In Bakers Guide to the Chess Game of Life, Mark S. Baker draws upon his own experiences both his successes and mistakes to help others learn how to take control of their lives and achieve success. Geared particularly toward young people wanting to build a better life, this pocket-sized guidebook includes advice on finding jobs, budgeting money, owning property, creating long-term game plans, and more. With this book, Baker hopes to reach out and make a difference by helping people build a solid foundation for getting a jump-start in life.
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.
Examines how chess style and abilities vary with age. By making a number of case studies and interviewing players who have stayed strong as they have aged, the authors show in detail how players can steer their games towards positions where their experience can shine through.
'A nuanced and witty meditation on confronting the challenges life throws at us all' Oliver Burkeman Jonathan Rowson's competitive success as a chess Grandmaster and work as an applied philosopher have given him a unique perspective on why the great game is more important than ever for understanding the conflicts and uncertainties of the modern world. In sixty-four witty and addictive vignettes, Rowson takes us on an exhilarating tour of the game of life, from the psychology of gang violence, to the aesthetics of cyborgs, the beauty of technical details, and the endgame of death. Chess emerges as a singularly powerful metaphor for the thrills and set-backs that invest our daily lives with meaning and complexity.
The Life & Games of the Seventh World Chess Champion Vasily Smyslov, the seventh world champion, had a long and illustrious chess career. He played close to 3,000 tournament games over seven decades, from the time of Lasker and Capablanca to the days of Anand and Carlsen. From 1948 to 1958, Smyslov participated in four world championships, becoming world champion in 1957. Smyslov continued playing at the highest level for many years and made a stunning comeback in the early 1980s, making it to the finals of the candidates’ cycle. Only the indomitable energy of 20-year-old Garry Kasparov stopped Smyslov from qualifying for another world championship match at the ripe old age of 63! In this first volume of a multi-volume set, Russian FIDE master Andrey Terekhov traces the development of young Vasily from his formative years and becoming the youngest grandmaster in the Soviet Union to finishing second in the world championship match tournament. With access to rare Soviet-era archival material and invaluable family archives, the author complements his account of Smyslov’s growth into an elite player with dozens of fascinating photographs, many never seen before, as well as 49 deeply annotated games. German grandmaster Karsten Müller’s special look at Smyslov’s endgames rounds out this fascinating first volume. [This book] is an extremely well-researched look at his life and games, a very welcome addition to the body of work about Smyslov... – from the Foreword by Peter Svidler
Paul Morphy is a chess legend and without doubt one of the greatest players in the history of the game. His understanding of the game was years ahead of his time and in his era he was easily the best player in the world. His chess career was brief but brilliant and he influenced all the great champions who came after him. His legacy includes a treasure trove of wonderful strategic and attacking games which are highly instructive for all aspiring chess players. In this book, Grandmaster Zenón Franco examines in detail Morphy’s chess style, selects and studies his favourite Morphy games, and demonstrates how we can all improve our chess by learning from Morphy’s masterpieces. Move by Move provides an ideal platform to study chess. By continually challenging the reader to answer probing questions throughout the book, the Move by Move format greatly encourages the learning and practising of vital skills just as much as the traditional assimilation of knowledge. Carefully selected questions and answers are designed to keep you actively involved and allow you to monitor your progress as you learn. This is an excellent way to improve your chess skills and knowledge. * Learn from the games of a chess legend Important ideas absorbed by continued practice *Utilizes an ideal approach to chess study
Mikhail Tal, the 'magician from Riga,' was the greatest attacking World Champion of them all, and this enchanting autobiography chronicles his extraordinary career with charm and humor. Dazzling games are interspersed throughout with anecdotes and witty self-interviews, and in typically objective fashion he related both the downs and ups of his encounters. An inveterate smoker and drinker, Tal's life on the circuit was punctuated by bouts in the hospital with kidney problems, but nothing could dull his love for chess and his sheer genius on the chessboard. His illustrious tournament record, up to his death in 1992, is included here in full, along with 100 complete games and nearly as many positions. Tal's annotations in this book are a world apart from ordinary games collections. No reader could fail to be swept along by his passion and vitality as he sets the scene for an encounter and then recounts every psychological twist and turn.
Let's Play SHESS is written to inspire and shake up women of all ages and backgrounds to take a chance, learn something new and believe in their abilities. This book provides a fresh entertaining approach to exploring every woman's inquisitive mind and entrepreneurial passion by playing chess. The fascinating and realistic correlation between transferring the chess-playing skills into your real life is revealed, as well as the invaluable rewards and benefits you gain as a result. SHESS is an all-encompassing term which represents "your game of life." All of the circumstances which exist in your life, including challenges relevant to business development represent your individual "battlefield." Whether on a personal or professional level, SHESS relates how you think, react, analyze and solve problems, and make decisions. While this book is dedicated to women, everyone is certainly welcome to explore this wisdom.
This book is partly designed as an autobiographical experience focusing on the processes that arise in the life of a chess player that have be translated into everyday life. In part, the book incorporates psychological theories that generally explain these processes, but overall it can be seen as a guide on how to use any activity to learn skills that will enrich your life. There are several activities in life which can be seen in the same way if we know where and how to exploit the opportunities. The truth is that all aspirations are interconnected when we keep an eye on the thematic links. I believe that this book will give you a new insight into how any ability can be transferred from a particular activity to the universal wisdom of life. It will awaken your networking skills and teach you how to turn life activities into lifelong skills that will improve your well-being. The course of the book follows the typical process of playing chess, starting with training, followed by the tournament situation, the course of the game, the time after the game and the tournament. Since I am not a poet, I have often borrowed some quotations from famous, imaginative and clever people from all over the world. I believe that these valuable thoughts have enriched the book. One thing I ask you to do while reading this book is to open your mind and enjoy the inner journey. So let us go and try to become aware of the processes behind our life activities. Let us find out what and why we do what we do in our daily lives.
