - he has twice won the prestigious British Chess Federation Book of the Year Award. In 2004 he won the World Chess Solving Championship, and repeated the feat in October 2007 with a record winning score of 89/90.

In this tremendously instructive and entertaining work, John Nunn selects 125 of the finest short decisive grandmaster games of the modern era. For a grandmaster to lose a game in 25 moves or fewer takes something special, and club players can learn a great deal from studying these miniatures. Each of these games is a true battle, with the result often in doubt until near the very end of the struggle.

Nunn identifies the most common causes of the errors that lead to the loser's demise, and how one can seek to take dramatic advantage of the opponent's risky or faulty play. In his thought-provoking extended introduction, he explains that in many cases, the problem was of a psychological nature: often the loser fails to accept that events have not unfolded according to plan, and as a consequence steers into the reefs when there was still time to head for safer waters.

Nunn begins this revised version of his previous work, 101 Brilliant Chess Miniatures, with a short preface talking about the updates and improvements of this new edition. This book comes with a new and easier to follow layout which allows for deeper analysis throughout. There are also several analytical corrections as well as a new introduction including 8 extra miniatures with light annotations. The biggest addition is the 24 recent games played between 2000 and 2006 added to the end.

Each game is annotated well. After going through each game the reader will have a firm understanding of what went wrong and how the game was decided. The purpose of the book is to instruct and educate in an interesting way. While the book has decent instruction, it seems more suited towards entertaining. With the many diagrams, this book makes a great read with or without a board.

For anybody who is looking for an interesting read or has trouble studying, this is highly recommended. It will provide hours of enjoyable study and may well teach you several things on the way.

NSG Rating = 9.4 of 10