One Knight Saves the Day: A World Champion's Favorite Studies by Sergei Tkachenko

One Knight Saves the Day: A World Champion's Favorite Studies by Sergei Tkachenko

Learn great traps, turn losses into draws and draws into wins!

Sergei Tkachenko, a member of the Ukrainian team that won the 5th World Chess Composition Tournament in 1997 and which came second in 2000, 2004, 2013, and 2017, has collected 100 studies whose common theme is that white ends up with just one knight in the finale, yet manages to win or draw.

There are no more than six moves in most solutions, so experienced chess players can analyze the positions directly from the diagrams.

Newbies to chess problems will also find analyzing these studies useful. The diverse set of tactical ideas involving a single knight in the finale will enable them to gain a deeper understanding of the knight's resourcefulness.

Some of these studies are classics from bygone ages. Others were originally published in the Soviet Union or ex-Soviet countries. Several are Sergei's own compositions.

This is the second book in a series of endgame studies by Sergei Tkachenko to be published by Elk and Ruby Publishing House.

Check out the publisher's website for special offers on this and other books!

Sergei Tkachenko (born 1963 near Odessa, Ukraine) is a member of the Ukrainian chess composition team that won the 5th World Chess Composition Competition in 1997 and placed second in 2000, 2004, 2013, and 2017. He has won the studies part of the Ukrainian Chess Composition Championship six times, as well as prizes in over 100 international chess composition events, many of them for first place. Sergei is the coach of the Ukrainian composition chess team. He is also the publicity secretary for the Ukrainian Chess Federation's Chess Composition Committee. Sergei is a multi-award-winning author who has published 18 chess books (in Russian), including compositions and historical studies.

He is the deputy chief editor of Problemist of Ukraine, a Ukrainian chess composition magazine, and writes a regular studies section for the ChessPro website. Sergei is a journalist who belongs to the Ukrainian Union of Journalists. He is a mechanical engineering graduate, as well as a historian and archivist.