Meet the characters that make up a chess army and learn how to fight your first battle in this friendly introduction to the game. My First Chess Book is written clearly and simply, with entertaining examples, making it the perfect starting point for young children - and a handy refresher guide for parents and grandparents! Entertaining illustrations by The Boy Fitz Hammond bring the explanations to life. With expert advice from Sarah Hegarty, former British women's chess champion and director of the world's biggest chess competition, the UK Schools Chess Challenge. Includes fun games and puzzles.

Learn how to play chess—the world’s most popular board game! Chess is easy to learn, and anyone can play it. Jessica E Prescott teaches you how you can get good at it—and start winning. Improve your skills through 35 fun activities—this isn’t just a textbook about the rules of the game! Why not have a game of Pawn Football (pawns line up at their starting rank and race to the other side), or do the Queen Dance (make a checkmate using only a queen and king)? Try Scholar’s Mate—the four-move checkmate every beginner needs to know—and when you’re really good, play Bughouse, a crazy four-person game with two chess sets. All the activities have clear, colorful artworks so you can see exactly where pieces should be on the chessboard. There are also helpful hints and tips throughout, and if you’ve ever forgotten how a piece moves or need to brush up on a rule, look at the Starting Out section for a reminder.

Every chess player needs to decide which openings he is going to play. But where do you start? The risk of drowning in the turbulent sea of opening theory is only too real for beginning amateurs. Often your goals and ambitions will be misguided. Trying to win in 20 moves, copying what's in fashion among top-GM's or memorizing variations are a waste of time. Most likely you will never play your ‘preparation' or end up by jumping from one opening to the other. Experienced French chess trainer Vincent Moret provides a complete, ready-to-go chess opening repertoire for White with a sound set of lines that do not outdate rapidly, do not require memorization and are easy to digest for beginning players and other amateurs. In this complete and user-friendly guide, Moret has selected relatively aggressive variations that will enhance your tactical vision. To show the typical plans and demonstrate underlying ideas and key motifs, Moret not only selected games of Grandmasters. For instructional purposes, he also uses games of young players to highlight the errors they tend to make.

Every chess player needs to decide which openings he or she is going to play. But where do you start? The risk of drowning in the turbulent sea of chess opening theory is only too real for beginning amateurs.Often your goals and ambitions will be misguided. If you are trying to win in 20 moves, copy what's in fashion among top-GM's or memorize variations, you are wasting your time. Most likely you will never get to play your ‘preparation' and end up aimlessly switching from one opening to the other. After the success of his volume for White, experienced French chess trainer Vincent Moret now provides a complete, ready-to-go chess opening repertoire for Black. It consists of a sound set of lines that do not outdate rapidly, do not require memorization and are easy to digest for beginners and post-beginners.To show the typical plans and the underlying ideas in the various lines of his repertoire, Moret not only selected games of Grandmasters. He also uses games of young, improving players to highlight the errors they tend to make.

The Ideal Chess Journalist During his active chess career, Hans Ree battled with almost all the great chessplayers, including eight world champions, from Max Euwe to Anatoly Karpov. My Chess is not only about them, but also about other players and writers from the past who are admired by Ree This book gives a personal view of Ree’s own world of chess, and therefore less prominent players also appear, such as a schoolmate with whom he played an endless series of matches, or the anonymous “A6648,” who played more than a half-million games on the Internet Chess Club. In addition, the question is finally answered why the great Dutch author W.F. Hermans designed a chess set made of cigarette lighters, but did not want to play chess. Though the game of chess and its practitioners are certainly not idealized, this book is in the first place, a loving description of a world brimming with striking personalities, and an inexhaustible source of stories. About the Author Grandmaster Hans Ree (1944) is a four-time Dutch champion, and represented his country from 1966 through 1994 in every chess Olympiad. From 2001-2007, he was the wearer of the “Euwe Ring,” an award for outstanding service to Dutch chess. He writes about chess in NRC Handelsblad, New in Chess magazine, and on the American website Russell-Enterprises.com. Internationally he is considered to be one of the best chess writers of his era. “A grandmaster, excellent writer and careful researcher who doesn't seek out controversy, but is equally unafraid to plumb the sometimes murky depths of chess politics, Ree is an ideal chess journalist.” – Jon Speelman, The Observer

Today most chess historians agree that the weak chess queen, named "dame" in France as from the XIV century, changed to a powerful chess queen in Spain in 1475. Around this year we also see a change of the weak bishop to a strong bishop, according to the chess poem Scachs d'amor. In order to strengthen our hypothesis of Isabella I of Castile (Isabel la Católica) we have written a book about the new bishop and a book about Scachs d'amor in English. Concentrating now on Virgin Mary in relationship with Isabella I of Castile we observe that the Augustinian monastic Martin de Córdoba wrote in 1468 the work El Jardin de las donzellas. It was directed to Princess Isabel I of Castile with the intention to contribute to her education as future Queen. Cordoba was the first writer who draws equivalencies between Isabella I of Castile and Virgin Mary, which became one of her standard portrayals. Shorty thereafter we see the appearance of a new powerful chess queen.

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.