The real secrets to winning the game of chess - and the game of life

Chess mastery has been recognized since ancient times as an unparalleled way to learn political strategy, but until now no book has explored the life lessons chess teaches and how they can transform lives. In "The Tao of Chess," the author seamlessly blends the wisdom of a time-honoured spiritual quest for truth with 200 principles that will improve anyone's chess game. By following the author's principles, readers not only come to enjoy the game more, they develop a habit of seeking underlying truth - whether in a chess game or a real-life situation."The Tao of Chess" is full of conscise advice, such as:

• Understanding is more important than memory
• Fortune favors the brave
• When you see a good move, wait and look for a better move
• Mistakes tend to come in bunches
• Trust your intuition; it's usually right

Authoritative and easy to follow, this book will turn every reader into a master strategist.

Mathematical play has challenged and stimulated human ingenuity throughout recorded history. It has ranged from the common sorts of brain teasers such as mazes, arithmetic story problems, and simple geometric puzzles to sophisticated explorations of questions that still concern modern mathematical theorists. This new dictionary provides a tantalizing variety of paradoxes, games, problems, and puzzles that will appeal to mathematics enthusiasts at every level of proficiency. Eiss introduces his subject with an overview of the history of recreational mathematics and its relation to some theoretical questions that have occupied mathematicians for centuries. Dictionary entries include problems posed by particular thinkers as well as traditional puzzlers that have come down to us anonymously. Information on the origins and history of many of the activities is supplied, and thorough cross-referencing enables the reader to locate all puzzles, games, and amusements of a similar type. The bibliography suggest sources of further information.

Is your roleplaying in a rut? Flip the table and try something new! Proactive roleplaying will re-energize your players – and your game.

Most adventures in traditional TTRPGs start out the same way: Something bad happens and your players have to muster their courage to stand against it. Whether it’s rescuing the little dog that was kidnapped by the local troll, stopping an assassination attempt at the archduke’s wedding or recruiting an army to disrupt the construction of a world-ending ritual site, the party will always find a way to save the day. After all, what kind of heroes would they be if they let the dog, duke or entire population die? Saving the day is fun, but it starts to get repetitive after a while. If you’re using a “bad guys try to do stuff, good guys try to stop them” engine to drive all your sessions, you’re taking all the agency out of your players’ hands. Bad stuff happens, good people have to try to stop it, roll, rinse, repeat.

There’s a better way to play (and prep) your sessions. The Game Master’s Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying shows you how to convert your TTRPG gameplay from predictable action/reaction cliches to player-driven narratives that put all the choices (and most of the prep work) in the hands of your players. The goals are theirs. The decisions are theirs. Everything that happens in the world you’re building together occurs not because you planned it, but because the PCs are following their own paths, rather than Game Master breadcrumbs, to the scene of the next adventure.

The proactive approach ensures every battle has tension, every faction has a function and every session is high-stakes (and an absolute blast), putting the players and their characters in the driver’s seat so you can sit back and simply put giant goal- (and soul-) crushing roadblocks in their way.

You’ll also find:

• Foreword by Ginny Di with an afterword by Jeff Ashworth
• Writer’s block-breaking charts
• Case studies from decades of sessions
• Templates for goal-driven NPCs and factions
• A modular adventure setting and much more!

The Game Master's Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying is compatible with your favorite 5th edition Fantasy Tabletop RPGs!

Key aliens and NPCs from Starfinder's Threefold Conspiracy Adventure Path come alive on your tabletop with The Threefold Conspiracy Pawn Collection, featuring more than 100 creature pawns for use with the Starfinder Roleplaying Game or any tabletop science-fantasy RPG! Printed on sturdy cardstock, each pawn presents a beautiful full-color image of an alien, NPC, or starship from The Threefold Conspiracy campaign, including agents of the mysterious Unseen, strange shapeshifters, uneasy allies, and dozens of unique creatures. The Threefold Conspiracy Pawn Collection, together with the creatures and characters from the Starfinder Alien Archive Pawn Box and Starfinder Core Rulebook Pawn Collection, provides pawns for nearly every Threefold Conspiracy encounter. Each cardstock pawn slots into a size-appropriate plastic base from the Alien Archive Pawn Box, making the pawns easy to mix with traditional metal or plastic miniatures. From devious masterminds to shape-shifting infiltrators, find all of the enemies and allies of The Threefold Conspiracy Adventure Path on these beautifull illustrated pawns! While creature pawns are broken out by base size, all starship pawns use medium bases, from the tiniest fighter to the largest warship. Starfinder The Threefold Conspiracy Pawn Collection includes: Small Creatures Aerial Devil Autofly Swarm (4) Bug Furry Friend Experimental Nanobot Mimic (4) Extiomi Fech "Sparkles" Goba Flying Viper Eel Swarm (4) Gray Abductor (3) Gray Bounder Gray Engineer (2) Gray Ooze Wrangler Gray Researcher (6) Gray Surgeon Keji Swarm (4) Memory Muck (2) Needlehawk Host (4) Oni, Spirit Overseer Gyru Pik Nath Proog Psydrake Robot, Gray Observer (2) Scouring Swarm (4) Spookfish Swarm (4) Troll Polyp (2) Zaxo Zernivian Medium Creatures Aanung-An Algiada Iom Arc Moray (2) Aykins Segrue Azer Spy (3) Barghest Cargo Creep Chop Cycle (3) Combat Clone (2) Diorama Guard (2) Docksmythe (3) Dormakhabu Eiyol Marrill Ephecta Erem Esra Fluerasik Enforcer (4) Gamut Bio IT Staff (2) Gamut Bio Janitor (4) Glacial Borer Gray Shell Guardian Rhino Hesper Veeldiz Jincheroga Jox Hird Kaniko Breez Kibotu Knight of Golarion (4) Knight of Golarion Squire Krelo Danesh Kriegakos (3) Laoe Araae Orderly (4) Lawless One Lozu Pahir Ludvya "Firespitter" Zyakama Lunabellox Debrie Marduq Char Melta-Man Mersadask Rycast Modified Swarm Corrovox Molu Umana Dylaska Narla Yalamis Night Hag Orgot Nalkus Orvir Pike Phryine Callajam Psychic Clone (2) Qub Rel Nodens Reptoid Host (6) Reptoid Steward (4) Rig Technician (2) Robot, Incapacitator (2) Sarzael Fallion Shadow Hopper Shez Daiasha Silverlight Construct Space Pirate, Human (4) Steward Rookie (2) Steward Constable (2) Steward Worker (3) Tavin Arill The Monitor Threshwolf Host (2) Thylas Starhammer Torv Graycrag Trostinek Vee Andano Vora Rinn Wem Wetzelt Xych Vorsen Yona Raito Yox Large Creatures Barathu Patient (4) Doctor Flo Elmeshra (2) Gamut Bio Management (2) Garaggakal Polymath Golem, Abysium Hrog Hungerer from the Dark Jesara Hy Nevintsi Jynma Kunnid Linyf Megalonyxa Obfuchsia Phixara Protean, Xiritix (2) Quanma Ge Uliyu Replicant Ooze Troll, Quantum Varigneous Verifier Ki Huge Creatures Barathu Bruiser Driftlure Lava Strider (2) Xanthos Starships Gray Collection Saucer Gray Monitor Capsule Gray Mothership Gray Research Vessel Gray Watcher Pod Reptoid Chameleon Reptoid Changeling Reptoid Instigator (2) Reptoid Nest Platform Roselight Oracle Sanjaval Palanquin Shimmering Blade Steward Banshee FA Frigate

Warhammer 40,000: The Ultimate Guide dives into the vast universe of the 41st Millennium with hundreds of beautiful photographs showcasing miniatures from every faction, following key characters through the evolution of their models and exploring Warhammer 40,000 in pinpoint detail through the lens of its incredible miniatures.

This essential visual journey through the history of Warhammer 40,000 is written by NYT bestselling authors Gav Thorpe and Guy Haley, and is packed with insight into the game’s defining miniatures.

© Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2024

One day in 2005 while searching for food, nine-year-old Ugandan Phiona Mutesi followed her brother to a dusty veranda where she met Robert Katende. Katende, a war refugee turned missionary, had an improbable dream: to empower kids in the Katwe slum through chess - a game so foreign there is no word for it in their native language. Laying a chess board in the dirt, Robert began to teach. At first children came for a free bowl of porridge, but many grew to love the game that - like their daily lives - requires persevering against great obstacles. Of these kids, one girl stood out as an immense talent: Phiona. By the age of eleven Phiona was her country's junior champion, and at fifteen, the national champion. Now a Woman Candidate Master - the first female titled player in her country's history - Phiona dreams of becoming a Grandmaster, the most elite level in chess. But to reach that goal, she must grapple with everyday life in one of the world's most unstable coun tries. The Queen of Katwe is a remarkable and inspirational book that shows how 'Phiona's story transcends the limitations of the chessboard' (Robert Hess, US Grandmaster).

Role-playing games seemed to appear of nowhere in the early 1970s and have been a quiet but steady presence in American culture ever since. This new look at the hobby searches for the historical origins of role-playing games deep in the imaginative worlds of Western culture. It looks at the earliest fantasy stories from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, at the fans--both readers and writers--who wanted to bring them to life, at the Midwestern landscape and the middle-class households that were the hobby's birthplace, and at the struggle to find meaning and identity amidst cultural conflicts that drove many people into these communities of play. This book also addresses race, religion, gender, fandom, and the place these games have within American capitalism. All the paths of this journey are connected by the very quality that has made fantasy role-playing so powerful: it binds the limitless imagination into a "strict" framework of rules. Far from being an accidental offshoot of marginalized fan communities, role-playing games' ability to hold contradictions in dynamic, creative tension made them a necessary and central product of the twentieth century.

"Bridge Is a Conversation" is a guide to bridge fundamentals for players who already have an understanding of the basics of the game and the desire to improve their competitiveness at the bridge table. The goal is not to teach how bridge systems are built, nor to describe their content, but rather to clarify how to use them the way the best players in the world do and to offer an alternative to simply "playing by the book." You will find the game much more interesting, challenging, and enjoyable than you ever dreamed it could be. The principles in this book are valid regardless of the bidding system used. In sixty years of playing bridge, author Gerard Cohen has observed many games of bridge, and he brings that knowledge to this guide. His observations of how his partners, opponents, and others play that make them outstanding are key to the thoughts included here. He looked for patterns, drew conclusions and developed general concepts that those who haven't reached the top level yet can learn and apply for a chance at competing with the best. Take your bridge game to the next level with "Bridge Is a Conversation."

Featuring interviews with the creators of 39 popular video games--including Halo 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Medal of Honor and Metroid Prime--this book gives a behind-the-scenes look at the origins of some of the most iconic shooter games. Interviewees recount endless hours of painstaking development, the challenges of working with mega-publishers, the growth of the genre and the creative processes that produced some of the industry's biggest hits, cult classics and indie successes.

A roleplaying game of fantastical inventions and Machiavellian politics in Renaissance Italy. It is the Year of Our Lord 1510, and one has to wonder how differently history could have played out if Niccolo Machiavelli, the military commissioner of the Republic of Florence, had not understood the true scale of Leonardo da Vinci's genius. In such a world, the visionary might simply have wasted his time painting portraits of women and doodling in a sketchbook. Instead, he unleashed a technological revolution where primitive computers, decorated with delicately painted cupids, run on water clocks; spring-powered tanks whir across the battlefield, cannons thundering from their flanks; and gliders flit across perfectly blue Tuscan skies. Gran Meccanismo is a roleplaying game of swashbuckling adventure in a Renaissance Italy where Florence's winding alleys play host to spies, scholars, and sell-swords alike. Players are nobles, mercenaries, inventors, and artisans who may find themselves crossing wits with Machiavelli, avoiding the dangerous charms of Lucretia Borgia, or hearing Christopher Columbus telling tales of the new world he has discovered...

The aim of this book is to describe a complete and coherent method of partnership bidding after the opening bidder has announced a balanced hand. Balanced hands are more common than unbalanced hands, so it is important to be able to describe them accurately and efficiently - to show their precise strength and distribution. The scheme proposed here is independent of your bidding system, and so it can be adopted whether you play a natural system such as Acol or Standard American, or a Strong Club system or something more exotic.;Target Market : This title is aimed at the strong improving players and experts.

From Banksy to Basquiat, Haring to Hockney, and Yayoi to Yoko, your favorite artists have gathered in this deck of cards. Artist Cards is a standard poker set, with the four classic suits. Each card features a different artist, with an illustration and short bio. Who needs art history class when you can celebrate the great artists, instead, with a round of cards?

The Paper Paradise 500 Piece Puzzle from Galison features a brightly colored scene of paper tropical flowers and plants. Galison puzzles are packaged in matte-finish sturdy boxes, perfect for gifting, reuse, and storage. An insert of the full puzzle image is also included. - 500 pieces - Box Size: 8" x 8" x 2", 203 x 203 x 51 mm - Puzzle Size: 20" x 20", 508 x 508 mm - Includes Insert

This beautifully illustrated bingo game features 64 breeds of dog from around the world. Spot all kinds of dogs - from the tiny chihuahua to the noble Great Dane, from the sleek Saluki to the dreadlocked Hungarian Puli, mark them off on your card and bingo! Dog Bingo brings a fun and educational twist to the traditional game as players learn the names and colourings of both their favourite breeds and weird and wonderful exotic dogs. Contains 64 superbly illustrated dog tokens, one board, 12 bingo cards and brightly coloured counters for you to mark up your card, as well as a leaflet containing basic information and a few quirky traits for all of the dogs featured.

I am awesome This set of 52 cards is full of inspiring affirmations to help improve your child's self-esteem and give them the confidence to do anything they set their mind to! Whether you're looking to bring a bit of sunshine into their day or show them how amazingly awesome they really are, add an extra dose of happiness to each and every day with this collection of sunny sentiments and positive prompts. Each card, which can be displayed individually using the high-quality wooden stand included, features a joyful design to brighten up any shelf, windowsill, desk or table. These cheerful cards are the perfect pick-me-up to boost your child's overall happiness and leave them smiling from ear to ear. Box includes 52 individual cards and a wooden holder Each powerful affirmation can be used as a decoration anywhere in your home Beautifully presented and featuring colourful card designs

This playful, inspirational book invites fantasy lovers and fans of Dungeons & Dragons to celebrate and incorporate different elements of this iconic tabletop game in their lives and help them live their best, geekiest life. Written by Kat Kruger, the Dungeon Master of the popular Dungeons & Dragons actual play podcast d20 Dames, you'll learn how to take the skills, knowledge, and sense of adventure from your D&D campaign to help you better understand everything from how you interact with the world around you to facing the random events that life sometimes throws at you. With advice from classic player classes-like the Fighter, Warlock, Bard, Monk, or Ranger-and ways to take your experiences as a player (or a Dungeon Master) and use them in your day-to-day life, How to Be More D&D also features interactive elements like "Building Your Character" and "Dungeon Master State of Mind," quizzes like "What is Your D&D Class," and paired with rich, full-color art from the world of Dungeons & Dragons. Whether it is building your real world "character," discovering your ideal class and strengths, harnessing the three pillars of play for everyday use, or using roleplaying techniques to your advantage, How to Be More D&D explores how to enjoy the campaign known as life and is a perfect gift for any tabletop gamer or D&D fan. Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, their respective logos, and the dragon ampersand, are registered trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC. (c)2022 Wizards of the Coast. All rights reserved.

Learn about wines from all over the world in The Wine Game a deluxe go fish/happy families game. With two decks of cards - one for red wines, one for whites - covering all the major wine-producing regions and some unexpected gems, this is the perfect way to dip in to the world of wine. Includes a booklet with brief descriptions of each region along with some tips on which labels to look out for. LEARN ABOUT WINE VARIETIES. Distinguish your Bordeaux from your Burgundy and your Chianti from your Champagne - this fun card game provides an easy and amusing way to learn about wines INCLUDED BOOKLET features descriptions of wine regions STURDY & ATTRACTIVE BOX perfect for gifting and storage.

Every time you say goodbye you have to cry OR You can't read time anymore. All the paint in your house is always wet OR You spray toilet freshener all over yourself every day. In this game there is only one real rule: you HAVE to choose! The Dilemmarama's absurd dilemmas will not only make you laugh, but will also cause heated debates and feisty duels amongst friends and family. There are two game options to choose from, because after all, everything in life is a dilemma. In one of the game options, your goal is to become the Dilemmaestro by creating difficult dilemmas for the other players. In the other option, you play in teams and try to guess what your teammates will choose. This way you really get to know your friends and family! BONUS: The Ultimate Edition can be used as a stand-alone deck but it can also be combined with Dilemmarama The Game: The Original Edition, expanding the game to 120 cards with over 7,000 new combinations.

Chess world champion Mirko Czentovic is travelling on an ocean liner to Buenos Aires. Dull-witted in all but chess, he entertains himself on board by allowing others to challenge him in the game, before beating each of them and taking their money. But there is another passenger with a passion for chess: Dr B, previously driven to insanity during Nazi imprisonment by the chess games in his imagination. But in agreeing to take on Czentovic, what price will Dr B ultimately pay? A moving portrait of one man's madness, The Royal Game: a chess story is a searing examination of the power of the mind and the evil it can do.