Are you tired of playing the same old openings again and again? Perhaps it's time for a change. This book features three opening experts who get together to take a look at the Dutch Defense, one of Black's most ambitious answers to 1 d4. It presents the Dutch defense in a different light.

Leading expert Paul Booth explores the growth in popularity of board games today, and unpacks what it means to read a board game. What does a game communicate? How do games play us? And how do we decide which games to play and which are just wastes of cardboard? With little scholarly research in this still-emerging field, Board Games as Media underscores the importance of board games in the ever-evolving world of media.

The subject of the book and movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, Josh Waitzkin has long been the top-ranked player for his age in the United States and a role model for chess-playing kids everywhere. Now, for the first time, Waitzkin reveals the aggressive tactics and psychological techniques that have propelled him to the forefront of the chess world. His unique introduction to the game combines solid instruction with stories about his personal experiences that capture all the excitement and tension of playing chess at the championship level.

Josh Waitzkin's Attacking Chess presents nineteen different offensive strategies, progressing from the most elementary, including forks, pins, skewers, and double threats, to the more advanced and sophisticated moves used by the world's best players. Chapters such as Minor Traps, The Seventh Rank and the Pig, Mating Nets, and Quiet Moves in Attack show how anyone can develop a more aggressive and creative style of play. Each strategy is illustrated with examples taken from actual games Waitzkin has played, described with all the gusto and competitive intensity this young master brings to his craft. You can feel the heat of battle throughout this action-packed manual -- it's guaranteed to entertain and inspire all students of chess who want to learn how to emerge victorious from the black and white jungle.

Smolen makes getting siblings, cousins, or neighborhood children of different ages together an easy task, providing a collection of outdoor and indoor games and arts and crafts projects adapted to satisfy the interests and skills of children of various ages simultaneously.

How has a game brought together Americans and defined separate ethnic communities? This book tells the first history of mahjong and its meaning in American culture. Click-click-click. The sound of mahjong tiles connects American expatriates in Shanghai, Jazz Age white Americans, urban Chinese Americans in the 1930s, incarcerated Japanese Americans in wartime, Jewish American suburban mothers, and Air Force officers' wives in the postwar era. Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture illustrates how the spaces between tiles and the moments between games have fostered distinct social cultures in the United States. This mass-produced game crossed the Pacific, creating waves of popularity over the twentieth century. Annelise Heinz narrates the history of this game to show how it has created a variety of meanings, among them American modernity, Chinese American heritage, and Jewish American women's culture. As it traveled from China to the United States and caught on with Hollywood starlets, high society, middle-class housewives, and immigrants alike, mahjong became a quintessentially American game. Heinz also reveals the ways in which women leveraged a game to gain access to respectable leisure. The result was the forging of friendships within ethnic groups that lasted decades and the creation of organizations that raised funds for the war effort and philanthropy. No other game has signified both belonging and standing apart in American culture. Drawing on photographs, advertising, popular media, and dozens of oral histories, Heinz's rich and colorful account offers the first history of the wildly popular game of mahjong.

Chess Secrets is a series of books which uncover the mysteries of the most important aspects of chess, such as strategy, attack, defence, opening play, endgames, off-board preparation and mental attitude. In each book the author studies a number of great players who have excelled in such aspects of the game, greatly influenced their peers and inspired all of us. In Great Chess Romantics, Craig Pritchett selects five players, whose artistic spirit expresses a personal commitment to the discovery and revelation of great new truths and beauty on the chessboard. Anderssen defined romanticism's inherently dramatic and correct combinational core. Chigorin championed this essence in splendid opposition to an emerging new classical consensus. Reti revealed the extraordinary power of new flank openings. Larsen confounded the overly sober, scientific Soviet school at innumerable turns. In the computer age, Morozevich constantly discovers new depths to chess, while simply oozing exquisite strokes in his best games.

From America's foremost chess coach and game strategist for Netflix's The Queen's Gambit comes the best chess drill book for beginners of all ages. From ever-popular chess instructor Bruce Pandolfini comes this entertaining, interactive, and effective book for teaching young chess players and other newcomers to the game. Filled with hundreds of questions and answers, fill-in-the-blanks, and true-or-false posers, Square One combines traditional chess drills with diverting games and problems to stimulate the analytical skills of beginners of all ages. Besides covering the basics-the board, moves, rules, and notation-Square One goes on to include information on attacks, checkmate, draws, and special rules, giving the beginner a broad overview of the game. With more than 200 instructional diagrams, and answers to all questions and problems, it is a complete workbook for chess players starting at square one.

First published in 1942, the late B.H. Wood's classic Easy Guide to Chess has been successfully used by thousands of chess players around the world. Topics covered include: the men, their moves, starting the game, the importance of pawns, how to record the moves, standard openings, and much more. This introductory book has been substantially revised for the first algebraic edition, which will bring the game to a new generation of young players.

From America's foremost chess coach and game strategist for Netflix's The Queen's Gambit comes a collection of 200 brand-new openings, drills, and skills for players of all levels. The opening is one of the most important parts of the chess game. Weaken your pawns by mistake, and they're taken. Attack wildly and haphazardly, and your pieces are picked off. Misuse your queen, and it's trapped. Carelessly neglect development, and you're mated. You've scarcely begun, and the game is over. But with this handy guide, you can avoid these perils and pitfalls. Including over 200 traps and 200 zaps, More Chess Openings presents everyday errors in openings and their immediate refutations. With detailed instruction and his usual precise explanation, Pandolfini teaches the defenses necessary to ward off the toughest opponents, including: *Sicilian Defense *Caro-Kann Defense *Modern Defense *Alekhine Defense *French Defense *Pirc Defense *Center Counter Defense

Attacking your opponents king is not just a shortcut to victory, its also one of the most enjoyable and gratifying experiences in chess. If you want to win more games you should become a better attacker. Studying typical attacking motifs and ideas easily brings dividends while you are having a good time. Michael Prusikin presents the prerequisites and the rules for a King attack in a lucid and attractive manner. In 15 thematic chapters he teaches you how to assess the nature of the position, identify the appropriate offensive patterns, find the preliminary moves and conduct your attack in a clear and effective way. Battering rams, obstructive sacrifices, pawn storms, striking at the castled position, sacrificing a knight on f5, Prusikin demonstrates the most important patterns of attack with lots of clear and well-chosen examples. Next, Prusikin tests your newly acquired insights and your attacking intuition with exercises covering all the themes and motifs. You will find that studying ATTACKING STRATEGIES FOR CLUB PLAYERS is both entertaining and rewarding.

Play Cards and Learn to Identify Wildflowers in the Northeastern United States! Anyone who enjoys nature, plants, and gardening will love these cards for playing your favorite games or to use as flash cards. Inspired by Jaret C. Daniels and the popular Wildflower Identification Guides, this gorgeous deck of playing cards features professional photographs of 54 of the most notable wildflower species in the Northeastern states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont, as well as Washington, DC. Each card depicts full-color photographs of such wildflowers as the Columbine, Common Blue Violet, Painted Trillium, and more--so you can begin to learn what 54 different species look like. Card Features 54 of the most notable wildflower species Beautiful photograph on every card Ideal for card games or as flash cards Play games like blackjack, poker, rummy, and solitaire while learning more about wildflowers. Get Wildflowers of the Northeast Playing Cards for yourself, and you can also give this deck of cards as a fun and thoughtful gift.

The perfect and necessary addition to any personal chess library from America's foremost chess coach and game strategist for Netflix's The Queen's Gambit. In this comprehensive, accessible reference, National Master Bruce Pandolfini covers every aspect of the game, from chessboard and pieces to history and strategy, and addresses virtually any possible question or situation that may arise. From algebra notation to zugzwang, Pandolfini has created the chess bible for players of all levels. And in addition to answers to over 500 questions, he has included his terrific short chess course plus tournament tips and endgame maxims. You'll learn the difference between a mating attack and a mating net, the best way to gain control of the center in the opening, why the Russians are so successful at chess, what happened to Bobby Fischer, and more! For an edge up on the competition, look no further than Pandolfini's Chess Complete.

Many people aspire to create their own games but don't know where to start. Make Amazing Games 3rd Edition introduces the game creation process to the aspiring game developer with no experience or programming ability. Taking the reader step-by-step through the various stages of developing a game and using the popular ""drag and drop"" game creation software (a free feature limited version which is available from Steam), readers can build their very own games. Using the tutorials, the reader will complete four fully playable games including platform, bat & ball, mouse-clicker, and side-scrolling shoot-'em up, games. Other chapters cover more complex game features such as porting the game onto the Web, distribution, and publishing. This must-have book is the essential resource for anyone interested in learning game creation from beginning to end. Includes companion files with 4-color figures, game demos, graphic libraries, and source code. FEATURES: Includes a discussion of the different types of games, necessary game resources, importing graphics, and some basic programming concepts. Features detailed information on downloading, installing, and using the free Fusion software. Create four games from scratch with Fusion: a platform game, side-scroller shooter, a bat-and-ball game, and a mouse-clicker game. Covers backing up your game, debugging, marketing, distribution, and more. Includes companion files with 4-color figures, game demos, graphic libraries, and source code.

teNeues NYC Stationery is proud to share our newest offering, classic Playing Cards with our signature style curated from museum art and illustrations from our favourite artists around the world printed on embossed, premium blue-core card stock in a gift box with flip-top magnetic closure. Cactus Party by the French artist who goes by Hello Marine is bold and fun with geometric shapes with on trend bold blue, aqua and neon yellow details. An update to the eighties party aesthetic we all love. Our little portable box is giftable and great for travel, fits in any bag and the magnetic closure keeps the cards together between games. Standard deck of 54 playing cards including 2x joker cards Full-colour, richly -printed artwork on embossed, blue-core card stock Giftable flip-top box with magnetic closure Box measures: 69 x 95 x 25 mm Hello Marine is a French illustrator and printmaker living in the UK. She was raised in Paris and the southwest of France. Hello Marine's style is bold, colourful, and joyful. Her illustrations appeal to adults and children alike.

Eternal Night of Lockwood is an adventure book, filled with intrigue, mystery, and horror, Powered by Zweihander RPG. RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT Five days ago, a starless and moonless night fell over the Lockwood forest and pioneer town of Ertol. The sawmills have gone quiet, and the lumberjacks have begun to revolt. The Eternal Night has come, and all of Ertol is in the grips of panic and fear. But where there's darkness, there's opportunity. As citizens of Ertol, you'll find yourselves drawn into a pitch-black web of urban conspiracy and rural horror, spanning the gloom of the six boroughs and into the ancient Lockwood. Will you rise to the occasion as a light in the darkness, or will you succumb to the Eternal Night? This ZWEIHAENDER RPG book is a campaign-length adventure, taking characters from Basic to Advanced Tier. Its adventure can also be broken up into ten individual quests to suit your gaming group's needs. Intended to be used by both players and gamemasters, this book provides a host of new character options, expanded bestiary, and customizable adventure difficulty settings to accommodate higher Tier adventures.

Many of today's hottest selling games--both non-electronic and electronic--focus on such elements as shooting up as many bad guys as one can (Duke Nuk'em), beating the toughest level (Mortal Kombat), collecting all the cards (Pokemon), and scoring the most points (Tetris). Fantasy role-playing games (Dungeons & Dragons, Rolemaster, GURPS), while they may involve some of those aforementioned elements, rarely focus on them. Instead, playing a fantasy role-playing game is much like acting out a scene from a play, movie or book, only without a predefined script. Players take on such roles as wise wizards, noble knights, roguish sellswords, crafty hobbits, greedy dwarves, and anything else one can imagine and the referee allows. The players don't exactly compete; instead, they interact with each other and with the fantasy setting. The game is played orally with no game board, and although the referee usually has a storyline planned for a game, much of the action is impromptu. Performance is a major part of role-playing, and role-playing games as a performing art is the subject of this book, which attempts to introduce an appreciation for the performance aesthetics of such games. The author provides the framework for a critical model useful in understanding the art--especially in terms of aesthetics--of role-playing games. The book also serves as a contribution to the beginnings of a body of criticism, theory, and aesthetics analysis of a mostly unrecognized and newly developing art form. There are four parts: the cultural structure, the extent to which the game relates to outside cultural elements; the formal structure, or the rules of the game; the social structure, which encompasses the degree and quality of social interaction among players; and the aesthetic structure, concerned with the emergence of role-playing as an art form.

This game is for two to four players and contains 28 cute and colourful dog dominoes. Have fun matching seven delightful pooches: Chihuahua, Dachshund, Dalmatian, Labrador, Poodle, Pug and German Shepherd. Get your last domino down first to win the game and become top dog! Playing dominoes with dogs is the best way to involve younger members of the family who do not feel so comfortable (or interested) playing with an abstract concept such as the number of dots on a square. Dogs will get the whole family playing!

The evolution of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game begins here! This 416-page rulebook contains everything you need to create and advance your Pathfinder Playtest character from level 1 to 20, as well as hundreds of new and updated spells, magic items, feats, and Game Master rules necessary to run a complete Pathfinder Playtest campaign! Delve the deepest dungeons with a brand-new goblin alchemist hero, or convert your favorite existing characters to the new system! With gorgeous interior art from Pathfinder cover artist Wayne Reynolds and new rules concepts on nearly every page, the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook is your gateway to the future of Pathfinder. The only thing missing is your playtest feedback! This deluxe special edition is bound in faux leather with metallic deboss cover elements and a bound-in cloth notebook. The perfect way to commemorate Pathfinder's new edition! (Note: The public playtest begins August 2 and runs through the end of 2018. Due to this limited time window, this book will NEVER be reprinted!)

How do chess players react in the line of fire? Are they able to remain calm in a storm? Defending against a threatening attack on your own king is one of the most difficult aspects to master in chess. Yet given the frequency of such offensives, it's certainly worthwhile investing a good amount of time on honing the ability to defend properly.
In this valuable and entertaining book, Angus Dunnington arms the reader with all the necessary skills to be able to cope with vicious assaults on his or her king. Using illustrative games, Dunnington investigates in depth defensive ideas such as blockading, giving up material, and the timely launch of counterattacks. Read this book and defend with confidence!
AS is commonplace with the renowned Starting Out series, there are an abundance of notes, tips and warnings throughout the book to help the improving player. Starting Out: Defensive Play is perfect for those who have previously honed their chess skills with the earlier books Starting Out in Chess and Tips for Young Players.
"Includes all aspects of defensive play
"Sharpens tactical and combinative awareness
"Ideal for the improving player

World Snooker Champion Ronnie O'Sullivan's frank and honest account of his astonishingly dramatic life. I used to rely on drugs and alcohol to keep me going, but now I've got the healthiest addiction going - running. This book explains how running has helped me to fight my demons - my addictive personality, depression, my dad's murder conviction, the painful break-up with the mother of my children - and allowed me to win five World Snooker Championships. It is also about all of the great things in my life - my kids, snooker, my dad's release from prison, great mates who have helped me, and the psychiatrist Dr Steve Peters, who has taught me how not to run away when things get tough. Finally, it's about what it's like to get the buzz - from running, from snooker, from life. Because when it comes down to it, everyone needs something to drive them on.

With Weapons of Chess, National Master and highly acclaimed teacher Bruce Pandolfini brings us the most accessible and easy-to-use chess strategy book ever.

Written for beginning and intermediate players, Weapons of Chess is the first encyclopedia of chess strategies that doesn't rely on the usual baffling chess notation. There are no symbolic chess moves, no charts or sequences in chess notation: every move is explained in words.

Arranged alphabetically for easy use and based mainly on pawn formation, the incredibly detailed and thorough entries in this book talk a player through dozens of common strategic dilemmas, such as "doubled pawn," "bishops vs. knights," and "hanging pawn pair." Diagrams illustrate the terms, first showing the basic position and then strategically moving to more complicated versions of it. Players will learn how to formulate plans once they have reached a middlegame, enabling them to make wiser strategic decisions after the first few moves of the game.

Designed for use as a ready reference during actual practice games, and usable without a chess board, Weapons of Chess is a unique and invaluable resource for any developing chess player.