'I wouldn't have trouble finding Alekhine's combinations, if only I could get into the same positions!' These words (by Rudolf Spielmann) convey a feeling that will be familiar to many chess players. In On the Attack Jan Timman demonstrates that a good attack must be based on sound strategic foundations.

Timman reveals the ideas that propel the attacks by mo­dern chess stars like Kasparov, Topalov, Anand, Shirov and Judit Polgar, and he illuminates the differences in their styles. When is the position ripe to strike? What is the right time to sacrifice? When can you decide a game with a quiet move?

On the Attack teaches you how to build up an advantage and how to convert it into a crushing attack. It shows you how top players exploit their opponent's weaknesses. An exquisite selection of 33 sparkling games by the great attackers of our time is completed by 33 attacking fragments that are both spectacular and instructive.

Jan Timman's fame as a world class player has always been firmly linked with his reputation as an analyst of the game. A former world championship finalist, he is the author of several highly acclaimed bestsellers, such as Chess the Adventurous Way, Power Chess with Pieces and Curacao 1962. Jan Timman is editor-in-chief of New In Chess, the world's premier chess magazine.

Preface

It is not easy to settle on an adequate way to classify attacking games, which is why I decided to make a selection from all the top players with a number of beautiful and in-structive attacking games to their names. It goes without saying that such a selection is by its nature subjective: I have not included games from players like Kramnik and Leko, because I failed to find material that was suitable for my purpose.

I have aimed to provide an insight in the way in which modern top players conduct the attack. What their efforts, as presented here, have in common is that the games are all of an exceptionally high level and their attacks are 'correct', that is to say: they meet the demands of the position, according to Wilhelm Steinitz's adage: 'If you have an advantage you must attack, as otherwise the advantage will disappear'.

Interestingly, while there are differences between the players' styles, when it comes down to 'hitting home', there are more similarities than differences between them. The reason for this is precisely because they all know very well how to meet the demands of the position.

Except for that 'rare bird' Ivan Sokolov, all of the eleven players show a more or less consistent preference for 1 .e4 - in the case of Kasparov and Karpov, at least in their attack­ing heydays. If I call this the opening move for attackers, I am following an old tradition: in the nineteenth century you played either 1.e4 e5 2.f4, a 'real gambit', or 1.d4 d5 2.c4, a 'positional' opening. Even though much has changed, the more concrete 1 .e4 is still considered White's most aggressive opening move. But Sokolov and many others have proved that 1.d4 can also suit an attacking player very well. Many 1. d4 openings that had always been considered solid have been sharpened up in recent times.

In chess, players of any level have their qualities which come to the fore in certain fragments. But it is very seldom that an attack flows naturally from a strategically correct build-up. For instance, Emil Sutovsky's attacking play is highly interesting, but often rather speculative, and this kind of attack is precisely what I have aimed to avoid in the Games Section of this book.

There are, of course, many great attacking players in the last few decades who have not been included in this selection of eleven. Some of them are featured in the Fragments Section, in which I present a number of pretty and instructive fragments with the aim of shedding more light on the way 'modern attacks' are carried out. I have included, for example, Andrey Volokitin rather than a great talent like Magnus Carlsen, as the former had made a big jump forward when I started writing this book and showed definite signs of a 'complete' attacking player.

The two World Champions Garry Kasparov and Veselin Topalov have attained their greatest successes by excellent preparation, aimed at a quick initiative and a spectacular middlegame win. This aspect has become a crucial part of present-day attacking chess, but I think it is exaggerated to predict that here lies the future of our game. There are also other tendencies. Levon Aronian is an interesting player who does not have a very broad opening knowledge, but does have a rather special, fresh and open-minded approach to the game and is still developing himself. This freshness and open-mindedness also distinguishes Peter Svidler, in my opinion a truly classical player who has written in various analyses that he was not quite up-to-date on his openings but just went for it, just because he found the position interesting. Both Aronian and Svidler are, however, strategical players rather than out-and-out attackers.

The 33 games in this book are from the past 25 years, and most of them are actually pretty recent. Here, too, the selection criteria are subjective, and I have left out famous games like Kasparov-Topalov, Wijk aan Zee 1999, and Short-Timman, Tilburg 1991. Both games are characterized by a long and spectacular king march, in the first instance by the defender, in the second one by the attacker. But the attacking aspects of the game do not really come to the fore.

I hope that the interested reader will enjoy the games and the fragments, and that true students of chess will find them useful for learning how to conduct an attack themselves.

Jan Timman, Amsterdam, August 2006