Updating a Classic! Five years ago, when ChessBase Complete was released, it was an instant sensation. For the first time ever, a comprehensive manual for one of the most popular chess programs was available. It covered ChessBase through version 12. Since then, ChessBase has introduced three new versions and a remarkable (and free) suite of online tools for the world wide web. Many new and powerful functions have been added, all with an eye towards ease-of-use. This Supplement updates the original ChessBase Complete, and once again gives the chess community the opportunity to make the most of this remarkable software. Searches are much more powerful, analysis has been automated, and we can now take full advantage of storing and sharing our data in a “chess cloud.” While this Supplement should be helpful to all ChessBase users, it builds upon the original edition. If you do not already have the first edition, you may wish to consider getting it. ChessBase Complete and this Supplement should make your chess time much more productive and enjoyable and, with the software at hand, vastly accelerate your chess improvement. About the Author: Jon Edwards recently qualified for the World Correspondence Chess Championship final round. He won the 10th United States Correspondence Championship in 1997 and the 8th North American Invitational Correspondence Chess Championship in 1999. He is a four-time winner of the APCT (American Postal Chess Tournaments) Championship and has been awarded the APCT Game of the Year Award twice. He received his correspondence International Master (IM) in 1997, his Senior International Master (SIM) in 1999. He is currently fighting for his final grandmaster norm in the prestigious ICCF Spanish Masters. He has competed on the United States Correspondence Chess Olympiad team competing, reaching the final round. His correspondence ICCF rating places him the top 100 correspondence chess players worldwide. In addition to the extremely popular ChessBase Complete, Jon has written more than a dozen chess books, including The Chess Analyst (Thinkers Press 1999) which chronicles the success in the US championship; Teach Yourself Visually: Chess (Wiley 2006); a photographically based chess primer; and Sacking the Citadel: The History, Theory, and Practice of the Classic Bishop Sacrifice (Russell Enterprises 2011). He also writes a regular column on Chess Technology for the American Chess Magazine.

ChessBase Step-by-Step There’s a general recognition among chess players at all levels that the ChessBase software application is critical for serious chess improvement, but many chess players are intimidated by the software. Now, for the first time, former U.S. correspondence champion Jon Edwards has created real-life scenarios that focus upon why the software is so important for chess players of every class, along with clear explanations of how to use ChessBase. The author will show you how, with ChessBase: (1) Opening preparation is quick, comprehensive, fully-up-to-date, and effective; (2) You can quickly locate and review important games in every opening, middlegame type, and endgame; (3) You can instantly see what worldwide engines think about most opening and many middlegame positions; (4) You can instantly see where you and your opponents erred; (5) You can reliably prepare chess books for publication in print or on the web... And much, much more! There is in fact no aspect of using ChessBase which Edwards does not cover. It is all here, and all in one volume! Know simply that ChessBase is instrumental to every aspect of chess. This book explains how the software can help you to improve your play, your learning, your teaching, your writing, or simply your love of and enthusiasm for the game. Jon Edwards explains all that you will need to know with concrete examples and simple instructions. After that, how strong a chess player, how good a chess teacher, how good a chess author you become is truly up to you. Note: ChessBase 12 is featured in this book. The new ChessBase 13 will be available near the end of 2014. ChessBase has confirmed that the program features and interface described within this book are not expected to change.

At the U.S. Championship in 1989, Stuart Rachels seemed bound for the cellar. Ranked last and holding no IM norms, the 20-year-old amateur from Alabama was expected to get waxed by the American top GMs of the day that included Seirawan, Gulko, Dzindzichashvili, deFirmian, Benjamin and Browne. Instead, Rachels pulled off a gigantic upset and became the youngest U.S. Champion since Bobby Fischer. Three years later he retired from competitive chess, but he never stopped following the game. In this wide-ranging, elegantly written, and highly personal memoir, Stuart Rachels passes on his knowledge of chess. Included are his duels against legends such as Kasparov, Anand, Spassky, Ivanchuk, Gelfand and Miles, but the heart of the book is the explanation of chess ideas interwoven with his captivating stories. There are chapters on tactics, endings, blunders, middlegames, cheating incidents, and even on how to combat that rotten opening, the Réti. Rachels offers a complete and entertaining course in chess strategy. At the back are listed 110 principles of play—bits of wisdom that arise naturally in the book’s 24 chapters. Every chess player will find it difficult to put this sparkling book down. As a bonus, it will make you a better player.

The Ultimate Fischer Collection! The Chess Publishing Event of the Decade! The years after the Second World War saw international chess dominated by the Soviets Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian and then Spassky held the world crown, treating it as if it were almost an integral part of their country s heritage. There were occasional flashes of brilliance in the West Reshevsky, Najdorf, and later Larsen but no one really mounted a serious challenge to the Russian hegemony. Then, in the mid-1950s, a lone genius from Brooklyn emerged. Obsessed with chess, all his waking hours became devoted to finding truth on the 64 squares. It was an unrelenting, sometimes frustrating quest, but he persevered, eventually emerging as perhaps the greatest natural chess talent ever. It was clear from his early years as a gifted prodigy through his stormy ascent of the Chess Olympus, no one had ever rocked the chess world quite like Bobby Fischer. His raw genius for the royal game, combined with an indefatigable will to win, made him one of the most feared chessplayers of all time a genuine living legend. Now, for the first time, every single one of his tournament and match games is presented with insightful explanations and analysis. Best-selling chess author, German International Grandmaster Karsten Muller, annotates each game of the player many believe to be the greatest of all time. All 736 serious tournament games are supplemented by crosstables of every major tournament and match in which Fischer participated, dozens of archival photographs, along with brief comments and observations putting the play of the great champion into historical perspective.

Chess is a cruel game. We all know that feeling when your position has gone awry and everything seems hopeless. You feel like resigning. But don’t give up! This is precisely the moment to switch to swindle mode. Master the art of provoking errors and you will be able to turn the tables and escape with a draw – or sometimes even steal the full point! Swindling is a skill that can be trained. In this book, David Smerdon shows how you can use tricks from psychology to marshal hidden resources and exploit your opponent’s biases. In a lost position, your best practical chance often lies not in the computer’s best moves, but in playing your opponent – however bad the evaluation! With an abundance of eye-popping examples and training exercises, Smerdon identifies the four best friends of every chess swindler: your opponent’s impatience, their hubris, their fear, and their need to stay in control. You’ll also learn about such cunning swindling motifs as the Trojan Horse, the decoy trap, the berserk attack, and ‘window-ledging’. So, come and join the Swindlers’ Club, become a great escape artist and dramatically improve your results. In this instructive and wildly entertaining guide, Smerdon shows you how.

Learn the secrets of chess from the only person able to beat the world number 1 chess engine Stockfish.Learn chess 5 times easier through pattern recognition.Attain deep chess knowledge in an intuitive way through a wealth of diagrams(more than 500).Read about topics no other chess author has ever discussed in the past.This book is an entertaining story, combining in one all the elements of positional evaluation in chess.Learn things from the future of chess.Learning straight from the author who has contributed a lot for the development of the strongest chess engine on Earth, Stockfish.ABOVE sentences someone might find conceited, but are mostly true.In this book you will find everything one needs to know about positional evaluation, from tactical features,like pins and discovered checks, to deeply strategic ones, like pointed chains and king shelter weaknesses.The book has incorporated almost all of the concepts available in other reference material, but that is just the start.No matter how unbelievable that might seem to you, half of the featured elements are completely NEW to chesstheory, a product of endless analsysis sessions with Stockfish and Komodo chess engines, as well as the use of statistical points, derived from a large number of high-quality game databases, one of which is TCEC, the strongest computer chesschampionship in the world, played at very long time control.So that, when you are reading this, the signature is not only mine, but partly also that of Stockfish and Komodo.The creative ideas are mine, but without the valuable help of the chess engines, I would never have been able to do thatthe same way.Please, don't be afraid by the numbers used for qualifying all evaluation features: this is done just for the sake ofprecision, but it is very easy to convert those numbers to usual human assessments. For example, if a feature is assessedwith +50cps(cp, centipawn is one hundredth of a full pawn material), that will mean the feature is good. When you see +100cps and above, the feature is very good. If between 0 and 20cps, the feature is still good and useful, but less so.Similarly, for features with negative values, the higher the value, the worse the specific feature is.One gets accustomed to these values and then everything is fine.The book gives a definition for each specific evaluation pattern, a diagram specifies it, and then you get more detailed information about the characteristics of the term, real-game examples and a mention of how frequent this term occurson the board.All this information is useful, as in this way you will get a better understanding of which terms are good and which bad,how good or bad a certain term is, be able to follow real-game examples and deduce everything about the usefulness of the term.As already observed, you will not find a more COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE on chess/chess evaluation than this one.The main asset of the book is its innovative approach and the great amount of high knowledge introduced.The book is suitable for all levels of chess, from beginner to advanced, as the approach it follows is based on pattern recognition. One just has to memorise the specific pattern featured on a diagram, and then apply it on the chess board!Nothing less, nothing more. The more terms you memorise, the better you will be at chess.MAKE NO MISTAKE: chess evaluation is the most important element in acquiring a better chess knowledge.You can play very good chess by being able to evaluate well, even if you are not able to calculate all lines very well,but the opposite is not quite true. If you don't know which positions are good and which bad, you will always bechoosing the bad ones!So, don't wait any longer, and just grab this UNIQUE chess knowledge guide, memorise all patterns inside and progressat chess much faster than you have ever thought possible.

Chess is a mental game, but you don't have to strain your brain to learn the basics—not with this guide that shows you how to play. Teach Yourself VISUALLY Chess covers how to set up the board, how each piece moves, opening strategies and variations, attacking themes and common sacrifices, and more. Photos of the board let you see strategies in action. For hands-on practice, you can even set up your board and make your moves as you learn. With this book and practice, you'll be saying "Checkmate" in no time. Concise two-page lessons show you all the steps to a skill and are ideal for quick review Each move or tactic is clearly explained Explanations accompany each photo Color photos and diagrams show key positions, strategies, and moves Helpful tips provide additional guidance

Find the Best Squares for Your Pieces! To a large extent, the level of any chessplayer’s skill depends on his or her ability to discover and evaluate positional operations as quickly and correctly as possible. In this book, premier chess instructor and trainer Mark Dvoretsky examines one of the most important aspects of positional skill, namely the art of playing with pieces, of maneuvering and finding the best squares for your pieces. Training your maneuvering skills will help you at every stage of the game – which is why among the exercises there are opening, middlegame and endgame positions, and not only those that are taken from practical games, but also studies. The conscientious student, carefully working his or her way through this book, will help improve positional mastery and significantly enhance overall playing skill.

Man vs. Machine Technology continues to advance at a rapid pace. It may sound quaint today, but not so long ago, computers battled humans for supremacy at the game of chess. The challenge of building a computer program capable of defeating the best of human-kind at chess was one of the original grand challenges of the fledgling field of artificial intelligence. On one side were dedicated scientists and hobbyists who invested decades of effort developing the software and hardware technology; on the other side were incredibly talented humans with only their determination and preparation to withstand the onslaught of technology. The man versus machine battle in chess is a landmark in the history of technology. There are numerous books that document the technical aspects of this epic story. The human side is not often told. Few chess players are inclined to write about their man-machine encounters, other than annotating the games played. This book brings the two sides together. It tells the stories of many of the key scientists and chess players that participated in a 50-year research project to advance the understanding of computing technology. “Grandmaster Karsten Müller and Professor Jonathan Schaeffer have managed to describe the fascinating history of the unequal fight of man against machine in an entertaining and instructive way. It evoked pleasant and not so pleasant memories of my own fights against the monsters. I hope that their work gives you as much pleasure as it has given me.” – From the Foreword by Vladimir Kramnik, 14th World Chess Champion

“Success is a collection of problems solved.” – I.M. Pei, Architect In this, his penultimate work, legendary chess instructor Mark Dvoretsky (1947-2016) explores identifying and dealing with problems on the chessboard. “While working on the games that I have included in this book, I have sought to uncover their core ideas which are important for a chessplayer’s improvement and demonstrate them as vividly as possible. Those may include both approaches to playing out certain typical situations and mastering various positional and tactical ideas, as well as improving technical skills and training an ability to search for decisions and to make them on the basis of the precise calculation of variations. “The last two parts of the book are devoted to the specific forms of training that I routinely use during my lessons: analysis of games in the form of solving a string of consecutive tasks and playing out of certain specially selected positions. “I hope that this book will be of help not only to high-ranking players at whom it is primarily aimed, but also to every reader who is serious about self-improvement and wishes to understand problems that grandmasters and masters face over the board and the ways they solve them; what are the reasons for errors they sometimes commit and how to avoid those mistakes.” – Mark Dvoretsky, from his Foreword