Your Jungle Guide to 1. d4!

Vassilios Kotronias was born in 1964 and is the first Greek Grandmaster. He is a former top 50 player and has represented both Greece and Cyprus in many Chess Olympiads, mainly on the first board. He is also the author of several chess books, his most notable work being a 5-volume work on the King's Indian Defence. He has had extraordinary success in individual competitions in general, winning prestigious events such as Gibraltar, Hastings, Capelle la Grande (in a draw) and many other closed and open tournaments. He qualified several times for the FIDE Elimination World Cup and often participated in European Individual Championships as well as club events. He won trophies with prestigious chess clubs in the leagues of Greece, Serbia, Italy, Sweden, Hungary, etc. As a coach, he has coached the Greek national team and strong world-class players such as Alexei Shirov, Veselin Topalov and Nigel Short.

Mikhail Ivanov, born in 1969, Bryansk, Russia. He obtained his Grandmaster title in 1993 and won countless chess events on European chess circuits. We remember him being among the winners of one of Europe's biggest openings (the Neckar Open, now better known as the Grenke Chess Open), 2002 with L.Aronian and winning this event in 1998. He played for several different European clubs in the Bundesliga, Austria, Iceland, Finland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, etc. During the European Club Championship in Ohrid (2009), he took 3rd place in the 2nd board. Now he focused mainly on coaching and writing.