Intuition is central to all chess decision-making, and an understanding of its role is vital in improving one's game. Players who try to calculate everything to a finish are doomed to lose out to those who use their logical and intuitive abilities in harmony with one another. This book, the first devoted to the role of intuition in chess, explains how to allow your intuition to reach its full potential and provides guidance on the types of positions in which one should rely heavily on intuition, and on those where one ought to be more analytical.

The two authors, both top-level authors and players, have drawn examples from modern practice and from the classics, with special emphasis on players whose intuition has been legendary, such as Mikhail Tal. The authors devote particular attention to the role of intuition in sacrifices, whether for attacking, defensive or positional purposes.

Alexander Beliavsky is a famous grandmaster from Ukraine who now plays for Slovenia. He was World Junior Champion in 1973 and has been among the world elite for more than twenty years. His play is marked by excellent theoretical preparation, fighting spirit and a determined approach.

Adrian Mikhalchishin is also a Ukrainian grandmaster who is based in Slovenia. He is well known as a writer and researcher, whose work has covered openings and endgames in addition to middlegame topics.

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"Beliavsky and Mikhalchishin deserve credit for writing a pioneering work on a very difficult subject. I don't expect this book to be the last word on chess intuition or its closely related cousin, chess pattern recognition, but it's a good first start. Players from 2000 on up to Grandmaster should find this interesting reading. RECOMMENDED" - John Donaldson

"How often does a chessbook make you think about the soul of the game, and what makes a great player great? How often does a chessbook give you lots of interest to read? How often does such a book also give you an enormous amount of fascinating examples to entertain, instruct, and ponder? The fact is I enjoyed SECRETS OF CHESS INTUITION very, very much. There are flaws, not the least of which is the lack of answers to the questions above. But even with those cracks in the book's edifice, I still have to applaud the authors for doing something original, and in forcing us to start a personal dialogue that may, if we look deep inside ourselves for an answer, help us become far better players or, at the very least, gain insight into how the 'other half' thinks." - Jeremy Silman

"Gambit have done it again! Yet another superb offering from Gambit that I can wholeheartedly recommend to players of all standards" - John Pugh, CHESS POST, CHECKMATE

"an excellent contribution to chess literature" - CHESSVILLE

"Not much to say about this book except: buy it! ...the value of such a book is that it helps you to confront such stereotyped thinking. A really worthwhile and useful book" - GM Matthew Sadler, NEW IN CHESS

"This book covers a topic that often eludes the average player, and it is a broad discussion of how intuition can be used in various aspects of the game. Just about every player, when analyzing with a stronger player, has come across a point where the stronger player, without much discussion, declares that he/she 'knows' a move to be the right one. Often it is hard for the player to articulate just why this is so, and this book seeks to provide at least an explanation of why this situation exists in certain kinds of positions. this is an interesting book on a subject that has not received much coverage to date." Randy Bauer, RANDY'S REVIEWS

"...Beliavsky and Mikhalchishin have delved deep into a chess player's sub-conscious. How many of us have agonised over which rook to place on a file, without really knowing why they chose the rook they did! ...a fascinating work" - Munroe Morrison, OPEN FILE

"I found this a very interesting and stimulating book, a pleasure to read because of the richness of the chess positions" - Alan Sutton, EN PASSANT

"The authors convey the importance of absorbing patterns into our sub-conscious... so that moves can be found intuitively..." - Bab Wilders, Nederlands Dagblad

"Grandmasters Suetin and Ivanchuk contribute thought-provoking passages, whilst overall this work should help everyone, from the level of the average club-player upwards, to at least bring new ideas into their armoury and to learn to trust their intuition more" - Richard Palliser

"Their work is brimming full of instructive practical examples so that all readers who properly absorb the stimulating material will inevitably benefit enormously from it. That includes a super honing of one's chess intuition, which cannot fail to take a giant leap after assimilating the treasure-trove of ideas poured out by the two GM authors." - GM Paul Motwani, THE SCOTSMAN

" In Secrets of Chess Intuition by Alexander Beliavsky and Adrian Mikhalchishin, a new, fascinating book issued by Gambit Publications in London, Tal argues that it is not clear who is taking risks. Is it the player who sacrifices a piece in a situation where it was possible for him not to have sacrificed? Or is it the player who accepts the sacrifice in the hope of holding off the forthcoming attack?" - GM Lubosh Kavalek, WASHINGTON POST

"...a very interesting and important book. Two very strong players have taken on the task of researching the topic of intuition in chess. They use a great number of quotations from top players throughout the history of modern chess, and illustrate their ideas with a huge number of examples. The book also includes contributions by Ivanchuk and Suetin. There are eighteen main chapters, plus a short section of test positions. The book is indexed by player and opening, and, as usual with GAMBIT books, the quality of the production is excellent. The translation, which is by Gavin Lock, reads very well. Verdict: an interesting and valuable addition to the literature; the numerous positions can be looked at for pleasure or as part of a training regime." Phil Adams

" The book offers a good selection of varied intuitive decisions at the board' - E Carl, Rochade