International Grandmaster analyzes key games in 65 of the most important matches of the last 100 years. Extensive diagrams and indices.

This book contains a comprehensive collection of the shortest decisive games in chess history. It is an indispensable guide to the pitfalls and traps that lurk in every opening system. An ability to punish errors in the opening is an essential aspect of modern opening play. All too often players fail to seize their chances to win a crisp miniature game. The thousands of games featured in this book show how to detect the opponent's errors and take maximum advantage. The text includes an outstanding and comprehensive collection of games won in 13 moves or fewer, as well as explanations of the errors made and how to avoid them. This indispensable volume will help sharpen your killer instinct! FIDE Master Graham Burgess is a highly accomplished and versatile writer on chess, whose 'Mammoth Book of Chess' won the British Chess Federation Book of the Year Award in 1997. He holds the world record for marathon blitz chess-playing.

"Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess" is the only full-length biography of Paul Morphy, the antebellum chess prodigy who launched United States participation in international chess and is still generally acknowledged as the greatest American chess player of all time. But Morphy was more than a player. He was a shy, retiring lawyer who had been taught that such games were no way to make a living. The strain of his fame and the pull of his domineering family led Morphy to set another precedent: chess madness. Morphy's mental descent after retiring from chess became a part of his lore, made all the more magnanimous by a spate of twentieth-century examples. "The Pride and Sorrow of Chess" tells the full known story of the life of Paul Morphy, from his privileged upbrining in New Orleans to his dominance of the chess world, to the later tragedy of his demise. This new edition of David Lawson's seminal work, still the principal source for all Morphy biographical presentations, also includes new biographical material about the biographer himself, telling the story of the author, his opus, and the previously unknown life that brought him to the research.

Garry Kasparov was the highest-rated chess player in the world for over twenty years and is widely considered the greatest player that ever lived. In How Life Imitates Chess Kasparov distills the lessons he learned over a lifetime as a Grandmaster to offer a primer on successful decision-making: how to evaluate opportunities, anticipate the future, devise winning strategies. He relates in a lively, original way all the fundamentals, from the nuts and bolts of strategy, evaluation, and preparation to the subtler, more human arts of developing a personal style and using memory, intuition, imagination and even fantasy. Kasparov takes us through the great matches of his career, including legendary duels against both man (Grandmaster Anatoly Karpov) and machine (IBM chess supercomputer Deep Blue), enhancing the lessons of his many experiences with examples from politics, literature, sports and military history. With candor, wisdom, and humor, Kasparov recounts his victories and his blunders, both from his years as a world-class competitor as well as his new life as a political leader in Russia. An inspiring book that combines unique strategic insight with personal memoir, How Life Imitates Chess is a glimpse inside the mind of one of today's greatest and most innovative thinkers.

A one-of-a-kind masterclass in chess from the greatest player of all time. Learn how to play chess the Bobby Fischer way with the fastest, most efficient, most enjoyable method ever devised. Whether you’re just learning the game or looking for more complex strategies, these practice problems and exercises will help you master the art of the checkmate. This book teaches through a programmed learning method: It asks you a question. If you give the right answer, it goes on to the next question. If you give the wrong answer, it explains why the answer is wrong and asks you to go back and try again. Thanks to the book’s unique formatting, you will work through the exercises on the right-hand side, with the correct answer hidden on the next page. The left-hand pages are intentionally printed upside-down; after reaching the last page, simply turn the book upside-down and work your way back. When you finish, not only will you be a much better chess player, you may even be able to beat Bobby Fischer at his own game!

This large and magnificent work of art is both an interpretive history of Soviet chess from the Bolshevik Revolution to the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 and a record of the most interesting games played. The text traces the phenomenal growth of chess from the Revolutionary days to the devastations of World War II, and then from the Golden Age of Soviet-dominated chess in the 1950s to the challenge of Bobby Fischer and the quest to find his Soviet match. Included are 249 games, each with a diagram; most are annotated and many have never before been published outside the Soviet Union. The text is augmented by photographs and includes 63 tournament and match scoretables. Also included are a bibliography, an appendix of records achieved in Soviet national championships, two indexes of openings, and an index of players and opponents.

Russian grandmaster offers a wealth of his finest games, presented in full with numerous illustrative diagrams. Lively, frequently amusing commentary emphasizes ideas behind moves, shows how 1P-K4—P-K4 imposes its patterns on subsequent game. 207 black-and-white illustrations.

One of the outstanding chess expositors of the 20th century presents the basis of analysis in a disarmingly simple way. Sticking to a few well-chosen examples, he shows how to avoid playing a hit-or-miss game from move to move and instead develop a general plan of action based on positional analysis. Includes 20 problems from master games.

A chess expert has distilled an enormous amount of information into an easy-to-follow, question-and-answer format that not only explains the most basic rules and essentials of play, but also offers advice on opening, combinations, middle- and end-game strategies, notation, castling, and other topics. Over 100 carefully chosen diagrams and illustrations.

Mauricio Flores Rios provides an in-depth study of the 28 most common structures in chess practice. In Chess Structures - A Grandmaster Guide you will find:*Carefully selected model games showing each structure's main plans and ideas*Strategic patterns to observe and typical pitfalls to avoid*50 positional exercises with detailed solutionsGM Axel Bachmann from the Foreword:"Chess Structures - A Grandmaster Guide is an excellent selection of model games. By studying the 140 games and fragments in this book, the reader will learn many of the most important plans, patterns and ideas in chess."