Positional Chess Handbook is NOT a puzzle book. It contains fragments of games and most of the diagrams can't be "solved" like in a real puzzle book. All the reader can do is play through the given moves to passively learn some positional patterns. So the training value is much lower compared to great puzzle books like Hellsten's book Mastering Chess Strategy.

Mastering Positional Sacrifices is only a collection of lightly annotated games and contains NO puzzles for training. So I don;t understand why it's on this list of "best puzzle books".

Pls interview Hans Niemann he has an interesting story ❤

Great concept for this series

Thank you for having him again, really enjoyed this episode 🙂

Thanks for having me on, Ben. If there's one more bit of advice I regret not sharing during the podcast, it's "broad not deep." You don't get points for calculating a super long, irrelevant line during the game. You do however need to make sure you don't miss a single candidate move for you or your opponent during the game. One miss could cost you an entire game, especially in sharp positions. So when in doubt, be sure you're searching broad in the first few ply of your calculations. You don't want to go too deep unless you're sure you haven't missed anything in a critical line before that point.

I enjoy learning more about other ChessDojo mates. This podcast was great from start to finish.

"Knowsall" he is the reason i cancelled dojo!😅

Can anyone give the full video link please?

Love your podcast! Adding more real-life stories could make it even more engaging. please improve your thumbnail

I don't agree that English chess is not in decline. More support is required for the clubs.

1:02:54 - Learning from Classic games (3-5 games every day) 1:03:36 - 12 things to prepare, do any 3-4 every day. 1:06:30 - Recommended Books Game Collection + Middlegame:- 1. My 60 Memorable Games - Fischer 2. 1953 Zurich - Bronstein 3. Art of Attack - Vukovic 4. Life and Games of Mikhail Tal - Tal 5. Judgement and Planning in Chess - Euwe 6. Fire on Board - Shirov 6. Mark Dvoretsky's all books 7. Jacob Aggard's all books 8. Kasparov's all books (Fighting Chess, My Great Predecessors etc.) 9. Secrets of Practical Chess - Nunn 10. Winning Pawn Structures - Baburin 11. Think Like a Grandmaster - Kotov 12. Endgame Strategy - Shereshevsky 13. Positional Decision Making & Dynamic Decision Making - Gelfand 14. Positional Chess Sacrifices - Suba 15. Artur Yusupov's 9 book series of Build Up Your Chess + Boost Your Chess + Chess Evolution 16. On The Attack - Timman (And other books of Timman) 17. Creative Chess & Surprise in Chess - Avni (And other books of Avni) 18. Rocking The Ramparts - Christiansen 19. Improve Your Chess Now - Tisdall 20. It's Only Me - Miles 21. Chess Masterpieces - Rubinstein Recent Books:- 22. Under The Surface - Markoš 23. The Woodpecker Method - Smith For Solving Puzzles:- 1. Perfect Your Chess - Volokitin 2. Imagination in Chess - Gaprindashvili Endgame:- 1. Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual - Dvoretsky 2. Fundamental Chess Endings - Müller 3. How to Play Chess Endgames - Müller 4. Endgame Preparation - Speelman 5. Theory and Practice of Chess Endings - Panchenko

21:04 - Not writing any analysis on paper while training. It helps simulate actual game conditions and won't make us dependent on writing analysis and rather keeping everything in the head. 25:10 - Don't worry about the quality of the material. Worry about the quality of your effort.

Sam always look unimpressed

Like or Dislike: Neutral. Ten minutes in and this is the most boring episode in the channel's history. In the future use the KZbin chapters feature so we can skip ahead to where the content actually relates to the title of the video.

I love Jesse's creative "madness"! :) Seeing him playing the recommended openings made me respect him more!

Congratulations Tani on your U.S. Cadet Win.

and ben finegold play otb tounament again in charlotte 18 jan 2025

I hope Kramnik doesn't watch this......"People were using their phones".

The goat of all goats

Lenderman!

I love how he talks about playing the opening he teaches it feels like a must. That same logic is why I don’t have any desire for his move by move on legends. No offense to him as I’m very religious about that even when it comes to GM authors. I want to see super GMs go over GM games and GMs go over IM games etc…

I second this attitude about the online sphere. We as players and students need to gauge our success based wholly on classical performance. Your rapid rating is only the tip of the iceberg. Some players have great memories but I still feel there’s room for someone who devotes what little time they have to creative tactical play. Do not let your rating define you as a player. Most of the chumps you play would get smoked the second they are out of theory.

Malcolm is such a class act. Having met him briefly I got a great sense about him and he's done so much. We need more people like him.

Who is the guest? Jonathan who?

Do invite Pein more often, he has such a wealth of knowledge on chess!

Disappointing that Ben would have on a supremacist and supporter of terrorism.

Great interview with a British chess legend. Thank you, Ben and Malcolm

Welcome Malcolm.

Magnus managed to make screw up both tournaments and make chess look ridiculous, again. He should retire quickly before completely destroying his legacy.

this was amazing! Thank you. Hearing about the auction and all those was great too

I'm sorry, but how is this guy a real chess player and saying things like the WB tiebreaks could have lasted forever without the players making short draws? It's just baffling.

Malcolm is one of the few people that make things happen and without them whom leave a huge, almost unfillable void. The silent heroes of chess, that silently move the gears of the machine and without them the machine falters of fails.

Magnus is overrated on his big- and pig-headness about his self-importance in his chess skills, the rules for chess competitors applies equally to everyone. Otherwise, what is the point of having rules in ANY chess competition.

Armageddon should be used only in the extreme scenario. As a tiebreak, I find it worse and more unfair than the sudden death blitz. So we can have a system with say 7 sudden death blitz games and then move to Armageddon as the final resort. Highly highly unlikely we'll have 5 straight draws in sudden death, unless both players are pre-arranging draws. Still awful by Magnus to even propose the shared title.

After 'Jeansgate' I would say that Magnus Carlsen played the 'Weissenhaus Gambit' quite well. Perhaps it will lead to the 'checkmate' of Kremlin owned FIDE.

Fantastic interview! Malcolm made some excellent points-I don’t agree with him on everything (especially since he crushed me in a cup final a couple of years ago!😂 )-but I really admire what he has done and continues to do for chess. It’s great to see someone unapologetically sharing their opinions on important issues.

FIDE has been a shambles for decades… and most likely corrupt. Also maybe not have your earphones so close to your mic 😉

Thanks, totally agree. Fide are clowns. Stupid dress code and why not a armageddon. And you can't share a champion ship !

Thanks for the interview, anyway. Cheers.

He's a bit rambly. Likes his own voice and opinions.

11:00 Yeah, a basketball game can POTENTIALLY also go on forever. Same with play-off ice hockey. A penalty shoot out in Football - same. The rules were not written badly at all. That's a terrbile point to make. What Magnus and Ian have done was disgusting and FIDE screwed up insanely hard for going along with it. Why having only two Blitz World Champions and not 4, 8 or more? A farce made out of the competition. An awful precedent to make.

Good chat i enjoyed it! i do feel that when the guest is talking so much its not really a conversation at that point. Kinda wish Malcom was more concise with his answers to let you ask more questions. U can tell he has so much more to say! lol need to bring him back

I take it that it's *essential* to think and calculate using coordinates/notation as often as possible, as opposed to just saying "here here here takes takes takes", right? I feel this doesn't get talked about enough. Commentators might even be guilty of not doing it themselves, or worse: start drawing too many arrows.

Interesting story for sure. Smart guy, did he grow up in a wealthy household, makes good money now, no kids? Great interview, just having a tough time finding anything relatable because I'm not incredible at anything lol

A fun, enjoyable interview. Thanks to you both.

yeah but being titled and then finally reaching gm in your early 30s is common, it's later it gets much harder to improve.

This is my favorite book

Full vedio ??

First time to see a podcast with the interviewee standing up! Somehow cool