Chess Lessons by Vladimir Popov

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Vladimir Popov is a distinguished Russian chess coach who has guided his two most celebrated pupils, the Kosintseva sisters, into the Top 10 of women's chess. In Chess Lessons Popov shares his secrets of chess improvement.

Chess is of course a complex game, but Popov has the ability as a coach and author to offer clear principles to help the reader achieve a deeper understanding of chess.

A top Russian chess coach shares his secrets of chess improvement.

• Written by a highly successful chess coach
• An expert guide to playing better chess.

"In the Russian school of chess (the English school of chess is more difficult to define unless holding weekend tournaments in educational establishments counts) such accidents would be carefully eliminated with rigorous training programmes, and this technique is detailed in a book entitled Chess Lessons by Vladimir Popov. The author follows several of his pupils, the best-known of whom are the Kosintseva sisters, currently ranked numbers four and five on the female rating list, showing the training positions on which he has tested them and relevant fragments from their games. This kind of book can be rather heavy going, but this interplay has a certain charm and is cheering when his students make plenty of mistakes as well."

GM Michael Adams, The Telegraph

"Working through the many examples in each chapter will provide the reader with a good understanding of the topic at hand, and the end-of-chapter problems will likely present a challenging test for most readers.

I would suggest that this book is especially suitable for players roughly in the 1600-2000 range, although I suspect that higher-rated players will benefit as well, touching up their weak spots."