Now available in a revised paperback edition, this classic bestseller can change the way the game of tennis is played.

    Ten fast-reading chapters show the basics of setting up a board, how to move, the opening strategies and replies, middle and end game tactics, basic probabilities, plus back game and doubling strategy. The world's best backgammon player shows beginning players how to play and win at this popular game.

    Zen and the Art of Poker is the first book to apply Zen theories to America's most popular card game, presenting tips that readers can use to enhance their game. Among the more than one hundred rules that comprise this book, readers will learn to: * Make peace with folding* Use inaction as a weapon* Make patience a central pillar of their strategy* Pick their times of confrontationUsing a concise and spare style, in the tradition of Zen practices and rituals, Zen and the Art of Poker traces a parallel track connecting the two disciplines by giving comments and inspirational examples from the ancient Zen masters to the poker masters of today.

    In Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason Schreier takes readers on a fascinating odyssey behind the scenes of video game development, where the creator may be a team of 600 overworked underdogs or a solitary geek genius. Exploring the artistic challenges, technical impossibilities, marketplace demands, and Donkey Kong-sized monkey wrenches thrown into the works by corporate, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels reveals how bringing any game to completion is more than Sisyphean—it's nothing short of miraculous.Taking some of the most popular, bestselling recent games, Schreier immerses readers in the hellfire of the development process, whether it's RPG studio Bioware's challenge to beat an impossible schedule and overcome countless technical nightmares to build Dragon Age: Inquisition; indie developer Eric Barone's single-handed efforts to grow country-life RPG Stardew Valley from one man's vision into a multi-million-dollar franchise; or Bungie spinning out from their corporate overlords at Microsoft to create Destiny, a brand new universe that they hoped would become as iconic as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings—even as it nearly ripped their studio apart. Documenting the round-the-clock crunches, buggy-eyed burnout, and last-minute saves, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is a journey through development hell—and ultimately a tribute to the dedicated diehards and unsung heroes who scale mountains of obstacles in their quests to create the best games imaginable.

    In The 33 Strategies of War, Greene has crafted an important addition to this ruthless and unique series.Spanning world civilizations, synthesizing dozens of political, philosophical, and religious texts and thousands of years of violent conflict, The 33 Strategies of War is a comprehensive guide to the subtle social game of everyday life informed by the most ingenious and effective military principles in war. Structured in Greene’s trademark style, The 33 Strategies of War is the I-Ching of conflict, the contemporary companion to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.Abundantly illustrated with examples from history, including the folly and genius of everyone from Napoleon to Margaret Thatcher, Shaka the Zulu to Lord Nelson, Hannibal to Ulysses S. Grant, as well as movie moguls, Samurai swordsmen, and diplomats, each of the thirty-three chapters outlines a strategy that will help you win life’s wars. Learn the offensive strategies that require you to maintain the initiative and negotiate from a position of strength, or the defensive strategies designed to help you respond to dangerous situations and avoid unwinnable wars. The great warriors of battlefields and drawing rooms alike demonstrate prudence, agility, balance, and calm, and a keen understanding that the rational, resourceful, and intuitive always defeat the panicked, the uncreative, and the stupid. An indispensable book, The 33 Strategies of War provides all the psychological ammunition you need to overcome patterns of failure and forever gain the upper hand.

    The collection ranges from early games right up to newly invented games. The rules of all games are explained lucidly, and the tactical advice given is explicit.

    Omaha has long been the most popular form of poker in Europe, and now it's spreading like wildfire throughout North America. The reason is simple: Omaha offers more action and bigger pots than Texas Hold'em. Isn't it time you got in on it? Whether you're a cash-game professional or poker hobbyist--and whether you play live or online--this book will arm you with a winning big-play strategy that's easy to master even if you've never played Omaha before. You'll discover the subtle distinctions that set Omaha above other games. Key topics include: The Big Play Objectives The Power of the Big DrawStraight Draws and Starting Hand ConstructionPlaying the Position GameLimit Omaha Hi/Lo and Pot-Limit Omaha Hi/LoComplete with practice situations and hand quizzes, this is the most comprehensive Omaha book available--and the only one you'll ever need. Jeff Hwang is a semi-professional poker player and an investment analyst who regularly writes about the gaming industry for the Motley Fool, a well known website about stocks and investing. A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis with a B.S./B.A. in both finance and management, Jeff has been an advantage player since 1999, when he took an interest in blackjack. After he graduated college, Jeff picked up poker, and he has been playing semi-professionally ever since. His regular lineup includes Pot-Limit Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo, with the occasional No-Limit Hold'em game. The material in this book is the result of playing various Omaha games nearly exclusively for over eighteen months, both live and online. Jeff lives in St. Louis eight months of the year and spends time in Fort Lauderdale, Washington, D.C., and on the road the rest."

    In her long-awaited memoir, she tells the story of that victory, but also of a 20-year obsession with the game. It is a journey which has taken Coren from a secret culture of illegal cash games to the high-stakes glamour of Las Vegas and Monte Carlo, and brought with it friendship, laughter, and money, but also loneliness, heartbreak, and defeat. With disarming honesty, Coren lays all of this bare. For Richer, For Poorer also tells the story of the poker revolution. How did this cult card game, populated by a small community of colorful and eccentric players, move from the back streets to the mainstream in a few short years? It is a fascinating story from a trusted insider.

    and remarkable powers of concentration, Bobby memorized hundreds of chess books in several languages, and he was only 13 when he became the youngest chess master in U.S. history.   But his strange behavior started early.  In 1972, at the historic Cold War showdown in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he faced Soviet champion Boris Spassky, Fischer made headlines with hundreds of petty demands that nearly ended the competition.  It was merely a prelude to what was to come. Arriving back in the United States to a hero’s welcome, Bobby was mobbed wherever he went—a figure as exotic and improbable as any American pop culture had yet produced.  No player of a mere “board game” had ever ascended to such heights.  Commercial sponsorship offers poured in, ultimately topping $10 million—but Bobby demurred.  Instead, he began tithing his limited money to an apocalyptic religion and devouring anti-Semitic literature.   After years of poverty and a stint living on Los Angeles’ Skid Row, Bobby remerged in 1992 to play Spassky in a multi-million dollar rematch—but the experience only deepened a paranoia that had formed years earlier when he came to believe that the Soviets wanted him dead for taking away “their” title.  When the dust settled, Bobby was a wanted man—transformed into an international fugitive because of his decision to play in Montenegro despite U.S. sanctions.  Fearing for his life, traveling with bodyguards, and wearing a long leather coat to ward off knife attacks, Bobby lived the life of a celebrity fugitive – one drawn increasingly to the bizarre.  Mafiosi, Nazis, odd attempts to breed an heir who could perpetuate his chess-genius DNA—all are woven into his late-life tapestry.  And yet, as Brady shows, the most notable irony of Bobby Fischer’s strange descent – which had reached full plummet by 2005 when he turned down yet another multi-million dollar payday—is that despite his incomprehensible behavior, there were many who remained fiercely loyal to him.  Why that was so is at least partly the subject of this book—one that at last answers the question: “Who was Bobby Fischer?”

    But when McManus arrives, the lure of the tables compels him to risk his entire Harper's advance in a long-shot attempt to play in the tournament himself. This is his deliciously suspenseful account of the tournament--the players, the hand-to-hand combat, his own unlikely progress in it--and the delightfully seedy carnival atmosphere that surrounds it. Positively Fifth Street is a high-stakes adventure and a terrifying but often hilarious account of one man's effort to understand what Edward O. Wilson has called "Pleistocene exigencies"--the eros and logistics of our competitive instincts.

    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.

    While the math of poker has been refined over the past 20 years, the ability to read other players and keep your own "tells" in check has mostly been learned by trial and error.But now, Joe Navarro, a former FBI counterintelligence officer specializing in nonverbal communication and behavior analysis—or, to put it simply, a man who can tell when someone's lying—offers foolproof techniques, illustrated with amazing examples from poker pro Phil Hellmuth, that will help you decode and interpret your opponents' body language and other silent tip-offs while concealing your own. You'll become a human lie detector, ready to call every bluff—and the most feared player in the room.

    I'm here to tell you it is not. In fact, fundamental poker math is very easy to learn. More importantly, it can yield you a lot more profits at the poker table. Without using simple math at the poker table, you are simply playing a guessing game. Use Simple Math at the Poker Table and Increase You Winnings In this book I will teach you how to use simple arithmetic at the poker table to gain a huge skill advantage over your opponents that will allow you to win more and lose less. Poker players that don't use math are simply guessing and you'll learn to no longer guess and know the right mathematical move at the poker table. These simple mathematical concepts I will be teaching you will drastically help improve your poker game and allow you to make the most profitable decisions at the poker. Contents and Overview First you will be introduced to some fundamental overarching poker concepts that apply to poker mathematics. Then we will begin our journey into poker mathematics where you will learn about probabilities and odds, pot odds and implied odds, pot equity, and expected value. You will then learn how to quickly estimate your equity at the poker table using the Rule of 2 & 4. Moreover, you'll learn the steps involved in determining if calling with a drawing hand is profitable or not. We will also cover how to size your bets with the best hand and teach you how often bluffs and hero calls need to work to be profitable. Lastly, we will show you how to perform EV calculations and better understand card combinations. Effectively Understand and Utilize Essential Poker Math Develop a keen understanding of Probability and Odds Learn to quickly calculate Pot Odds & Implied Odds at the poker table Effectively use Pot Equity & The Rule of 2 & 4 to Determine the correct poker play Understand how to use Expected Value (EV) both on and off the table to analyze your plays Learn the important math behind Bluffs & Hero Calls to give you a skill advantage over your opponent Learn Card Combinations to further enhance your card reading abilities And Many More Amazing Topics… What You Will Get out of This Book Suitable for both beginning and experienced poker players alike you'll learn many essential fundamental poker mathematical concepts that will help you drastically improve your poker game. After reading this book, you will have mastered fundamental No Limit Holdem mathematics. You will have gained a huge skill advantage over your opponents and you will be able to quickly and effectively use math at the poker table to make are always the most profitable move. Most importantly, you will become a much better and profitable poker player! So what are you waiting for? Purchase this book today to start learning how to advance your poker game with simple poker math! Alton Hardin is the founder of MicroGrinder.com, a free micro stakes poker website that is dedicated to helping micro stakes poker players improve their poker game by offering a wide array of free and low-cost resources including poker courses, poker t

    But she knew her man: a famously thoughtful and broad-minded player, he was intrigued by her pitch that she wasn't interested in making money so much as learning about life. She had faced a stretch of personal bad luck, and her reflections on the role of chance had led her to a giant of game theory, who pointed her to poker as the ultimate master class in learning to distinguish between what can be controlled and what can't. And she certainly brought something to the table, including a Ph.D. in psychology and an acclaimed and growing body of work on human behavior and how to hack it. So Seidel was in, and soon she was down the rabbit hole with him, into the wild, fiercely competitive, overwhelmingly masculine world of high-stakes Texas Hold'em, their initial end point the following year's World Series of Poker.But then something extraordinary happened. Under Seidel's guidance, Konnikova did have many epiphanies about life that derived from her new pursuit, including how to better read, not just her opponents but far more importantly herself; how to identify what tilted her into an emotional state that got in the way of good decisions; and how to get to a place where she could accept luck for what it was, and what it wasn't. But she also began to win. And win. In a little over a year, she began making earnest money from tournaments, ultimately totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. She won a major title, got a sponsor, and got used to being on television, and to headlines like How one writer's book deal turned her into a professional poker player. She even learned to like Las Vegas.But in the end, Maria Konnikova is a writer and student of human behavior, and ultimately the point was to render her incredible journey into a container for its invaluable lessons. The biggest bluff of all, she learned, is that skill is enough. Bad cards will come our way, but keeping our focus on how we play them and not on the outcome will keep us moving through many a dark patch, until the luck once again breaks our way.