In this volume, Tal sets the stage and explains every one of the 21 games, telling both the on- and off-the-board story of this clash of styles and thought.

    . . until the pressures of competition drove him to the brink of madness. In King's Gambit, he interweaves a gripping overview of the history of the game and an in-depth look at the state of modern chess into the story of his own attempt to get his game back up to master level -- without losing his mind. It's also a father and son story, as Hoffman grapples with the bizarre legacy of his own dad, who haunts Hoffman's game and life.

    Their showdown in Reykjavik, Iceland, held the world spellbound for two months with reports of psychological warfare, ultimatums, political intrigue, cliffhangers, and farce to rival a Marx Brothers film.Thirty years later, David Edmonds and John Eidinow have set out to reexamine the story we recollect as the quintessential cold war clash between a lone American star and the Soviet chess machine - a machine that had delivered the world title to the Kremlin for decades. Drawing upon unpublished Soviet and U.S. records, the authors reconstruct the full and incredible saga, one far more poignant and layered than hitherto believed.The authors chronicle how Fischer, a manipulative, dysfunctional genius, risked all to seize control of the contest as the organizers maneuvered frantically to save it - under the eyes of the world's press. They can now tell the inside story of Moscow's response, and the bitter tensions within the Soviet camp as the anxious and frustrated apparatchiks strove to prop up Boris Spassky, the most un-Soviet of their champions - fun-loving, sensitive, and a free spirit. Edmonds and Eidinow follow this careering, behind-the-scenes confrontation to its climax: a clash that displayed the cultural differences between the dynamic, media-savvy representatives of the West and the baffled, impotent Soviets. Try as they might, even the KGB couldn't help.

    Capablanca was a World Chess Champion and one of the greatest players in chess history, yet he wrote very little about the game. Chess Fundamentals, though normally for the beginning player, contains valuable insights that will benefit players at all levels of understanding, including masters. Capablanca explains:·How to obtain and nurture a passed pawn·How to get and keep the initiative·Cardinal rules for rook and pawn endings·How to attack using knight as the main force·How to cut off enemy piecesChess Fundamentals is one of the jewels of chess literature.

    The unthinkable has happened: in the fifth round of the World Championship the renowned defending champion, Emanuel Lasker, has made an elementary error and lost a match. The little-known Austrian challenger, Carl Haffner, stands in the limelight, the title within his grasp.Haffner is a shy and fragile man, brought up in extreme poverty, from which his only escape is his exceptional gift for chess. His is a game shaped by the harsh experiences he has undergone. He has an obsessive fear of defeat, and his tactics and overall strategy are based on the sheer artistry of defence. But this confrontation with Lasker is not merely a clash between rook and knight; it is a collision between two men with vastly differing attitudes to life: the wealthy, worldly, self-confident champion on the one hand, the lonely, idealistic and penniless Haffner on the other.Carl Haffner is modelled on the Austrian grandmaster Karl Schlechter, and in his brilliant first novel Thomas Glavinic brings to life both the events surrounding the ten-match world championship and the atmosphere of the cafés and chess clubs of Vienna and Berlin in the years before the First World War. With mature insight, he analyses the reasons for Haffner's view of the world, a world that is thrown into further confusion by the appearance of the fascinating and beautiful Anna.

    Chess Champion, International Chess Grandmaster, and longtime instructor, this book includes information for both novice and expert, including over 400 illustrated chessboards and photos; over 20 pages of detailed answer key notes; a completely new chapter on new evidence about chess and its impact on brain power; a guide to the art of chess collectibles; and more. • Foreword by Larry Evans, former International Grandmaster and author of 20 highly acclaimed chess books and a popular monthly advice column in Chess Life • Strong sales for previous editions • For the beginner or the champ, and for young and old • Author has a high profile in the chess community

    By then, she had been the close companion and lover of the writer and philosopher, Voltaire, for thirteen years. For her time - and by today's standards - she was a woman of exceptional talents, abilities, and qualities. Tutored in maths, sciences, and the arts from a young age, she pursued these passions as an adult. At her château at Cirey, near Lorraine, she shared a deep love and passion with Voltaire, as well as a taste for the arts and sciences. Together, they conducted experiments in science and optics, and both submitted essays on the nature of fire to a competition held by the French Royal Academy of Sciences. Neither won a prize but both essays were subsequently published. She was just as fascinated by the complexity of human emotions, and in these reflections on happiness she applies her incisive, analytical mind to such passions as sexual desire, the pursuit of glory, and ambition. She has many interesting and insightful things to say. However, she is no detached or aloof intellectual but writes openly from her own experiences, sharing with us her joys, pleasures and miseries. Her human weaknesses are revealed for all to see, making her all the more endearing and sympathetic. Although not written for publication but as private musings, this essay seems, nevertheless, intended for would-be readers. She alludes frequently to those who are younger and less experienced, and who might 'save time' by listening to what she has to say. She is less than positive about what the future might hold for her, or any woman, after forty, speaking of study as compensation rather than the great voyage of discovery that she, herself, had known. She writes in a state of dejection, having no inkling that within two years she would have a passionate affair with the poet, Saint-Lambert, twelve years her junior, and that she would give birth to his child. This great passion was to be her last as, already in poor health, she would die within weeks of the birth, the child out-living her by a year and a half. In her final year, while pregnant, she completed her greatest work, a translation from Latin into French of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica, complete with her commentary and a few hypotheses of her own about light, inspired by Newton's great work and subsequently validated. Her translation of Newton's work was published within ten years of her death and remains, today, the standard French translation. Though writing during the French Enlightenment, and clearly influenced by such near-contemporaries as the English philosopher, John Locke, she has much to say about happiness and its attainment to interest the modern reader, of whatever age, sex, or culture. Some, of course, will be shocked by her unashamed commendation of sensual pleasures, always tempered by her rationality and her emphasis on maximizing the sum total of human happiness. She was fully aware that the rules by which women, in French and other societies, are expected to live are not the same as those applied to men. Some of her advice is thus directed specifically at women. Whether or not this advice to women remains valid and helpful today is for the individual reader to decide.

    An essential pastime of Russian intellectuals and revolutionaries, and later adopted by the Communists as a symbol of Soviet power, chess was inextricably linked to the rise and fall of the “evil empire.” This original narrative history recounts in gripping detail the singular part the Immortal Game played in the Cold War. From chess’s role in the Russian Revolution -- Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky were all avid players -- to the 1945 radio match when the Soviets crushed the Americans, prompting Stalin’s telegram “Well done lads!”; to the epic contest between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in 1972 at the height of détente, when Kissinger told Fischer to “go over there and beat the Russians”; to the collapse of the Soviet Union itself, White King and Red Queen takes us on a fascinating tour of the Cold War’s checkered landscape.

    Set in the early days of Spanish California these four volumes recapture the swashbuckling derring-do of the first masked vigilante: Zorro. Fans of westerns, high-romance and adventure will find their palates satiated with these volumes from some of today's greatest creators. Zorro: The Complete Alex Toth retells the swashbuckler's incredible story by one of the most renowned and respected illustrators alive.

    The progressively more difficult puzzles include a double murder.

    His ruminations range from his obsession with theater to his concept of architecture as ritual. The illustrations--photographs, evocative images, as well as a set of drawings of Rossi's major architectural projects prepared particularly for this publication--were personally selected by the author to augment the text.

    Jesus de la Villa, an international grandmaster and former champion of Spain, presents the endgames that show up most frequently in practice, are easy to learn and contain ideas and concepts that are useful in more difficult positions. He brings you simple rules, guiding ideas at the beginning of each chapter, detailed and lively explanations, many diagrams, clear summaries of the most important themes, recommended exercises that will help you understand the material, and tests, divided in two parts: basic and final. The main thing De la Villa asks of you is to always understand WHY you play a move.

    Written by the man who started the adventure, Behind Deep Blue reveals the inside story of what happened behind the scenes at the two historic Deep Blue vs. Kasparov matches. This is also the story behind the quest to create the mother of all chess machines. The book unveils how a modest student project eventually produced a multimillion dollar supercomputer, from the development of the scientific ideas through technical setbacks, rivalry in the race to develop the ultimate chess machine, and wild controversies to the final triumph over the world's greatest human player.In nontechnical, conversational prose, Feng-hsiung Hsu, the system architect of Deep Blue, tells us how he and a small team of fellow researchers forged ahead at IBM with a project they'd begun as students at Carnegie Mellon in the mid-1980s: the search for one of the oldest holy grails in artificial intelligence--a machine that could beat any human chess player in a bona fide match. Back in 1949 science had conceived the foundations of modern chess computers but not until almost fifty years later--until Deep Blue--would the quest be realized.Hsu refutes Kasparov's controversial claim that only human intervention could have allowed Deep Blue to make its decisive, "uncomputerlike" moves. In riveting detail he describes the heightening tension in this war of brains and nerves, the "smoldering fire" in Kasparov's eyes. Behind Deep Blue is not just another tale of man versus machine. This fascinating book tells us how man as genius was given an ultimate, unforgettable run for his mind, no, not by the genius of a computer, but of man as toolmaker.

    With strict admission standards and a progressive curriculum, Brooklyn's Edward R. Murrow High School has long been one of New York's public-education success stories, serving a diverse neighborhood of immigrants and minorities and ranking among the nation's best high schools. At Murrow, there are no sports teams, and the closest thing to jocks are found on the school's powerhouse chess team, which annually competes for the national championship.In "The Kings of New York" sportswriter Michael Weinreb follows the members of the Murrow chess team through an entire season, from cash games in Washington Square Park to city and state tournaments to the SuperNationals in Nashville, where this eclectic bunch competes against private schoolers and suburbanites. Along the way, Weinreb brings to life a number of colorful characters: the Yale-educated calculus teacher (and former semipro hockey player) who guides the savants while struggling to find funding for his team; an aspiring rapper and tournament hustler who plays with cutthroat instinct; the team's lone girl, a shy Ukrainian immigrant; the Puerto Rican teen from the rough neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant who plays an ingenious opening gambit named the Orangutan; and the Lithuanian immigrant and team star whose chess rating is climbing toward grandmaster status.In the bestselling tradition of such books as "Word Freak" and "Friday Night Lights, The Kings of New York" is a riveting look inside the world of competitive chess and an inspiring profile of young genius.

    The chessboard is the ultimate mental battleground and the world champions themselves are supreme intellectual gladiators.These magnificent compilations of chess form the basis of the first two parts of Garry Kasparov's definitive history of the World Chess Championship. Garry Kasparov, who is universally acclaimed as the greatest chessplayer ever, subjects the play of his predecessors to a rigorous analysis.Part one features the play of champions Wilhelm Steinitz (1886-1894), Emanuel Lasker (1894-1921), Jose Capablanca (1921-1927) and Alexander Alekhine (1927-1935 and 1937-1946).Part two features the play of champions Max Euwe (1935-1937) Mikhail Botvinnik (1946-1957, 1958-1961 and 1961-1963), Vassily Smyslov (1957-1958) and Mikhail Tal (1960-1961).These books are more than just a compilation of the games of these champions. Kasparov's biographies place them in a fascinating historical, political and cultural context. Kasparov explains how each champion brought his own distinctive style to the chessboard and enriched the theory of the game with new ideas.All these games have been thoroughly reassessed with the aid of modern software technology and the new light this sheds on these classic masterpieces is fascinating.