Solving studies is well established as an effective method of chess improvement. In Practical Chess Beauty one of the world’s greatest study composers, Yochanan Afek, shares his finest creations.

Fire your imagination, gain a greater appreciation of chess geometry, and develop a finer feeling for the pieces’ potential by trying to find the ideas hidden in the hundreds of studies in this book. Or simply wonder at some of the most stunning chess moves ever conceived.

Yochanan Afek is an over-the-board IM from Israel who holds titles in almost every area of chess, including Grandmaster of Chess Composition. In a long and celebrated career, Afek has been a composer and a solver, a player and tournament organizer, as well as an arbiter and trainer.

From the Foreword by GM Emil Sutovsky: “The book you hold is full of energy; it is fresh and evidently written with a lot of love and passion for the game. Yochanan visibly enjoys sharing his knowledge and readily invites us into his magical world.”

Recently I was amazed by a video showing one of the world’s youngest grandmasters, Indian
prodigy GM Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, solving an endgame study blindfold. His trainer,
GM R.B. Ramesh, like many of his colleagues, claims that the best way to improve one’s play is to solve endgame studies on a daily basis.

Top grandmasters use studies as part of their training programs to improve their creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, to polish their calculating
skills, to enrich their arsenal of tactical weaponry and to deepen their endgame understanding. And no less importantly: to keep sharp in general and intensify their joy in chess!

In my professional chess career of more than 50 years, as a player, writer and trainer (among
various other chess interests), I have devoted a great deal of my time and energy to promoting the endgame study as an excellent educational tool to develop a sense of aesthetics and precision, as well as practising how to estimate accurately the power and qualities of each piece alone and in harmony with other pieces. All these virtues are essential in shaping a complete and original player; no less so than the knowledge of opening theory and middlegame strategy.

This book is an invitation to explore chess beauty through my lifetime experiences as a player
and composer. I was persuaded years ago to write a book on my creative career, mainly by Jacob Aagaard on behalf of Quality Chess, but also by quite a few chess friends from both the over- the-board and chess composition communities. As much as I was flattered by these encouraging calls, I honestly thought that the time was not yet ripe for such an adventure, because my best, I believed, was yet to come. In fact I feel I was quite right, as I find the sixth decade of my life to have been the most fruitful and mature period in my entire composing career.

This book, summing up the first fifty years of my career, is structured according to the main themes of its contents, with each chapter displaying games and game fragments as an appetizer, my studies as the main dish, and a selection of exercises, aimed to suit a range of players, as a dessert.

Most studies in this book have game-like initial positions (as this is the terrain I was brought up on); however, from time to time the reader is allowed a peep into the fairyland of chess fantasy which is one of the treasures of chess, despite being somewhat different.