Three weeks in 2025 and I thought it was time for me to update you a bit on what is happening with the New in Chess Group.

But first, I want to say a few words about New Year’s Resolutions. In 2023, I decided to hit 10,000 steps on average and succeeded, so in 2024, I decided to practice guitar for at least 20 minutes each day. I used an App created by a music student called Andante to keep track, which is very basic and has a few flaws (if you go to another time zone, your stats get all mangled up, and rather than having a day being 6 am-5.59 am, it runs from Midnight, which is inconvenient to night owls). When a friend decided to get serious about chess, I asked him to use the same app to keep track. His streak is way past 300 days now – while I crashed and burned at 120 or so. While I stopped using the app, once the streak died, it helped me get into a much better practice regimen. So, I failed to keep the streak and use the app – but I got into the habit of practicing the guitar, which was my goal anyway… 

The sudden possibility of combining the three major chess publishing houses into one group derailed my consistency on the guitar. The New in Chess Group now consists of New in Chess, Quality Chess, and Popular Chess (previously Everyman), with another imprint to appear in late 2025 or early 2026. The four imprints continue largely independent in the one area that matters – which is creativity. Peter Boel continues as Chief Editor of New in Chess, Byron Jacobs continues as Commissioning Editor for Popular Chess, and IM Andrew Greet has taken over as Chief Editor for Quality Chess, a well-deserved promotion after 15+ years as an editor. While John Shaw and I were the outward faces of Quality Chess, Andrew has been a part of the three-man core team since 2009. I will focus on the business side of things and on building up a new imprint, of which you will hear more long down the line. 

2025 has many promising titles from all three imprints. We now produce a quarterly leaflet with coming titles. We print many of them, so you will likely get one in your hands at some point. But you can also find them here: Q4/2024 and Q1/2025.

For New in Chess magazine subscribers, there will be two free ebooks a year going forward. In the autumn, this was CONCEPTUAL ROOK ENDGAMES: WORKBOOK by me. The spring title will be a banger. If you sign up now, you will both get the previous ebook and the next one.  

Joining into one company has some challenges and some advantages. Distribution is now joint and handled from our headquarters in Alkmaar. We have also shared much knowledge, both technically and otherwise. Best practices are implemented throughout the group. The clearest effect will be that our publication dates will be established a bit in advance, so you can plan what you want to buy from us (if you do). Also, paperbacks and hardbacks will be released simultaneously, the same with electronic versions, which will be available through platforms such as Forward Chess, Chesstempo, Chessable (from time to time), Kindle, and other ebook formats. Sadly, we had to discontinue sales for the Everyman Reader due to security concerns.

Before this happens, a lot of Quality Chess titles will be published in paperback, which was previously out only in hardback. Their publication dates are:

29/01/2025
Theoretical Rook Endgames
Conceptual Rook Endgames
Boris Spassky’s Best Games 1- The Rising Star

12/02/2025
Turbo-Charge your Tactics 1 – Drive Your Improvement
Turbo-Charge your Tactics 2: Accelerate and Win
KEY ELEMENTS OF CHESS TACTICS
KEY ELEMENTS OF CHESS STRATEGY
Understanding Chess Exchanges

26/02/2025
Tiger’s Chaos Theory 
Chess Survivor

12/03/2025 
Woodpecker Method 2 
1000 Chess Problems
Endgame Labyrinths

If anyone wants to play a game of blitz with me, I will visit the Tata Steel Tournament for the last two days, 1-2 February, and always up to play.

Best wishes,
Jacob Aagaard