Thinkers Publishing is a Belgian chess publisher. Its Modernized opening series alone had more than forty titles as of October 2026. This guide picks a selection of the Thinkers Publishing books we stock, in four groups: openings, middlegame and training, endgames, and biography and history. The rest of the Thinkers books we stock, including the newest titles, are in our Thinkers Publishing section.
For a club player looking for a training book, Robert Ris’s Crucial Chess Skills for the Club Player: Volume 2 is a good place to start. The volumes do not depend on each other. The opening repertoires below need real study time. Most of the biography section is for reading rather than study.
Openings
Most of these date from 2020 to 2022. Check recent games in your chosen line before relying on any of them for current theory.
The Modernized Grünfeld Defense
Yaroslav Zherebukh (2020). 302 pages in 16 chapters: a Grünfeld repertoire for Black against 1.d4. Colin Purdon’s verdict in British Chess News (2020): “The material is well-presented and the repertoire suggestions are both aggressive and sound.” Bram Klapwijk at Schaaksite.nl (2020) put it at players of 1800 and up who have time to study. There is no index of variations, though Purdon found lines easy to locate.
Alexey Kovalchuk (2021). 280 pages, a Black repertoire with the Modern Benoni against 1.d4. John Upham found that “the author provides comprehensive coverage of all of White’s reasonable tries” and thought that “Any tournament player that either plays the Benoni or who faces it will benefit from this modernised approach” (British Chess News, 2021). Upham would have liked the chapters ordered by importance.
Your Jungle Guide to 1.d4! Volume 1A
Vassilios Kotronias and Mikhail Ivanov (2021). The first volume of a 1.d4 repertoire for White that was planned as six volumes; as of October 2026 only Volumes 1A and 1B have appeared. This one covers the less common Queen’s Gambit Accepted lines after 3.e4 (3…c5 and 3…b5) and minor defenses such as the Chigorin, Albin and Baltic. Volume 1B, with the main lines 3…Nf6 and 3…e5, is also in stock. Neither volume covers the Queen’s Gambit Declined, the Slav or the Indian defenses. In British Chess News (2022), John Upham thought it suited to the active tournament player and praised “a stunning amount of analysis and detail”, but asked for an index of variations, which the book lacks.
The Modernized Ruy Lopez: Volume 1 and Volume 2
Dariusz Swiercz (2020 and 2021). A Ruy Lopez repertoire for White in two volumes. Volume 1 (520 pages) gives nearly 100 pages to the Berlin and is organized by variation, without complete annotated games. Volume 2 (336 pages) avoids the Marshall with 8.a4 and ends with 6.d3 as a lower-theory option against 5…Be7; many of its lines run to move 25. Colin Lyne reviewed both for British Chess News and called the first “a handy tool for ‘correspondence’ players” (British Chess News, 2021). Of the second he wrote: “Generally this is a book for those who take chess very seriously and are not frightened of learning large quantities of opening theory” (British Chess News, 2021). If you want an explained introduction to the Ruy Lopez, this is not it.
1.e4! The Chess Bible, Volume 1
Justin Tan (2021). 464 pages, but it covers only Black’s less common replies to 1.e4: the Scandinavian, Alekhine, Pirc and Modern, Nimzowitsch and Philidor. Each chapter opens with an overview. Colin Lyne called it “an interesting book for 1.e4 players with many original ideas” (British Chess News, 2021). 1…e5, 1…c5, the French and the Caro-Kann were left for later volumes, which had not appeared as of October 2026, so on its own this is not a full repertoire.
The Modernized O’Kelly Sicilian
Jan Boekelman. The publisher gives 388 pages. A complete Black repertoire built on 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 a6, with chapters on 3.d4, 3.c4 (the Maroczy setup), 3.c3 and the anti-Sicilians, among others. The only assessment we found is a forum post: a poster on the Chessgames.com Chess Book Forum (2023) gave it four stars, as they did Andrew Martin’s Play the O’Kelly Sicilian (Everyman, 2022), and wrote that the two “complement each other quite well”. The poster preferred how Martin’s table of contents is arranged but found Boekelman’s “work on the critical 3. c3 is stronger than Martin’s”, and warned that “there is some heavy slogging”.
Middlegame and training
Improve Your Practical Play in the Middlegame
Alexey Dreev (2018). About 200 pages in six chapters. Each of the first five takes one middlegame idea, with examples from real games (including cases where the idea fails) and exercises with solutions; the sixth analyzes seven games in detail. Mark Taylor found that it “covers a range of middlegame ideas, but not the standard set you find in many other volumes,” and summed it up as “an excellent but difficult book” (British Chess News, 2019).
Crucial Chess Skills for the Club Player: Volume 2
Robert Ris (2019). 390 pages of training: six chapters on the roles of the pieces, built mainly on endgame positions, five on material imbalances, then forty exercises. Mark Taylor thought “Ris’ book becomes the leader of the pack in a relatively crowded field” (British Chess News, 2020). He also noted that “The material covered here can be found in many other books”, adding that what sets this one apart is its clear explanation and its analysis of sidelines.
Unbeatable! The Art of Defense
Jan Werle (2022). 340 pages on defense, with chapters on inaccurate defense, the history of defense, emotions in chess and defensive strategies. Richard James called it “a brave and original take on a complex and difficult aspect of chess” (British Chess News, 2022). Its examples come mostly from grandmaster practice, which James thought might make it more suitable for stronger players. He also found that, “as with so many chess books, the proofreading is well below the standard I’d expect from books on other subjects.”
Evgeny Bareev (2019). 278 pages on when strong players break standard principles such as development and king safety, built on about 60 annotated games, most of them Bareev’s own. The Forward Chess blog (2022) found “a good selection of well-annotated games” and praised the witty writing. It is a game collection more than a course.
Moves 3 to 10: Understanding the Opening Phase for Improving Chess Players
Nery Strasman (2024). 264 pages for improving players on moves 3 to 10, including positions you did not prepare for. You learn by solving, with the stress on understanding rather than memorization. Strasman is an amateur player; in the foreword, GM Vitali Golod says Strasman had been his student in group online classes for about two years. Sean Marsh called it “an excellent and unusual book, which will repay serious study” (Forward Chess blog, 2024). It is not a theory book.
Endgames
Your Jungle Guide to Rook Endings
Efstratios Grivas (2020). 400 pages drawn from Grivas’s analysis, articles and coaching material, from core principles through theoretical positions such as the Lucena to practical examples, with boxed “SOS Tips”. On the back cover Grivas calls it a book on advanced rook endings. Even so, FM Richard Webb found the opening section on rook-ending principles particularly useful for less experienced players, and of the chapter on theoretical positions he wrote: “If you only read one chapter of any book on rook endgames, I suggest this one” (British Chess News, 2020).
Improve Your Practical Play in the Endgame
Alexey Dreev (2019). The companion to the middlegame book above. About 250 pages of practical endgames, many from Dreev’s own games, in six chapters on particular endgames, defense, hidden resources, prophylaxis, pawn endings and converting. FM Richard Webb found it “packed full of instructive, exciting endgames” but added that “Many of the examples are complex and require serious study” (British Chess News, 2020). There is no index or bibliography.
To Exchange or Not? The Ultimate Workbook
Eduardas Rozentalis (2020). 192 pages: 120 exercises on whether to exchange, in three tiers (Warm Up, Intermediate, Advanced), with explained solutions. It follows the author’s The Correct Exchange in the Endgame, which we also stock. FM Richard Webb thought “Players of all standards will learn a lot from attempting to solve the positions” (British Chess News, 2021). It is an exercise book; if you want the subject taught first, start with the earlier volume.
Biography and history
Genna Sosonko (2021). 260 pages, 15 essays on the Soviet chess world and its émigrés, among them seconding Korchnoi in 1971, a portrait of Taimanov, and pieces on Karpov, Kasparov and Carlsen. Richard James wrote that “Sosonko, as always, writes beautifully” (British Chess News, 2021). There is no instruction, and James would have liked more games: “Not for everyone, then, but if the content appeals, you’ll enjoy this book.”
Henrik Malm Lindberg (2024). 336 pages on Folke Rogard, the Swedish lawyer who was FIDE president from 1949 to 1970. The publisher says it concentrates on his presidency as the Cold War split the chess world between East and West, with brief treatment of his family and his legal and business work. Reviewing it in Dutch for Schaaksite.nl (2025), Oliver De Hert found “een goudmijn aan informatie over Folke Rogard” (“a goldmine of information about Folke Rogard”). The book contains no games.
Rolf Martens: Chess Genius, Maoist, Rebel
Axel Smith, Fredrik Danelius and Calle Erlandsson (2023). 384 pages. A biography of the Swedish champion Rolf Martens (1942-2008) with annotated games from his career, followed by a section on his “Ultra Hypermodern Counter Attack” openings. Claes Løfgren reviewed the 2022 Swedish original for the Chess History and Literature Society (2022): “With their new book, the authors have managed to create a worthy monument for this unusual man and player.” On the openings he was more guarded, wondering how many of them “will pass the test of time”.
Romain Edouard (2019). Thinkers’ website names Edouard as one of the publisher’s founders. 310 pages on his years as Veselin Topalov’s second, 2010-2014, including the 2012-13 Grand Prix cycle and the 2014 Candidates. Annotated games and opening ideas sit alongside behind-the-scenes stories. “As a collection of Topalov’s games, this book is a standout,” said the Chess Book Reviews blog (2019), whose review also ran in Chess Life. The analysis gets deep in places (“sometimes necessarily deep analytical dives into key positions”), so it is heavier going than a memoir.
Forgotten Genius: The Life and Games of GM Velimirovic, Volume 2
Ana Velimirovic and Georg Mohr (2024). 380 pages, the second of two volumes on the Serbian GM Dragoljub Velimirovic. It starts in 1976, picking up where the first volume ends, with games, stories, photos and boxed memories from his contemporaries. We don’t stock Volume 1. Sean Marsh recommended this one “to those who like to see swashbuckling chess in action” (Forward Chess blog, 2024). It is for enjoying attacking games and anecdotes rather than for study. Marsh also noted that many of Velimirovic’s tricks would not have worked at the top: elite players “would have seen through the tricks and exploited them as errors”.
Three of the reviews quoted here come from the Forward Chess blog. Forward Chess sells the ebook editions of these books.