How Women Can Crack The Seemingly Closed Brotherhood Of Poker; Men do it. Boys do it. Even brothers and cousins and fathers do it. But for many women, it remains a mystery, a closed brotherhood of codes. Much has been written about poker, but this is the first book that focuses on the needs of women. This is a book for women, by women, who want to claim their seat at the poker table - and win The information in Playing With The Big Boys comes in an easy-to-follow, lively and practical presentation. Everything from the origins and basics of the game, to the variations, to strategies, and to the ways women can participate in tournaments is included. Readers will be led through the chapters by 'Laura, ' the card shark heroine: How did Laura get started? How did she become her local winner? What advice can she give to other women for their home games or for possible casino ventures? And how can women contend with husbands, boyfriends, Big Boys - and take their money Beyond the fundamentals of 5 and 7 card stud, blackjack, draw games, and Texas hold 'em, the authors investigate the unusual variants such as Chicago, Indian Poker, baseball, lowball, hi-lo, and Anaconda. hold them, and when to fold them. Bluffing gets its own separate treatment, as does the age old problem of how to manage a losing streak - or a winning streak

Using the same format as The Pocket Guide to Bridge, this book will provide a handy pocket summary of the popular 2/1 bidding system. In a concise but readable manner, it goes over the basic ideas for Standard players who want to make the switch. The contents are based on Thurston's 25 Steps to Learning 2./1 which was the American Bridge Teachers Association Book of the Year in 2003.

This thoroughly updated and revised edition of the highly acclaimed 1986 reference work provides a definitive history of all championship events in the United States through April, 2011. Both the games and the occasions are covered in depth, including biographical details, descriptive settings, anecdotes, tournament drama, unusual games, and grandmaster analysis. Included in this edition are 13 new tournaments, 40 new diagrams and 13 additional crosstables.

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 practising 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. The Winawer is a very popular choice amongst French Defence players. It enjoys a sound reputation and reaches positions rich in possibilities for both players. It offers Black the opportunity to enter sharp, dynamic lines, such as the notorious Poisoned Pawn Variation, as well as lines which are more strategic in nature. In this book, FIDE Master Steve Giddins invites you to join him in studying the French Winawer, an opening which he has played for over 25 years, and its many variations. He examines instructive games, covers the most important lines and provides answers to all the key questions.

For those needing to grasp the fundamentals of sound bidding and play, Ron Klinger's BASIC BRIDGE is the answer. GUIDE TO BETTER ACOL BRIDGE is intended for the large majority who are ready to advance beyond the basics. While GUIDE TO BETTER ACOL BRIDGE emphasises better bidding, each chapter contains examples of play, which highlight areas of winning declarer technique and defence. At the end of each section, a revision test enables the reader to measure the rate of progress. The book can be used by teachers conducting courses, or as a self-teacher.

'One of the best introductory books I have come across is Basic Bridge. I recommend it to beginners and teachers alike' The European 'By far the best' Bridge Plus This is a definitive Acol textbook, equally valuable to rubber or duplicate bridge players. Set out as a course which can be used in conjunction with bridge classes or as a self-teacher, the book covers all the basic principles of bidding and play and is packed with exercises and quizzes on everything that has been taught. Recommended as the ideal textbook for learning the game, Basic Bridge will continue to be the standard beginner's guide to rubber and duplicate bridge for the foreseeable future. If you only ever buy one bridge book it has to be Basic Bridge.

The French Defence is one of the most popular and reliable responses to 1.e4. This book covers the most critical variation of the Winawer, which occurs after the opening moves 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3 6.bxc3 Ne7 7.Qg4. This volume presents three contrasting ways of meeting Whites aggressive opening system: 7...cxd4 leading to the notorious Winawer Poisoned Pawn; 7...00 8.Bd3 f5, a solid yet strategically complex system; and 7...00 8.Bd3 Nbc6, which leads to a tense, full-blooded battle.

Gaming books are hugely successful e.g. "Play Poker Like the Pros". This work features reviews in poker magazines and on poker websites. It will appeal to readers of rags-to-riches stories. It features reviews in men's magazines. Even if you don't follow poker, you'll love and appreciate this story. A humble, married accountant who never played poker in his life, starts playing, and after about three years, he enters an online tournament and wins $80k. A few weeks later in early 2003, he enters his first live tournament - the incredible World Series of Poker, and forks over the $40 entrance fee, and ends up winning $2.5 million, instantly becoming the envy of poker players around the world. This is the story of Chris Moneymaker and this is his real, Rocky-to-riches story. Poker continues to take the world by storm, with bestsellers like "Positively 5th Street", "Play Poker Like the Pros", and "Bringing Down The House". Nobody has a story quite like Chris Moneymaker, and in his book, he's not only going to give you his personal saga, but he's also going to show us all how the average Joe can transform their lives, pay off their mortgages, send kids to university, and continually play poker and win, in this amazing memoir/how-too book that's going to appeal to just about everyone - from mass media to the entire poker community.

For everyone who plays - or is interested in the international phenomenon that is the world of bridge In RIGHT THROUGH THE PACK AGAIN, joint winner of the INTERNATIONAL BRIDGE PRESS ASSOCIATIONS'S 2009 BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD, each card tells the story of its importance in a particular deal and in so doing the book pays homage to the original concept in the bridge classic RIGHT THROUGH THE PACK. The Old Master is in a coma and the cards attempt to bring him back to consciousness, to revive him with their tales of derring-do. Not only are the deals themselves entertaining, but they are instructive too. You can test yourself on the problems and then go to the solution later in the book and thus improve your own game.

Are you looking for something a bit different? Do you wish to surprise your opponent on the first move? Do you enjoy playing creatively from the beginning of the game? Look no further than 1 b4! With this aggressive pawn lunge White takes the game into relatively unknown territory and forces Black players onto their own devices. Those facing 1 b4 are not allowed to fall into the comfort zone of established theory; instead they have to think for themselves from very early on.This opening has been seriously neglected by chess literature... until now. In this landmark book, Yury Lapshun and Nick Conticello take an in-depth look at 1 b4 and its many variations. The authors use illustrative games to highlight key ideas and tactics for both sides. They also provide a practical and fun-to-play repertoire for White, offering options against both Black's main defences and his more offbeat tries. Read this book and confound your opponents with 1 b4! *A complete repertoire for White*Presents answers to all of Black's possibilities*Ideal for ambitious and adventurous players

This follow-up to "WPT: Shuffle Up and Deal" from poker professional Antonio Esfandiari with contributions from other stars of the World Poker Tour provides the next level of poker strategies and insights for today's poker players. Cash Games are the most commonly played version of Texas Hold'em; in fact at this very moment thousands are playing this non-tournament style of Hold'em in casinos, home games and online. This will be a must have for all poker enthusiasts.

Chess Developments provides state-of-the-art openings coverage. Chess Developments focuses on the current trends - concentrating on critical lines, theoretical novelties and powerful new ideas. It offers players of all levels the opportunity to keep up-to-date with current opening theory whilst also expanding and improving their repertoires. In this book, Bryan Paulsen examines key lines in the Semi-Slav Defence, which is hotly debated at both world championship and club level. Paulsen covers the fascinating Botvinnik Variation, the solid Moscow Variation, the razor-sharp Anti-Moscow Gambit, the popular Cambridge Springs Defence and the hybrid Queen's Gambit Declined. He studies the most theoretically important and instructive games in recent years, highlighting the main developments and novelties for both sides. Whether playing White or Black, this book provides you with vital knowledge of a popular opening. *Essential coverage and analysis of the Semi-Slav 5 Bg5 *Includes the Botvinnik, Moscow, Anti-Moscow and Cambridge Springs *Packed with key new ideas and critical lines

Do you need to freshen up your chess openings? Stun your opponents with new and exciting ideas! Dangerous Weapons is a series of opening books which supply the reader with an abundance of hard-hitting ideas to revitalize his or her opening repertoire. In this book, three opening experts team up and take a contemporary look at the Ruy Lopez, one of the most popular chess openings. Instead of analysing the well-trodden main lines they concentrate on fresh or little-explored variations, selecting a wealth of 'dangerous' options for both colours. Whether playing White or Black, a study of this book will leave you confident and fully-armed, and your opponents running for cover! *A modern study of the Ruy Lopez *Packed with original ideas and analysis *Ideal weapons to shock your opponents

Ten years after their award-winning Planning the Play of a Bridge Hand (August 2009, ISBN 978 1897106 51 8), Seagram & Bird tackle the hardest part of the game: defence. Using the same step-by-step approach, they guide the reader through the minefield of signalling, making a defensive plan and, above all, counting - points, tricks and distribution.

Sixty-two masterly demonstrations of the basic strategies of winning at chess, featuring games by the greatest chess masters-Capablanca, Tarrasch, Fischer, Alekhine, Lasker, Petrosian among them-compiled and annotated by one of chess literature's most brilliant authors. Each game selected offers a classic example of a fundamental problem and its best resolution, described and diagramed in the clearest possible manner for players of every level of skill. 146 illustrations. Introduction. Table of Contents. Index of Players.

The ultimate guide to the blockbuster Assassin's Creed game franchise. This richly illustrated guide is the definitive guide to the blockbuster Assassin's Creed game series. Packed with information on characters, technology, locations, historical settings, storylines, organisations, and backstory, this guide encompasses the whole franchise to date and is essential reading for fans and newcomers alike.

This follow-up to "WPT: Shuffle Up and Deal" from poker professional Erick Lindgren with contributions from other stars of the World Poker Tour provides the next level of poker strategies and insights for today's poker players. The popularity of the World Poker Tour has driven the huge spike in amateur players entering No-Limit Hold'em Tournaments. As a result the old strategies of conservative slow play are no longer effective. Only the strongest and most aggressive players like Lindgren are reaching the final tables. In this book he will share what it takes to be the last one standing. This will be a must have for all poker enthusiasts.

It's hard to believe that it's been over a decade since One Jump Ahead: Challenging Human Supremacy at Checkers was published. I'm delighted to have the oppor- nity to update and expand the book. The ?rst edition ended on a sad note and that was re?ected in the writing. It is now eleven years later and the project has come to a satisfying conclusion. Since its inception, the checkers project has consumed eighteen years of my life- twenty if you count the pre-CHINOOK and post-solving work. It's hard for me to believe that I actually stuck with it for that long. My wife, Steph, would probably have something witty to say about my obsessive behavior. Rereading the book after a decade was dif?cult for me. When I originally wrote One Jump Ahead, I vowed to be candid in my telling of the story. That meant being honest about what went right and what went wrong. I have been criticized for being hard on some of the characters. That may be so, but I hope everyone will agree that the person receiving the most criticism was, justi?ably, me. I tried to be balanced in the storytelling, re?ecting things as they really happened and not as some sanitized everyone-lived-happily-ever-after tale.

Exploring a bygone aspect of intellectual sport, this book details the history of British and Irish correspondence chess from the first formal match between Edinburgh and London in 1824 through the 1980s, the most successful period in British correspondence chess. It traces the development of postal chess, including the growth of regional and national chess associations after World War I; the dawn of game-changing technologies such as telegraphs, the telephone, radio, and fax machines; the earliest transatlantic matches between the U.S. and the U.K.; the founding of the International Correspondence Chess Association in 1945; and the breaking of the Soviet monopoly on the world team championship in 1982, the final act of the joint Great Britain team before Scotland and Wales obtained separate membership in the International Correspondence Chess Federation. Appendices list tournament champions; I.C.C.F. title holders; known club matches; and excerpts from rules and other primary documents.

Featuring interviews with the creators of 31 popular video games-including Grand Theft Auto, Strider, Maximum Carnage and Pitfall-this book gives a behind-the-scenes look at the origins of some of the most enjoyable and iconic adventure games of all time. Interviewees recount the endless hours of painstaking development, the challenges of working with mega-publishers, the growth of the adventure genre, and reveal the creative processes that produced some of the industry's biggest hits, cult classics and indie successes.

The Catalan is a sophisticated and wide-ranging opening system which is popular at all levels of chess. In recent years it has been catapulted into the limelight by Vladimir Kramnik, who has revitalized it with many new ideas and has utilized it with great success against the world's strongest players - on occasion making it look like a forced win for White! In this book, Grandmaster Nigel Davies presents a major study of this important opening. Drawing upon his wealth of personal experience with the Catalan, Davies provides a reliable and dynamic repertoire for White, covers the keys plans for both sides, and tackles crucial modern day issues such as move orders.

UNHOLY TRICKS by Terence Reese and David Bird is a further collection of bridge tales involving the eccentric monks of St Titus. In addition to their usual rubber bridge games - and they play for surprisingly high stakes at the monastery - the monks become involved in duplicate matches against nuns, visiting Italians and even the local police.

Do you instinctively know what to do in every type of chess position or are you often uncertain about how to proceed? Wouldn't it be really useful to know the best chess strategies and to recognise when they should be used? In this book Sam Collins examines key games from both the classical and modern eras. He analyses the major strategic ideas that have stood the test of time and notes their considerable influence on his own games. Studying classic examples from great players allows us to create a personal library of standard ideas. This helps us recognize key positions, making it easier to determine the most effective ways to attack and defend. Crucially, it helps us find the right path much more quickly than we would by relying on calculation alone. * An essential guide to chess strategy * Covers opening, middlegame and endgame play * Ideal for players of all levels

The tragic last years of world chess champion Alexander Alekhine (1892-1946), 45 of his match and tournament games in Spain and Portugal from 1943 to 1946 and 100 other late exhibition games are covered. A definitive biographical sketch emerges of Alekhine in his final phase, covering his marriages, alcoholism and murky involvement with the Nazis.