Don’t Buy Yusupov’s Books

The following text was inspired by WCM Rebecca Selkirk’s review of Yusupov’s “Build Up Your Chess: The Fundamentals”. At first I wanted to write a comment under that review, but since I had the misfortune of buying and studying the books myself, the comment became large enough to warrant a separate blog post.

I own the German originals of the three ‘Fundamentals’ books + the supplementary volume, which is meant to be used alongside the main three. I used them, and if that was not sufficiently clear from the title, let me clearly state that I did not like the books. They are the most overrated chess books in history. Buying them was by far the worst chess-related decision of my life.

The books, certainly in the German original, but from my impression in English as well, are billed as suitable for beginners. The word ‘fundamentals’ doesn’t appear in the German original, the original titles of the books are "Tigersprung auf 1500 / 1800 / 2100 DWZ". "Tigersprung auf" literally translates as "tiger leap to", it does not mean "tiger training for" [those who already reached those levels]. That's not a level recommendation, that's a promise that if you study those volumes, you will be on that level. Even if the first book is not for complete beginners, it is reasonable to assume you might want to be around 1200 to start the first book, because each set of three books is in steps of 300 rating points. So apparently the idea was that the first books were for pretty much beginners, and then you go from book to book, theoretically gaining 100 rating points with each book. If this was what Yusupov has intended, it does seem like a cruel joke.

The following position is the very first position from the supplementary volume, the first chapter is called “Mating motifs.” Do you see the mate?

Good luck with this one. WGM Almira Skripchenko had White here, and she was able to find the right sequence at the board, although in the game Black could have defended better actually. But does someone who just begins making their first tentative steps towards not exactly lofty 1500 level have a chance?

That is exactly the sort of positions you need to give beginners, that is if you want to sap their interest for chess so much that they never go past the first lesson. But really, can you see the mate in the above position? 29. Bc2 is the obvious start, but it looks like the Black king can escape.

In the foreword Yusupov suggests to spend one hour on a chapter. Rebecca Selkirk says that it took her up to two hours to finish a chapter. She is a very experienced player and puzzle solver though. I remember spending a full weekend doing the smothered mate chapter, and I still did poorly on the test.

The books do have some rather easy positions, but the vast majority are very difficult indeed. 

An earlier version of this post claimed that GM Rafael Leitão once talked about how he tried some of the higher level books from the series, and the positions were so difficult that he wanted to cry. In fact I misremembered that. I was challenged by one of my readers on that claim in the comments below, and did the research where I could have it from. Rafael Leitão was actually talking about a different book, “Secrets of Chess Training” by Mark Dvoretsky. Even though it was said about a different book, as authors Dvoretsky and Yusupov are often thought about together, so it shouldn’t be surprising that my brain confused them, and crying is certainly how I felt when I used the Yusupov’s books. The context in which Leitão said it is actually full of praise for the Dvoretsky book. He also said something similar about a different Dvoretsky book: “Some positions can lead even grandmasters to tears, such the degree of difficulty.” Even though Rafael Leitão lavishly praises Dvoretsky’s and Yusupov’s books, I still think it is fair to cite him for the specific claim that I am trying to make with this post: those authors don’t have any idea what level of difficulty is desirable for beginners and intermediate players.

Rebecca Selkirk hinted at that in her review, but I’d like to specifically mention: Yusupov uses a lot of studies, and those studies are more often than not much more abstract than practical.

There are probably a dozen mates in three from the following position, but only one mate in two:

Perhaps it’s just me, but I don’t like studies, I really don’t. Sometimes there might be occasions when to make your point more clearly you remove some pieces from the board. But I would say those are rare.

Learning Italian will probably help you to become better at Spanish. But if your goal is to be able to read a book in Spanish, you should sign up for a Spanish class, not an Italian class. By the same token, it might be the case that solving studies will help your practical play, but it is a very roundabout way of doing things. If you want to be better at practical play, study positions that arise from practical play.

It’s not that it is hard to find instructive chess positions. As I was writing the first version of this post on November 22, 2020, there were 7,432,717 games played on chess.com alone in the last 24 hours. Since January 2023, there are usually 20+ millions games played on chess.com, a day. If a chess author can’t find an actual game to illustrate a point, it is probably not a point that you will find very applicable to your games.

Yusupov should have known better. Here is the finish of his game against Smyslov from the 1988 USSR championship. I wish this position were in the book.

If you can beat a former world champion by a simple tactic in a classical game, you can beat anyone by a simple tactic. Tough positions have their place, but not in a book for beginners and intermediate players.

Why not put such positions in the book on fundamentals and instead put positions that for the intended audience are to a high degree unsolvable?

There are scores of instructive mates in two that are being missed in blitz games every single day, missed by average players like myself, and missed by strong grandmasters.

Chess players have different strengths and weaknesses, that’s the fact. In the 2025 chess.com CoachChamps there was a player who was characterized as an incredible attacker, but one who couldn't do anything else. Some other player might be strong in knowing when to trade and when not to trade, but be a poor attacker. Is it wise to give those two players the exact same curriculum, even if their ratings are the same?

If what you want is to be an incredible attacker yourself, maybe you should devote more time to checkmating and pawnstorming, at the expense of studying the Berlin endgame. If you play the Exchange Spanish as White and the Scandinavian defence as Black, handling the bishop pair should not be on the top of your priority list. There are so many different styles of play, that any one-size-fits-all from beginner to master course is bound to be a bad idea.

There are many good books on chess improvement, if you have some time and money to spend, buy something else.

Buy a tactics book, a book on middlegame strategy, an endgame book, a book on pawn play, a book on attack, a book on defence, a book on calculation, a book on your favourite opening as White, a book on your favourite defence against 1. e4, and a book on your favourite defence against 1. d4, maybe also a best games collection by your favourite player, and you’ll be good. If you do enjoy solving studies, nothing wrong with that, you can also buy a collection of studies.

But don’t buy Yusupov’s books. I can't find a single thing to say about the books that would justify me actually spending money on them. The only excuse that I have is that they were so hyped on chess forums and blogs. Yusupov is certainly a very fine player, he is probably the best player to have written a complete chess course. But it seems to me that both the idea of a one-size-fits-all chess course and Yusupov’s execution of this idea are not the most direct and certainly not the most enjoyable way to chess improvement.