CHESS HISTORY

A classic book showing all the games that had been played in World Championship matches between 1948 and 1972. Part I of the book details in biographical-style some information going on during each individual match. Part II gives the lightly-annotated games that occurred during the matches/tournaments that determined the World Championship Learn More

This is the first publication of a manuscript by del Rio written around 1800 but unpublished until this edition in 1984. The original Italian plus English commentary added by Professor Christopher Becker who has added a long scholarly introduction which traces the early development of chess and explains the place of this work in chess history.

Learn More

Through the fortunate chance of having developed a notation to record actual games, chess has become very much a literary game. This has resulted in a veritable flood of books, with more being written about chess than any other sport. Hence, for the average chess player who would like to improve, the choice among such a vast number of books can be bewildering. The author has undertaken to review those books written by the great writers of the game and to select recommendations.

Learn More

The Chess Artist is both an intellectual journey and first-rate travel writing dedicated to the love of chess and all of its related oddities, writer and chess enthusiast J. C. Hallman explores the obsessive hold chess exerts on its followers by examining the history and evolution of the game and the people who dedicate their lives to it.

Learn More

Chess Bitch, written by the 2004 U.S. Woman's Chess Champion, is an eye-opening account of how today's young female chess players are successfully knocking down the doors to this traditionally male game, infiltrating the male-owned sporting subculture of international chess, and giving the phrase "play like a girl" a whole new meaning.

Learn More

This magnificent volume contains the extraordinary story of the prolonged battle between Bobby Fischer, the lone American genius who is perhaps the most famous chess player of all time, and the long-standing and all-dominating Soviet chess machine. For the first time readers will be able to view virtually all the secret documents on ,'the Fischer problem', many of which have never previously been published. These include papers from the archives of the KGB, the Communist Party Central Committee, the USSR Sports Committee and the Chess Federation. Learn More

This book is the first in a brand new series that follows on from My Great Predecessors and sees chess legend Garry Kasparov reflecting on a pivotal time in chess history. Bobby Fischer's spurt towards the chess summit (1970-1972) marked the approach of a new era affecting all aspects of the game and opening theory in particular. Learn More

One of the most extraordinary books ever written about chess and chessplayers, this authoritative study goes well beyond a lucid explanation of how today's chessmasters and tournament players are rated. Twenty years' research and practice produce a wealth of thought-provoking and hitherto unpublished material on the nature and development of high-level talent.

Learn More

This book is one of the great classics of chess literature. The author, Imre Konig, was an International Master of Chess and a great analyst as well as an entertaining writer. He describes the development of chess opening theory and discusses lines of play no longer in vogue but which remain powerful weapons for the practical tournament player.

This book was originally published in 1950 as "Chess from Morphy to Botwinnik".

Learn More

This volume concentrates on the first two of those matches. The epic 1984/85 contest which was lasted six months before being controversially halted "without result" by the then President of FIDE Florencio Campomanes. The 1985 match when Kasparov brilliantly won the final game to take the title and become - at the age of 22 - the youngest ever world champion. Great chess contests have often had resonances extending beyond the 64 squares. The Fischer v Spassky match was played during the Cold War with both champions being perceived as the finest products of their respective ideologies. Learn More

This volume concentrates on the first two of those matches. The epic 1984/85 contest which was lasted six months before being controversially halted "without result" by the then President of FIDE Florencio Campomanes. The 1985 match when Kasparov brilliantly won the final game to take the title and become - at the age of 22 - the youngest ever world champion. Great chess contests have often had resonances extending beyond the 64 squares. The Fischer v Spassky match was played during the Cold War with both champions being perceived as the finest products of their respective ideologies. Learn More

During the 18th century, when Philidor played two blindfold games of chess simultaneously, eyewitnesses were asked to swear affidavits attesting to this remarkable feat. Since then, blindfold chess - the art of playing without sight of the board or pieces - has produced some of the greatest feats of human memory, progressing to the extent that the world record is 45 simultaneous blindfold games.

Learn More

The Golden Treasury of Chess is one of the most popular and most often reprinted and revised chess books ever created. It is filled with hundreds of the most thrilling, exciting and surprising chess games ever played. It also includes articles about chess history and stories about how these great games came to be played. It has also become one of the most controversial chess books ever written.

Learn More

Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov are unquestionably the participants who featured in the greatest ever chess rivalry. Between 1984 and 1990 they contested five long matches for the World Championship. This 3rd volume of the 'Garry Kasparov on Modern Chess' series concentrates on the third and fourth matches in this sequence: London/Leningrad 1986 and Seville 1987. Both matches were tremendously exciting and hard fought and both produced chess of an extremely high level. Learn More

Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov are unquestionably the participants who featured in the greatest ever chess rivalry. Between 1984 and 1990 they contested five long matches for the World Championship. This 3rd volume of the 'Garry Kasparov on Modern Chess' series concentrates on the third and fourth matches in this sequence: London/Leningrad 1986 and Seville 1987. Both matches were tremendously exciting and hard fought and both produced chess of an extremely high level. Learn More

Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov are unquestionably the participants who featured in the greatest ever chess rivalry. Between 1984 and 1990 they contested five long matches for the World Championship. This 3rd volume of the 'Garry Kasparov on Modern Chess' series concentrates on the third and fourth matches in this sequence: London/Leningrad 1986 and Seville 1987. Both matches were tremendously exciting and hard fought and both produced chess of an extremely high level. Learn More

>Francois-Andre Danican Philidor (1726-1795) is widely regarded as the strongest chess player ever in history prior to the modern era. He was so much better than any of his contemporaries that it is impossible for us to know how good he really was. The edition of the book that is reprinted here was published in 1871 by C. Sanson. This shows that the original Philidor book was still the standard work on the subject one hundred years after it was first written.

Learn More

The dissolution of the Soviet Union marked the end of a unique chapter in the history of chess. With hindsight we can only marvel at the pivotal place the royal game occupied in the biggest country in the world. Originally embraced by Lenin as 'gymnastics of the mind', chess developed into an ideological weapon during the Cold War. Supported by the Soviet leadership, chess champions, from Mikhail Botvinnik on, grew into symbols of socialist excellence.

Learn More

Harry Benson's rare, exclusive photos of the elusive and controversial chess genius Bobby Fischer taken during the historic World Championship chess match in Iceland in 1972 in which Fischer solidly defeated reining champ, Russian Boris Spassky, are collected here for the first time, in Bobby Fischer.

Learn More

This book discusses the first Russian grandmasters and prominent masters, such luminaries as Mikhail Chigorin, Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Paul Keres, Alexander Kotov, Boris Spassky, Mikhail Tal, Alexander Tolush and many others. Also included is a section dedicated to the women players.

Learn More

The Soviet Chess School has biographies and lots of games and pictures of players such as Kasparov, Karpov and Spassky whereas these players are not mentioned in the 32-years earlier work The Soviet School of Chess.

Learn More

The book is filled with amusing anecdotes involving famous players, including Nimzowitsch, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Reshevsky and Lombardy.

Learn More