About the Author

Davorin Kuljasevic is an International Grandmaster born in Croatia. He graduated from Texas Tech University and is an experienced coach. His bestselling book Beyond Material: Ignore the Face Value of Your Pieces was a finalist for the Boleslavsky-Averbakh Award, the best book prize of FIDE, the International Chess Federation.

Reviews

An extremely impressive book on an increasingly important aspect of chess: 'how to learn' as opposed to 'what to learn'. Davorin Kuljasevic has clearly put an enormous amount of thought and hard work into writing it. If you're within the target market - you want to improve your chess and have a lot of time available for that purpose - I'd give this book a very strong recommendation. Even if you only have a few hours (or even less) a week, rather than a few hours a day to set aside for chess study, you're sure to find much invaluable advice about how to make the most of your time. There's a lot of great - and highly instructive - chess in the book as well, so you might enjoy it for that alone. Kuljasevic's previous book was shortlisted for FIDE's 2020 Book of the Year, and I wouldn't be surprised if this book was similarly honored. He's clearly an exceptional writer as well as an exceptional coach.--Richard James, Nationwide Building Society, Accenture "British Chess News"

As an experienced coach he explains how a motivated player should approach improvement and what they should study. Before starting to study priorities need to be established, and Kulijasevic shows the importance of methods and discipline. Whoever finds endgames boring should read the chapter 'Make your endgame study more enjoyable'. A unique book on self-study.--Barend Wilders, Nederlands Dagblad

Many players know the age-old problem of how to study chess. Davorin Kulijasevic shows a good middle way between learning everything in all books by heart and only playing. Be inspired!--Karsten Muller, Grandmaster "co-author of Winning with the Slow (but Venemous!) Italian"

The book is well-structured didactically, as it should be in light of the importance of the subject. What Kulijasevic does very well is relate all angles (study methods, priorities, sources of study material) to playing levels, so you can work out what is effective at your particular level, and even more important, what isn't. To illustrate how thorough his approach is: in the second chapter Kulijasevic describes fifteen study methods and indicates for all of them the practical relevance, the time it consumes and the long-term learning potential. After the methodical chapters he works on the various elements of the game: opening, tactics, endgame and middle game. The chapter on the endgame is a must. Everyone struggles with how to train the ending, but Kulijasevic shows very clearly how you should tackle this and what advantages this has. I recommend this book unconditionally, it will be the standard work on studying chess for years. It is a must for every chess trainer and talented youngster who is ready to work a lot on breaking through. Davorin Kulijasevic has outdone himself and I am looking forward to his future books.--Barry Braeken "Schaaksite"