It is very important for the practical player to train his or her ability, understand when to rely on intuition, rules of thumb and more general positional considerations, when to try to solve the problems by calculating variations to the end, and how to manage time to avoid time pressure.

With these goals in mind, Dvoretsky's Analytical Manual delivers a lot of excellent, high quality training material and many exercises. The author discusses every problem from the perspective of the practical player, gives many general guidelines and investigates psychological aspects in depth.

Foreword

What is the point of an Analytical Manual in modern times, where computers using tablebases and the latest analysis engines seem to be capable of solving almost any question? The answer is easy to provide: There is a huge difference between the search for the objective truth, and a practical game with limited time as the great Mikhail Tal put it: "The hours of analysis and the few minutes of a practical game, they are absolutely not one and the same."

So it is very important for the practical player to train his or her ability, knowing when to rely on intuition, rules of thumb and more general positional considerations, and knowing when to try to solve problems by calculating variations to the end, all the while managing time to avoid time pressure.

In this new book respected trainer and author Mark Dvoretsky delivers plenty of excellent, high quality training material and many exercises. All the problems and issues are discussed from the view of the practical player, giving many general guidelines and investigating the psychological aspects in depth.

As perhaps the world's most famous chess trainer, Dvoretsky has profited from the suggestions of his high caliber students, who have discovered many mistakes and fresh ideas even in such well-analyzed games involving Tal and Botvinnik, Karpov and Kasparov and Kasparov and Korchnoi. Dvoretsky also makes full use of the comments of the combatants themselves, which results in very interesting psychological insights into the fight.

What grandmaster Artur Yusupov stated in his Foreword to Dvoretsky's excellent Endgame Manual is still true: "One of the secrets of the Russian chess school is now before you, dear reader!"

International Grandmaster Karsten Müller

Hamburg, Germany

September 2008

004 Foreword

005 Introduction

010 Signs, Symbols, and Abbreviations

011 Part 1 Immersion in the Position

012 Chapter 1 Combinative Fireworks

025 Chapter 2 Chess Botany - The Trunk

032 Chapter 3 Chess Botany - The Shrub

038 Chapter 4 Chess Botany - Variational Debris

049 Chapter 5 Irrational Complications

061 Chapter 6 Surprises in Calculating Variations

069 Chapter 7 More Surprises in Calculating Variations

085 Part 2 Analyzing the Endgame

086 Chapter 8 Two Computer Analyses

093 Chapter 9 Zwischenzugs in the Endgame

098 Chapter 10 Play like a Computer

105 Chapter 11 Challenging Studies

112 Chapter 12 Studies for Practical Players

118 Chapter 13 Playing Out Endgame Studies

127 Chapter 14 Two Endgames of Anatoly Karpov

147 Part 3 Games for Training Purposes

148 Chapter 15 First Steps as a Trainer

153 Chapter 16 Questions about a Game

162 Chapter 17 Castling on Opposite Sides

170 Chapter 18 A Training Polygon

182 Chapter 19 Open Warfare

206 Part 4 Practical Psychology

208 Chapter 20 Should He Have Sacrificed?

218 Chapter 21 An Invitation to Analysis

227 Chapter 22 Chaos on Board

242 Chapter 23 Snatch a Pawn or Attack?

259 Chapter 24 A Battle of Opposites

273 Chapter 25 At the Grandmaster Level

304 Chapter 26 Experience versus Youth

320 Part 5 Lasker the Great

322 Chapter 27 How to Play a Pawn Down

328 Chapter 28 Immersion in a Classic

347 Chapter 29 Justified Greed

355 Chapter 30 Unjustified Greed

365 Chapter 31 Winning by Losing

376 Chapter 32 The Battle of Heavy Pieces

390 Chapter 33 A Historical Serial

418 Index of Games and Fragments

419 Index of Studies