Sergey Karjakin has consistently been one of the strongest chess players of the early 21st century. World U12 Chess Champion in 2001. The world’s youngest ever grandmaster at the age of 12 in 2003. World Rapid Chess Champion in 2012. World Chess Championship Challenger in 2016, drawing 6-6 in the classical games and just one game away from winning the chess crown from Magnus Carlsen. World Blitz Chess Champion in 2016. Tied for 2nd-3rd place in the 2018 Candidates Tournament. This best games collection begins with a biographical chapter, discussing the Russian grandmaster’s rise from early childhood to the chess elite. It contains 66 fully annotated games and 9 fragments, illustrating the distinctive feature of Karjakin’s style: a harmonious blend of subtle positional understanding and an acute sense of dynamics. 50 of the games are grouped according to learning themes: direct attack on the king; attack in the center and on the queenside; combined attack on both flanks; opening wins; symmetrical pawn structure in the center; positional sacrifice; defence and counter-attack; and endgames. The author is a grandmaster and Distinguished Coach of the Russian Federation. Sergey Karjakin wrote in his foreword: “The annotations are captivating and not overloaded with computer variations; instead, the author provides practical explanations so that the reader can use this games collection to study all three stages of the chess game.” Check out the publisher's website for special deals on this and other books! "After a biographical introduction, Russian GM Kalinin turns his attention to 66 of Karjakin's best games, which are grouped by theme and annotated in detail, while fully revealing both Karjakin's positional prowess and, arguably more surprisingly, his keen awareness of dynamic possibilities." CHESS magazine, August 2020 "Given the level at which Karjakin operates, the opposition includes most of the contemporary elite, thus the play is of a very high order, but the author's notes do a tremendous job of explaining what's going on, being an ideal blend of variations and explanatory prose. As Karjakin says in his foreword, "...the author provides practical explanations so that the reader can use this games collection to study all three stages of the chess game". The inclusion of Karjakin's own comments in several of the games makes it all the more interesting. Karjakin is essentially a classical player, and his best games here show a healthy respect for classical precepts, the centre and clarity of calculation, but "Anyone who wants to achieve serious success should be a universal player, able to do it all". Thus his style has become more positional; he has evolved into one of the game's top defenders, and one thing which comes through in many of the games is his composure and resourcefulness when under pressure. If some of that rubs off on the reader, that alone would make the book worthwhile!" - Ian Marks, Scottish Chess Magazine, February 2021 "In 2016, by winning the Candidates tournament, he qualified to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the World Championship title. Despite not given much of a chance, Karjakin was incredibly close to taking the title away from King Magnus. In 2018, he finished for a tied 2nd in the Candidates tournament but didn't manage to qualify for the 2020 candidates tournament. Despite this failure, he remains one of the strongest players in the world. The title "Minister of Defense" comes from his incredible ability as a defender, apparently pulling hidden resources out of the hat again and again in poor positions. This ability was also what rocked Magnus in their match, seemingly unable to break through despite having several very good positions along the way. Despite his many remarkable milestones, English-language chess literature was missing a biography on Karjakin. This book makes up for that obvious gap. The book is split up into two parts a biographical part and a best games part. The first part is a mixture of talking about his development as a chess player and important games from various events along with some pictures from various parts of his life. In total the book contains 66 fully annotated games and 9 game fragments. The gams are nicely annotated with a good balance between prose and variations without drowning them in engine output and nicely supported by plenty of diagrams. Another nice feature is that the author, grandmaster, a "Distinguished Coach of the Russian Federation" and author of several other books, Alexander Kalinin, has grouped the games by themes, making the book work well as an instructional manual on the various aspects of play. Overall, this is a very good book about a great player, someone who came within stumbling distance of reaching the summit of the chess world." - FIDE Master Carsten Hansen, ACM Magazine, 2020 Alexander Kalinin, born in 1968 near Moscow, Russia, is a Grandmaster and a distinguished chess trainer. He has coached Daniel Narodits