A Real Simple gift guide pick for 2017 A fun board game based on the best-selling Listography journal series: Listography: The Game invites players to create and share lists based on fun and thought-provoking topics - from geography and pop culture to toothpaste and constellations! With the goal of being the first around the game board, players score points according to the number of similar or unique answers. Every round in the game results in creative thinking, surprise outcomes, and lots of laughs. May the best list win! * Small and compact for travel and to take to dinner parties * Game makes a fun and unique housewarming gift * Lisa Nola is the creator of the Listography book series and the popular list-making website, listography.com. With over one million copies sold, her books inspire creative auto-biography and reinvention through list-making Listography: The Game will appeal to list-lovers who want to have a good time laughing with friends. * For 3-6 players, ages 12 and up * Includes: 300 cards (300 list topics), game board, 6 player tokens, sand timer, 6 list pads * Great ice-breaking game and for groups to get to know each other

Do you need to be a genius to be good at chess? What does it take to become a Grandmaster? Can computer programmes beat human intuition in gameplay? The Psychology of Chess is an insightful overview of the roles of intelligence, expertise, and human intuition in playing this complex and ancient game. The book explores the idea of 'practice makes perfect', alongside accounts of why men perform better than women in international rankings, and why chess has become synonymous with extreme intelligence as well as madness. When artificial intelligence researchers are increasingly studying chess to develop machine learning, The Psychology of Chess shows us how much it has already taught us about the human mind.

All the Everyman Chess books are organized in a structured style and are also presented in a series of levels. The styles encompass Openings (O); Games Collections ((G); and Training (T). The levels are arranged as follows: Children [C]; Novice (N); Club (C); and Advanced (A).

Since its first publication in 1950, The Right Way to Play Chess has taught chess to generations of beginners, taking them to the standard expected of good club players. It gives full details of exactly how to play the game, explains basic theory and includes many examples of play.There are separate chapters on the openings, middle and end games, plus a chapter of master games which illustrate how styles of play have changed over the years. Fully revised and updated by chess expert Richard James, a new chapter shows how to encourage and teach children to play the game.

Players: 2-4 Ages: 14+ Playing Time: 30-60 minutes Contents: 20 Unique Miniatures, 20 Character Cards, 120 Action Cards, 42 Battlefield Cards, Double-Sided Playing Board, Counters & Tokens The great Darkness has fallen, and the Empire with it. The arcane crystals which once powered entire cities were shattered, and the darkness was destroyed by the magics unleashed. All that remains are the lawless ruins known as the Wildlands, and the shards of the crystals that have been strewn across them. Now a few souls, the brave and the desperate, seek the shards to harness their power for their own ends. Take control of one of four factions, from the spell-slinging Mages' Guild or the nimble Gnomads to the versatile Lawbringers or the hard-hitting Pit Fighters. Each brings their own playstyle, with unique decks of action cards determining their abilities on the battlefield, so plan your tactics carefully. Dash through the ruins to grab the crystals you so desperately desire or focus your efforts on taking out the opposition - but take care, danger may be lurking in the darkness... In the Wildlands, opportunity awaits... if you fight for it.

This inquiry concerns the cultural history of the chess-player. It takes as its premise the idea that the chess-player has become a fragmented collection of images, underpinned by challenges to, and confirmations of, chess's status as an intellectually-superior and socially-useful game, particularly since the medieval period. Yet, the chess-player is an understudied figure. No previous work has shone a light on the chess-player itself. Increasingly, chess-histories have retreated into tidy consensus. This work aspires to a novel reading of the figure as both a flickering beacon of reason and a sign of monstrosity. To this end, this book, utilising a wide range of sources, including newspapers, periodicals, detective novels, science-fiction, and comic-books, is underpinned by the idea that the chess-player is a pluralistic subject used to articulate a number of anxieties pertaining to themes of mind, machine, and monster. -- .

Renowned chess teacher and grandmaster Artur Yusupov continues his complete course of chess improvement. Volume 1, The Fundamentals, showed club chess players the basic ideas they should know. Now Volume 2, Beyond the Basics, sets off on the road to mastery. Yusupov guides the reader towards a higher level of chess understanding using carefully selected positions and advice. This new understanding is then tested by a series of puzzles. Artur Yusupov was ranked No. 3 in the world from 1986 to 1992, just behind the legendary World Champions Karpov and Kasparov. He has won everything there is to win in chess except for the World Championship. In recent years he has mainly worked as a chess trainer with players ranging from current World Champion Anand to local amateurs in Germany, where he resides.

This series provides an ideal platform to study chess openings. By continually challenging the reader to answer probing questions throughout the book, the Move by Move format greatly encourages the learning and practicing of vital skills just as much as the traditional assimilation of opening 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 study any chess opening and at the same time improve your general chess skills and knowledge. Bird's Opening, 1 f4, is an ideal choice for freethinking chess players who prefer to rely on their general chess knowledge and intuition rather than having to memorize and keep up to date with mainline opening theory. Bird's Opening is essentially the Dutch Defense with an extra move, and White can choose between a number of different set-ups, including the reversed Leningrad, Classical and Stonewall variations, depending on mood and opponents' responses. In this book, International Master Cyrus Lakdawala examines all the important variations of Bird's Opening, including the sharp From's Gambit. Using illustrative games, he explains the main positional and tactical ideas for both sides, provides answers to all the key questions and tells you everything you need to know about successfully playing 1 f4. *Essential guidance and training with 1 f4*Provides a repertoire options for White*Utilizes an ideal approach to chess study

Test your vocabulary with Wordwise! Dice Game from Wexler Studios. Roll the dice to create as many words as you can in 1-minute. * Tin Size: 7.67 x 3.74 x 1.22", 195 x 95 x 31 mm * Score-pad with perforated sheets * Mini Pencil * Sand Timer * 16 Lettered + 2 Numbered Die * Instruction Sheet

If you are aware of endgame patterns, you spot key moves quicker, analyse and calculate better, avoid making errors and memorise what you have studied more fully. The Queen's Gambit is easily the most talked-about chess opening since the immensely popular Netflix TV series of the same name became a hit. The screen adventures of Beth Harmon have inspired thousands to start playing the Royal Game but didn't offer any information on this highly popular chess opening. This book fills that gap. German Grandmaster Michael Prusikin presents a solid but dynamic opening repertoire for Black against the Queen's Gambit. He wants you to understand rather than memorize what is important. His primary focus is on explaining the relevant pawn structures and the middlegame ideas behind the lines he recommends. Prusikin deals with every single variation of the Queen's Gambit in a way that is highly accessible for club players but at the same time surprisingly effective and concise: the Catalan, Tartakower, Carlsbad, London, Colle, Veresov, and all the others. As a bonus, the FIDE Senior Trainer also provides responses to openings such as the Bird, Reti, and Nimzo-Larsen. It may seem unlikely, and yet it is true: in less than 200 pages, Countering the Queen's Gambit has Black covered for really every first move except 1.e4! To test your newly acquired insights in the tactical motifs and strategic ideas of the Queen's Gambit, you are invited to solve 36 exercises in carefully selected key positions from actual games.

It's a little-known trivia fact, but you can actually play games with dominos instead of just lining them up and knocking them over. In fact, this double-six set of acrylic dominos by Brass Monkey includes everything you need* to play 15 different games (while getting uncomfortably competitive with your friends and family). *Smugness not included. * Includes 28 double-sided acrylic dominos. In other words, each side features a unique design so that you can play using either numbers or shapes. Psst: look at the pictures. * Features an instruction book that explains how to play 15 different games in detail (from Bergen to Matador - and everything in between). * Don't worry; even though they are double-sided, each face has a randomly different value, so you can't cheat (We're looking at you, grandma). * The outer box measures 9" by 4.25" by 2.5" deep. * Each domino measures 1" by 2" by .22" deep.

The outcome of most matches depends on positional skills; the first player to establish a positional advantage gains the best chance of a successful direct attack. This complete guide, written by a grandmaster, can assist all players at every level in developing a more powerful strategic game. Spanning more than a century of chess, it presents examples on such themes as key squares, bad bishops, and pawn structures in ascending difficulty, with ample cross-references. 495 b/w illus.

Designed by some of Mensa's most cunning minds, this is a brain-training interactive puzzle pack crammed full of games and conundrums of many varieties, certain to challenge your linguistic and numerical abilities.

The Mensa Brain Games Pack contains a range of different activities, including eight separate games, so you'll be able to enjoy it again and again, on your own or with your family and friends. With a range of fiendish questions to enthral puzzlers of every level of ability, this a great purchase for anyone looking for a new challenge.

Mensa Brain Games Pack contains:

• Puzzle cards
• Board
• Counters
• Dice
• Fully illustrated book

Are you tired of playing the same old openings time and time again? This book takes revolutionary look at Flank Openings. It focuses on little-explored variations, selecting a wealth of 'dangerous' options for both colours.

Chess was invented more than 1,500 years ago, and is played in every country in the world. Stephen Moss sets out to master its mysteries, and unlock the secret of its enduring appeal. What, he asks, is the essence of chess? And what will it reveal about his own character along the way? In a witty, accessible style that will delight newcomers and irritate purists, Moss imagines the world as a board and marches across it, offering a mordant report on the world of chess in 64 chapters - 64 of course being the number of squares on the chessboard. He alternates between "black" chapters - where he plays, largely uncomprehendingly, in tournaments - and "white" chapters, where he seeks advice from the current crop of grandmasters and delves into the lives of great players of the past. It is both a history of the game and a kind of "Zen and the Art of Chess"; a practical guide and a self-help book: Moss's quest to understand chess and become a better player is really an attempt to escape a lifetime of dilettantism. He wants to become an expert at one thing. What will be the consequences when he realises he is doomed to fail? Moss travels to Russia and the US - hotbeds of chess throughout the 20th century; meets people who knew Bobby Fischer when he was growing up and tries to unravel the enigma of that tortured genius who died in 2008 at the inevitable age of 64; meets Garry Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen, world champions past and present; and keeps bumping into Armenian superstar Levon Aronian in the gents at tournaments. He becomes champion of Surrey, wins tournaments in Chester and Bury St Edmunds, and holds his own at the famous event in the Dutch seaside resort of Wijk aan Zee (until a last-round meltdown), but too often he is beaten by precocious 10-year-olds and finds it hard to resist the urge to punch them. He looks for spiritual fulfilment in the game, but mostly finds mental torture.

Following on from the long success of one of the most important chess books ever written, Bobby Fischer: My 60 Memorable Games, renowned chess writer Andrew Soltis delivers a book on today's blockbuster chess player Magnus Carlsen. Magnus Carlsen has been the world's number one player for more than a decade, has won more super-tournaments than anyone ever and is still in his prime. He is the only player to repeatedly win the world championships in classical, speed and blitz chess formats. This book details his remarkable rise and how he acquired the crucial skills of 21st-century grandmaster chess He will defend his world championship title this autumn and if he wins, it will set a record of five championship match victories. This book take you through how he wins by analysing 60 of the games that made him who he is, describing the intricacies behind his and his opponent's strategies, the tactical justification of moves and the psychological battle in each one. This book is essential for chess enthusiasts, competitors and professionals of all skill sets.