Jacob Aagaard is certainly no stranger to writing. He has already written roughly 25 to 30 chess books, covering countless topics along the way. Yet, as far as I can tell, he didn’t write many books about this fascinating subject. There is a book titled Attack & Defence (out of print), and if we dig further back into history, we encounter older material: “Attacking Manual 1 and 2″, but those books are out of print as well. So it was high time for something new.

Something new? It is turning into a completely new series. Regarding this book, Aagaard writes that he kept the number of variations limited and intended for it to be easily readable without a chessboard or computer—hence, with plenty of diagrams. As far as I am concerned, he succeeded brilliantly in this regard. The problem with many writings by strong chess players is often that they drown you in a sea of variations while offering far too little verbal explanation. To them, things are often self-evident, but not to the average club player. The author did not fall into this trap. I can easily follow it all without a board myself.

Another positive point is that he makes a clear distinction between various aspects of the game. For example: is tactics the same as attacking?