The games of Mikhail Botvinnik, world chess champion from 1948 to 1963, have been studied by players around the world for decades. But little has been written about Botvinnik himself. This book explores his unusual dual career--as a highly regarded scientist as well as the first truly professional chess player--as well as his complex relations with Soviet leaders, including Josef Stalin, his bitter rivalries, and his doomed effort to create the perfect chess-playing computer program. The book has more than 85 games, 127 diagrams, twelve photographs, a chronology of his life and career, a bibliography, an index of openings, an index of opponents, and a general index.

From the first edition: "Just the right combination of fascination and brio"--Chess Life; "a real browsers delight"--San Francisco Chronicle; "arguably the best chess writer on the American scene...opulent"--Washington Times; "a wonderfully readable book...fascinating"--Boston Herald; "enjoyable"--British Chess Magazine. "[The author] is one of the most accomplished American chess players as well as a prolific chess writer and journalist"--James Henri. The best, the worst, the shortest, the oddest, the longest, the most deceitful, the most memorable, the most brilliant, the dumbest--of players, games, matches, tournaments, books, ideas, etc. The lists are replete with background detail and exact facts--this second edition of Soltiss classic 1984 book is altogether an essential part of any chess collection and a browsers delight. The new edition contains 25 percent more lists, games, diagrams and annotations. The majority of lists from the first edition have been updated or expanded--or both.

The rules of ""The Greatest Tournament in Chess History,"" the USD 20 million Sheldrake Memorial Tournament, a.k.a. Los Voraces 2019, are: no seconds, no agents, no computers, no entourages, no pagers, no power palms, no phone calls - no outside contact of any kind - as the fourteen greatest chess players in the world gather to compete for money and fame. These geniuses of the game are strange characters - including two Russian world champions solely responsible for article 17.1 of FIDE's Laws of Chess (the ""anti-hair-pull rule""), the Rumanian who speaks a ""kind of personal Esperanto, using odds and ends of other languages,"" and a possible member of the Russian mafia - and when the tournament begins with the death of the ninth highest rated player in the world, everyone is under suspicion. This fabulous chess novel is full of game scores and diagrams - some pretty amazing games are played at Los Voraces! It's all told from the point of view of the arbiter, who is quickly drawn from his role as observer to that of target and suspect. By the time the tournament has only five rounds to go, five corpses have been discovered. Just who is the serial killer with a preference for 2700-rated grandmasters? This edition is a revision, with illustrations, of a serialized electronic version run by Hanon Russell on ChessCafe from September 2001 to September 2002.

A Truly Extraordinary Tournament

One of the most remarkable and famous chess tournaments ever took place in New York City in March and April 1924. It had a narrative that is still striking today: Three world champions undisputed world champions, mind you fulfilling their destiny. The stunning performance of the 55-year-old former world champion Emanuel Lasker. The seemingly invincible reigning Jos Capablanca suffering his first loss in eight years. And all 110 tournament games deeply annotated by future world champion Alexander Alekhine.

The tournament book that Alekhine produced became the stuff of legend. He provides real analysis, and with words, not just moves. He imbues the book with personality, on the one hand ruthlessly objective, even with his own mistakes, on the other, candidly subjective.

This is a modern "21st Century Edition" of Alekhine's classic, using figurine algebraic notation, adding many more diagrams, but preserving the original, masterful text.

The ChessCafe World Chess Champions Series Emanuel Lasker was a great chess fighter, thinker and researcher. He was possessed of gigantic playing strength, retaining the title of Worlds Number One Chessplayer for 27(!) years. Even after losing his crown, he kept his ability for a long time, as shown by his victories and prize-winning finishes in immensely powerful international tournaments when he was 54 (Moravska-Ostrava 1923), 55 (New York 1924), 56 (Moscow 1925), and even at 66 (Moscow 1935)! One of the chief postulates of the Second World Champion was the battle of honor. On the chessboard, lies and dishonesty have no place. These words of Lasker could serve, even today, as an example to every young chessplayer of how to relate to the Great Game. Emanuel Lasker was the first in history to achieve a universal style. This was a Style of the Future, which is why the Second World Champion would not be understood by many of his contemporaries, who believed that he had no style at all. Laskers games of chess, like his entire chess legacy, will live forever! Join Russian chess historians Isaak and Vladimir Linder as they take you on a journey exploring the life and games of the great world champion Emanuel Lasker.

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.

Frank Marshall (1877-1944) reigned as America's chess champion from 1907 through 1936--the longest stint of anyone in history. A colourful character almost always decked out in an ascot and chewing a cigar, his career coincided with many evolutionary changes in competitive chess. Marshall was a master gamesman. He took up the game of salta, akin to Chinese checkers, and was soon world champion. But more than anything, he loved chess. He claimed that after learning the game at the age of 10 he played every day for the next 57 years. Marshall's life and playing style are fully examined here, including 220 of his games (some never before published) with 190 positional diagrams.

Compiled by three grandmasters and two international masters this scholarly treatise explains in depth the thinking behind a defence that has been a favourite of champions such as Capablanca, Botvinnik, Petrosian and Karpov. Even Kasparov has been known to use the Caro Kann on occasion, for example in one case to defeat Mikhail Tal.