Pattern recognition is one of the most important mechanisms of chess improvement. Realizing that the position on the board has similarities with something you have seen before helps you to quickly grasp the essence of that position and find the most promising continuation. Improve Your Chess Pattern Recognition supplies a wealth of essential, yet easy-to-remember building blocks for your chess knowledge. In 40 short, well-defined and practical chapters, experienced chess trainer Arthur van de Oudeweetering presents hundreds of examples of surprising middlegame themes. To test your understanding he provides exercises for every chapter. After working with this book, an increasing number of positions, pawn structures and piece placements will automatically activate your chess knowledge. As a result, you will find the right move more often and more quickly!

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.

This is a chess book for everyone, from eight to eighty, beginner to master. In a clear, easy-to-follow format it explains how the best way to beat a stronger opponent in the opening stage of the game. Delightful and instructive games of famous players are used to show the 50 most effective opening traps that chess masters use to win their games.

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.

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.

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.

This book on strategy is one of the best and clearest texts ever written. Lasker claims that by following a few principles of strategy which he gives one can play chess very well. A large part of the book is devoted to illustrative games to show how these strategic principles have been applied by masters. These games show that by learning how to clear files, concentrating forces in the center of the board, and keeping pawn movement down to only the most needed ones, you can become a master.

Boost your Chess 2 continues Yusupovs Beyond the Basics series. The Fundamentals series shows players the basic ideas they should know, then the Beyond the Basics series 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.

Learn to play attacking chess from move one by studying the Fried Liver Attack, the Fishing Pole, the Bishop Sacrifice, the Halosar Trap, and other attacks used by the masters of the past.This book is a compilation of some of the best chess opening traps and attacks. Most attacks result in mate within 10 moves or less. These attacks illustrate how to mount a powerful attack quickly.

In "Champions of the New Millennium" three accomplished authors present the eighteen best chess players in the world today. Each player is introduced with an illuminating profile, and then four of his or her finest games are explained in depth. These players are: The current top ten: Anand, Kramnik, Topalov, Morozevich, Svidler, Mamedyarov, Shirov, Leko, Ivanchuk, Aronian. The stars likely to dominate the next decade: Karjakin, Carlsen, Radjabov, Wang Yue, Ponomariov and Grischuk. The best female player ever, Judit Polgar. And finally, World Championship finalist and comeback kid, American star Gata Kamsky. This is the ideal guide to who's who in modern chess.

Leading chess author Colin Crouch selects and explains over 30 sensational games, all from the new millennium. By studying battles between the world's best players, Crouch examines in detail all the key areas of modern chess. Powerful attacking and resourceful defending, bloodthirsty tactical battles, profound positional mastery, deep opening preparation and superb endgame play are all in evidence here, while Crouch also explores the ever-increasing role of computers and the way human imagination can work in harness with them. There is something for everyone in this book: aspiring players will benefit greatly from the clear explanations of the fundamentals, while stronger players will gain considerably from Crouch's deep insight and analysis in more complex positions. This book reflects the continuing changes in modern chess, and how you can use the lessons learned to great effect in your own games.

When Bobby Fischer died in January 2008, he left behind a confounding legacy. Everyone knew the basics of his life: he began as a brilliant youngster, then became the pride of American chess, then took a sharp turn, struggling with paranoia and mental illness. But nobody truly understood him. What motivated him from such a young age, and what was the source of his remarkable intellect? How could a man so ambivalent about money and fame be so driven to succeed? What drew this man of Jewish descent to fulminate against Jews, and how was it that a mind so famously disciplined could unravel so completely? From his meteoric rise, to an utterly dominant prime, to his eventual descent into madness, the book draws upon hundreds of newly discovered documents and recordings, and numerous firsthand interviews conducted with those who knew Fischer best, to paint, for the very first time, a complete picture of one of the most enigmatic icons. This is the definitive account of a fascinating man and an extraordinary life, one that at last reconciles Fischer's deeply contradictory legacy and answers the question: 'Who was Bobby Fischer?'