He describes and analyses, in depth, his most memorable encounters-both famous victories and painful defeats, against the best chess players of the last 50 years. --
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.
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.
Learn sure-fire tactics and combinations from one of the worlds top chess players. Attack? Defend? Swap pieces? Tactics are the watchdogs of strategy that take advantage of short-term opportunities to trap or ambush your opponent and quite possiblychange the course of a game in a single move. Why play in a fog, only hoping that your opponent will blunder when International Grandmaster Yasser Seirawan can show you how to put the tactics of the worlds chess legends to work for you. Choose from the double attack, the pin, the skewer, deflection, the cor, x-rays, windmills and many more time-tested tactics.Using classic board situations arranged in chapters by tactical themes, Seirawan teaches you how to: * Plan your entire game from the very first move.Think ahead, step-by-step, anticipating every obstacle your opponent can throw your way * Position yourself for the smashing combination and endgame you've always dreamed of Board positions from actual games played by historys great chess tacticians are provided throughout. Review tests for each topic let you track your improvement. In no time you'll be playing better, with more confidence than you ever thought possible. Errata List
Bent Larsen (1935-2010) was one of the greatest fighters chess has ever seen. In his rich career the great Dane defeated all World Champions from Botvinnik to Karpov. He was a Candidate for the World Championship four times and became one of the most successful tournament players of his time. His uncompromising style and his unorthodox thinking made him popular with chess players all around the globe. In 1967/1968 Larsen won five international elite events in a row, a truly spectacular achievement. His successes were such that Bobby Fischer let him play first board in the legendary match Soviet Union vs. the World in 1970 in Belgrade. Bent Larsen also was a highly original chess writer and an extremely productive chess journalist. Not surprisingly the first chess book that Magnus Carlsen ever studied was written by the strongest Scandinavian player before him. This collection brings together more than 120 of Bent Larsen’s best games, annotated by himself. His comments are lucid, to the point, instructive and humorous. Together, these games are a tribute to his genius and a continuous joy to read and play through. ,
This book by International Grand Master Yasser Seirawan provides a move-by-move account of the best chess games of the last 25 years, played by the world's foremost chess competitors. With an authoritative voice that is by turns poetic and analytical, Seirawan serves as host of a fascinating excursion of the most brilliant chess game, providing highlights into and explanations of each and every move. Seirawan begins each game with a description of the historical atmosphere of the chess world --and sometimes the world at large--at the time the game was played. When he delves into the game itself, he starts with the reasoning behind the opening moves. From there he provides both a play-by-play description of the game and an analytical commentary, all the while examining the moves in terms of place development and possible tactical and strategic opportunities. Along the way, a handful of the players are profiled in biographies. In Winning Chess Brilliancies readers will get a taste of the most dazzling chess combinations devious strategies, and downright cruel blows as world champions risk it all! This book is truly a celebration of the sport of chess.
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.