New Release Books by Boris Gulko

Analyzing the Chess Mind is an exploration of psychology in chess. Psychology affects the chess moves we make, as the authors entertainingly illustrate in expertly annotated examples, but our personal chess psychology is not fixed. We can improve our chess psychology, and the authors show how. With world-class chess skills and advanced professional qualifications in psychology, GM Boris Gulko and Dr Joel Sneed are the ideal authors to write about chess psychology.

"Imagine you are a club player who has been given the opportunity to talk at length with a famous Grandmaster ... Club players are unaware of the subtleties in Grandmaster chess. Grandmasters can analyze chess at a depth that is unfathomable to amateurs ... [which] can make it difficult to understand what is lacking in the mind of an amateur. 'Lessons with a Grandmaster' bridges the gap between great player and amateur through a series of conversations between teacher, the renowned Grandmaster Boris Gulko, and student Dr. Joel R. Sneed, a professor of psychology and amateur chess player. The lessons are based on Gulko's own battles against fellow Grandmasters, and there is particular focus on strategy, tactics and the role of psychology in chess competition"--Publisher's description.

This is the third book in the highly acclaimed Lessons with a Grandmaster series. In this volume Gulko and Sneed focus on both strategic and tactical ideas, and how to successfully combine the two parts over the board.

The KGB Plays Chess is a unique book. For the first time it opens to us some of the most secret pages of the history of chess. The battles about which you will read in this book are not between chess masters sitting at the chess board, but between the powerful Soviet secret police, known as the KGB, on the one hand, and several brave individuals, on the other. Their names are famous in the chess world: Viktor Kortschnoi, Boris Spasski, Boris Gulko and Garry Kasparov became subjects of constant pressure, blackmail and persecution in the USSR. Their victories at the chess board were achieved despite this victimization. Unlike in other books, this story has two perspectives. The victim and the persecutor, the hunted and the hunter, all describe in their own words the very same events. One side is represented by the famous Russian chess players Viktor Kortschnoi and Boris Gulko. For many years they fought against a powerful system, and at the end they were triumphant. The Soviet Union collapsed and they got what they were fighting for: their freedom. Former KGB Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Popov, who left Russia in 1996 and now lives in Canada, was one of those who had worked all his life for the KGB and was responsible for the sport sector of the USSR. It is only now for the first time that he has decided to tell the reader his story of the KGB�s involvement in Soviet Sports. This is his first book, and it is not only full of sensations, but it also dares to name names of secret KGB agents previously known only as famous chess masters, sportsmen or sport officials. Just a few short years ago a book like this would have been unimaginable. Read this book. It is not only about chess. It is about glorious victory of the great chess masters over the forces of darkness.