Chess: A Guide for the Club Player

Julian Simpole, a Commonwealth Chess Master, has won the championships of both the Brighton Chess Club and Sussex County. For many years chess columnist for the Brighton & Hove Gazette, Julian also developed a successful career as Director of The London Chess Centre, and trainer of both Luke McShane and David Howell, two of the UK's youngest Grandmasters. David defeated elite GM John Nunn at the age of eight, while Luke won the World Under Ten Boys' Championship, after Julian's tutelage. Julian Hardinge has defeated seven times world championship candidate Paul Keres in a simultaneous display and annihilated ten times British champion Dr Jonathan Penrose in face to face combat. He is professionally involved in distributing educational literature on a worldwide basis.

'The book is a good pocket size, with the right amount (in my view) of diagrams to text. I reviewed this on a flight to Budapest (and the return flight also) without a chess set in front of me so that shows just how easy it is to follow... There are some golden tips such as castling on the same side as your opponent in the Caro Kann, and that the pieces are 'dead' at the start of the game but our job is to magically make them come alive. It may sound like a Harry Potter scene but of course it is absolutely spot on. In all, this is a very useful book for amateur chess players... I 'connected' with it. It is written by people like me who played chess before computers and chess engines.' Carl Portman, Carl's Planet book reviews; '... lucidly written, logically laid out and easy to understand.' Barry Martin, Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today.