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The game of Chess in the form in which it is played to-day is usually assumed to be of a much older date than can be proved with certainty by documents in our possession. The earliest reference to the game is contained in a Persian romance written about 600 A.D., which ascribes the origin of Chess to India. Many of the European Chess terms used in the Middle Ages which can be traced back to the Indian language also tend to prove that India is the mother country of the game. The literature on the game of Checkers (English: Draughts) is very limited and there are no certain references to prove that the game was known before the Sixteenth Century. Two theories are current as to its origin; one of them claiming it to be a simplified Chess, the other explaining it as the result of transferring the Spanish game Alquerque de doze to the Chess board. H. J. R. Murray, the greatest authority on the history of games, considers it most likely that the game has been evolved from both Chess and Alquerque. The method of capturing men and the rule concerning the huffing of a man unquestionably point to the Spanish game, while the board, the diagonal move of the men and the idea of crowning a man are taken from Chess.

The book you have just started reading isabout a very interesting and difficult concept: the exchange sacrifice. This isthe moment in chess when basic mathematics breaks down, the moment when 3counts equal to or even more than 5. So let us leave the mathematics aside andtry to figure out why this simple calculation is so difficult to understand.The answer is largely hidden in psychology, as the ninth World Champion, TigranPetrosian, has often told us, as the man who brought this strategic-tactical chessconcept to its first peak. Chess beginners were taught the value of pieces bytheir teachers (parents, grandparents, perhaps at school or even later in thebeginners¿ sections of chess clubs). We explain the difference between piecevalues to children in the simplest way possible, with the help of a unit ofmeasurement, and in chess those units are the pawns. They tell us that a rookis worth five pawns (units) and a knight and a bishop are worth about threeeach. They also tell us to always be careful, especially during exchanges, toensure we take at least as much from our opponent as he or she took from us.So, one rook at a time, perhaps for a bishop and a knight next to two pawns.This ¿chess thinking¿ is done quickly and very strongly subconsciously in most,one could even say all. Therefore, when choosing moves, we will automaticallyreject unfavorable exchanges. But who trades a queen for a knight, a bishop fora pawn, and the like? We know from our own life experience that it is better tohave ten coins in our pocket than three, and I prefer three to one! Thispsychological barrier is the most difficult step in making the decision tosacrifice. And so it is with the sacrifice of an exchange. Five for three, thatis! Even five for four, if we get a pawn for the rook along with the knight orthe bishop. ¿I am not stupid,¿ you think. The Exchange Sacrifice Unleashedbrings different games or coaches try to explain this and that to us, we seethat a material advantage is not always something to celebrate about.

An important book that analyses and discusses a complex and little-examined opening.

The Barry Attack is somewhat defensive-looking from the start. It tempts Black forward, provocatively. The Barry Attack is, after all, a little rebellious, flouting, as it does, all those common sense development rules. Perhaps your game needs a good shot of tactics to boost your results – it’s one of the fastest ways to improve and this is true not only for young players. If your opponent plays an early move order that’s not in this book such as 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. c5 or 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 for example, the good news is that Black will be forced to transpose back into the mass of material. The ‘’super repertoire’’ that always keeps Black under pressure in all variations is of course, a total myth. Any reasonable opening set-up can work wonders for White or Black if they know it well. This is always going to outweigh theoretical evolution. Playing strong chess is also very much about your level of self-confidence, emotional and physical health. It’s about who you are and how you feel in many ways at the precise moment of play in addition to your opening knowledge and general technique. Anyone who takes the trouble to play through each model example, move by move, note by note, will be rewarded. Your strategic play will deepen and your tactics will improve along with your assessment skills, and you’ll end up with a great repertoire!

King Hunting is an essential skill in the game of chess. You have your opponent on the ropes. His King is stuck in the open. Can you bring home the full point? This book provides guidelines for accomplishing the task with loads of great examples.

Paul Morphy est plus qu'une légende dans l'histoire du jeu d'échecs, il est un véritable mythe.Né dans le Quartier français de La Nouvelle-Orléans en Louisiane en 1837, Morphy est non seulement d'une certaine manière le "fondateur" des échecs en Amérique, mais aussi un joueur très francophile. Cependant, assez étonnamment, si tout novice aux échecs entend rapidement parler de Morphy lorsqu'il commence sa carrière de joueur, les monographies consacrées au personnage et à ses parties commentées demeurent rares, encore plus en langue française. Ainsi, cette traduction du grand auteur de livres d'échecs américain du milieu du XXe siècle Fred Reinfeld vient-elle combler un vide dans la littérature échiquéenne française.Les parties de Morphy sont à la fois plaisantes et riches d'enseignement, en particulier pour les joueurs amateurs cherchant à améliorer leur propre niveau aux échecs. Mises en valeur par les excellents commentaires du pédagogue Reinfeld, elles constituent un matériel pédagogique de grande valeur, aussi bien pour l'apprenant solitaire que pour l'enseignant d'échecs qui pourra les proposer à ses élèves pour illustrer certains grands principes stratégiques du jeu d'échecs, par exemple l'importance du développement, du temps, de la vitesse d'exécution, etc.En résumé, un excellent livre à tous points de vue à recommander sans réserve à tous les joueurs d'échecs quel que soit leur niveau !

Reading What Chess Coaches Don't Tell You can broaden your horizons in the essential areas of chess study, and ideally let you better evaluate what your chess coach is teaching you. And if you don't have a chess coach, this book will provide you with an excellent foundation for serious chess study.

The Stafford Gambit is an exciting method of playing the Black pieces.

Questo libro, frutto di più di tre anni di lavoro e ricerca, con numerose foto e documenti inediti tramanda la storia dell'attività scacchistica a livello nazionale promossa dal Banco di Roma dal 1972 fino al 1992. In ordine cronologico sono stati trattati tornei di varia tipologia che furono organizzati da ciascuna filiale: sociali, eliminatorie, semilampo interbancari ad opera soprattutto dall'attivo CRAL di Milano e manifestazioni nazionali. Nel campionato italiano di serie A la fortissima squadra del Banco di Roma si fregiò per cinque volte della vittoria del massimo titolo nazionale. Furono anche promossi un torneo per corrispondenza e due concorsi problemistici veicolati dalla rivista "Il Villaggio", edita dallo stesso istituto bancario. Infine sono documentate le appassionanti simultanee che concludevano immancabilmente ogni torneo nazionale e che furono tenute da fortissimi campioni, soprattutto dal grande maestro Sergio Mariotti e dai maestri internazionali Stefano Tatai e Alvise Zichichi. In particolare nel 1987 fu invitato Anatolij Karpov, ex campione del mondo, ad esibirsi in due simultanee a Roma.

Tried and True for More than Two Centuries The Scotch Game is a solid opening that has been tried and tested in practice by some of the strongest chessplayers in the world for more than two centuries. The idea behind the Scotch Game is simple and easily understandable. White eliminates - in a purely mechanical fashion - Black's e5-pawn which initially impedes his ambition to dominate in the center. This is very appealing for White, as he controls the direction of the struggle's development, while Black can only try to keep pace. Furthermore, there are relatively simple schemes in the white repertoire in which it is enough to remember the main plans of both sides and typical maneuvers. This is the second edition of Vladimir Barsky's book that first appeared in 2009. The new edition consists of seven chapters dealing with the core ideas and variations of the Scotch, supplemented by 79 Illustrative Games. The authors not only present detailed analysis of all lines but are also careful to discuss the ideas behind the opening. If you already play the Scotch, you need this book. If you don't, find out what you have been missing.

Boris Zlotnik is an extraordinary trainer and coach. He was the director of a legendary chess school in Moscow before he emigrated to Spain in 1993. Ten years later, the super talent Fabiano Caruana moved to Madrid with his entire family to live near his trainer Zlotnik. As a former coach of U.S. Champion Caruana, Zlotnik knows how top players work on their chess improvement. And his experience with club players allows him to translate that understanding into practical lessons for amateurs about highly original subjects like creativity or 'putting up resistance' - topics seldom touched on in other chess manuals. Zlotnik covers a wide variety of topics and uses a wealth of material. Readers will love this new book, as they did his first book, Zlotnik's Middlegame Manual. 'A brilliant, important and extraordinarily instructive book', said Florian Jacobs, the book reviewer for the Max Euwe Center in Amsterdam. 'This is how probing, rich and motivating studying chess can be.'

Almost as fascinating as chess is the community of chess players. In every major city in the world, you are guaranteed to meet interesting people when you walk into a local chess club or chess cafe. This book pays tribute to one of those characters who gave colour to the chess world, the Russian grandmaster Alexey Vyzhmanavin.The best chance to bump into Vyzhmanavin in the 1980s and early 1990s was in Sokolniki park in Moscow, playing blitz. You could meet him at the 1992 Chess Olympiad as a member of the winning Russian team. Or in the finals of the PCA rapid events of the 1990s, frequently outplaying his illustrious opponents with his fluent and enterprising style. In Moscow in 1994, he reached the semi-final, narrowly losing out to Vladimir Kramnik, having already beaten Alexei Shirov and Viktor Korchnoi. Commentating at a PCA event, Maurice Ashley described Vyzhmanavin in predatory terms: ?He's a dangerous one, looking like a cat, ready to pounce.For this book, grandmaster Dmitry Kryakvin has talked to dozens of people, enabling him to give a complete picture of Vyzhmanavin's life. The result is a mix of fascinating chess, wonderful anecdotes, and some heartbreaking episodes. The stories are complemented by the memories of Vyzmanavin's ex-wife Lyudmila. They revive his successes but also reveal the dark side of this forgotten chess genius who battled with depression and the ?green serpent', a Russian euphemism for alcoholism. He died in January 2000 at the age of forty, in circumstances that remain unclear. The stories and games in this book are his legacy.

Chess students love a Puzzle Rush. And solving tactics puzzles certainly helps you improve your pattern recognition and will help you find good moves in tournament games. But there is a downside to most tactics puzzles ? we always know who is supposed to win!Chess in real life is different, not just because no one taps us on the shoulder and tells us to look for a tactic. Sometimes tactics work, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes your opponent has a few tricks up their sleeve, too.This book shows the reality of chess tactics. It explores a chess player's challenges over the board: attack, defense, and counterattack! It exposes the actual give-and-take nature of chess tactics.American grandmaster Joel Benjamin, a three-time U.S. Champion, was inspired by the 20th-century classic Chess Traps, Pitfalls, and Swindles by legendary chess authors Fred Reinfeld and Israel Albert Horowitz. With modern examples, Benjamin arouses the same spirit of fun and enjoyment. With a generous amount of puzzles in quiz form, this manual will help chess students sharpen their tactical skills and be ready to strike - or counterstrike.

Every winter, the world's strongest chess players and most promising chess prodigies travel to a small seaside village in the Netherlands to immerse themselves for two weeks in chess and chess only. Usually, the World Champion is there, vying for victory. Garry Kasparov won three times, Vishy Anand won five times, and Magnus Carlsen won a record eight times.The tournament is a gift of the local steel company to their neighbours, the shops, restaurants and B&Bs, and the global community of chess lovers. Hundreds of amateur chess players come to Wijk aan Zee and play in the same hall as the elite grandmasters. Fans all around the world can follow the games with expert commentary during the online live broadcasts.In 2023, the Tata Steel Chess tournament celebrates its 85th edition. This book captures the uniqueness of the festival in 160 pages. It tells the stories of the winners, the amateurs and their favourite restaurants. Dozens of pictures highlight how photogenic the event is. And, of course, the book includes magnificent chess games annotated by the winners. Wijk aan Zee and the Tata Steel Chess Tournament bring out the best in chess.

The most famous team ever participating in a chess pub quiz was MC Hammer. The team members are pretty decent chess players and happened to know their bit of chess trivia and chess history. Do you know or can you guess their names? This book offers a collection of hundreds of chess trivia and chess-related trivia. You can use it by yourself, solving puzzles. Or you can use the book for multiple thematic pub quizzes at your local chess café or chess club. Enjoy. The best game ever.

Do you struggle to score against the Hedgehog and find it difficult to break the Black fortress? This opening manual, which could double as a positional middlegame manual, will show you how White can use a space advantage in this chess opening with maximum results.The Hedgehog System, a personal favourite of many club players, is important to understand for all White players as the positions are near-universal. They can arise from the English Opening, the Nimzo-Indian and Queen's Indian Defences and the Sicilian Opening. The Hedgehog is a flexible defence as Black can undermine your centre with ...b6-b5 or ...d6-d5. Black can attack your kingside dark squares with a queen-and-bishop battery or go after your king by launching the g-pawn.That's why Beating The Hedgehog System focuses on the most airtight variations, taking the sting out of Black's counterplay and making White's space advantage count. You will learn the general strategies but also essential features such as:how to get the ideal queenside formation versus the Hedgehoghow to use x-rays and little tactics to stop Black's ...d6-d5 breakhow to provoke Black's e-pawn to move to e5when to push your a-pawn to the fourth rank... and when to hold it backIncluded are fifteen model games and thirty strategy and tactics exercises to fine-tune your feel for this Opening. This book has been adapted from the MoveTrainer® and video Chessable course with the same name.

Magnus Carlsen's brilliant endgame play is one of the key reasons for his success. The World Chess Champion can win positions which look drawn to anybody else. And more than any other player, he is able to save bad endings.For this second volume of Magnus Carlsen Endgame Virtuoso, International Master Tibor Karolyi has selected Carlsen's best endgames from 2018-2022, whereas the first volume covered 1999-2017. Reviewing these new games and explaining what Magnus was doing, the author was thoroughly impressed. Even Carlsen, who in 2017 was already the best endgame player of all time with Anatoly Karpov, had managed to improve his skills further.Carlsen has it all. He can find deep ideas, play very technically, and is exceptionally well-versed in strategic and tactical endgames. The author is convinced that this new selection contains even better and more instructive games than Volume one.Karolyi explains the general ideas in the games and gives concrete variations. Exploring these annotated endgames, you will soon get a good sense of what is happening. You will find out that Carlsen does not rush unless it is necessary. You will learn how Carlsen increases the pressure and uses all available resources. And you will see that sooner or later, his opponents will start playing second-best moves, feeling uncomfortable, following up with some dubious decisions, and, finally, cracking.Endgame Virtuoso Magnus Carlsen - Volume 2 is a highly instructive, inspiring and entertaining book. It will help you appreciate Magnus' endgame magic and improve your skills in this important game phase.

Throw Down the Gauntlet from the Very First Move! The Modern Defense has been popular for decades. However, within the purview of this defense, there is a system that challenges White right from the get-go. The brainchild of Georgian grandmaster Bukhuti Gurgenidze, Black plays 1...g6 and follows with a timely ...c6 and ...d5. Occasionally classified as part of the Caro-Kann, it draws battle lines immediately. The move 1...g6 in general is an aggressive approach, throwing down the gauntlet from the very first move. This is why in some lines, even if the reader finds that the engine assesses a position in White's favor, one should not be put off. This book, the first one dedicated to the Modern Gurgenidze in many years, consists of 10 theoretical Chapters and 31 sample games. Jaan carefully explains how Black's plans may change depending on White's move order, when exactly we should play ...c7-c6 followed by ...d7-d5 (Chapters 1-5) and when we would be better off with ...d7-d6 and ...e7-e5 (Chapters 6-10). You will be treated to Jaan's insights on Hippo, Dutch, English, King's Indian and even 1.b3, all through the eyes of Gurgenidze system. - Grandmaster Alex Shabalov in his Foreword. The Modern Gurgenidze has figured prominently in Jaan Ehlvest's repertoire as Black for many years. He now shares his expertise and experience in this provocative defense. If you want to play for a draw, this book is not for you. But if you want to play for the full point, this counterpunching defense may be just what you are looking for. About the Author: Jaan Ehlvest is a grandmaster from Tallinn, Estonia. He won the 1980 USSR Junior Chess Championship when he was 18 and in 1983, the European Junior Championship. He was champion of Estonia in 1986 and was a member of the gold medal-winning Soviet Union team at the 28th Chess Olympiad in Thessaloniki 1988. He played for Estonia in the Chess Olympiads of 1992-2004. This is his first book for Russell Enterprises.

Korchnoi and his Chess Grandchildren features 25 of Viktor Korchnoi's best games from the latter stages of his glorious career. The annotations are mainly in Korchnoi's own words, with insightful additions from other top players and the author. Between the annotated games are numerous articles and interviews - some with Viktor, and others featuring top players talking about the great man.

Bent Larsen is one of the most celebrated chess players of the twentieth century. Larsen is the man who pushed Bobby Fischer down to Board 2 on the Rest of the World team in 1970. The Danish grandmaster had spectacular results, but chess fans appreciated even more his creativity and fighting spirit, and his ability to create magic out of thin air.

This book discusses and analyses an important chess opening that is highly under-represented in chess literature.