Join us in celebrating International Chess Day on July 20th by enjoying this selection of titles to learn about the history of chess, the strategies of the game, and put it to the test by playing online or in-person!
The Complete Chess Course by
Generations of chess players have grown up on Fred Reinfeldâe(tm)s books. He has a way of reducing the most intricate, complicated combinations to their basic components. After Reinfeld explains a combination, it makes sense. Reinfeld not only taught us how to play the game well, but also implanted in us his enthusiastic passion for learning. His books are peppered throughout with words and phrases in italics to emphasize ideas. Moves are punctuated with single, double, and even triple exclamation marks and question marks to span the entire spectrum of emotions the moves conjure up. The Complete Chess Course is filled with advice on how to play better chess, regardless of how strong or weak a player you may be. It begins with the most fundamental ideas, reviewing the basic moves of the pieces and pawns, and continues with fantastic examples from the very best players. We are taken through a full course of chess strategy and tactics; he introduces us to the nine bad moves and how to refute them as well as how to avoid making them.We learn how to handle the white pieces and how to fight back with the black pieces. We get a much-needed lesson on how to win the game when we have gained a big advantage, and another, equally important lesson on how to put up the stiffest resistance when in an inferior position. We get treated to a full spectrum of the many ways to make the most of whatever position we get in one of the best chapters of any book Iâe(tm)ve seen: Book Six on How to Fight Back. Fred guides us through some master games, revealing the secrets of their struggles to overcome strong resistance. These secrets include how to meet the crisis; how to simplify; and the point of no return.Finally, we are treated to an introduction to the major openings, including what to strive for in gambits, classical structures, hypermodern structures, as well as off beat lines. Hint: play to control the center and develop your pieces.Absorb the material included in this volume and you will play chess at a fairly high level. Or read through it all and enjoy Fredâe(tm)s masterful explanations. In either case, you will be entranced by his enthusiasm for the intricate relationships the pieces experience in the context of a game or even a standout plan or combination.
Man vs. Machine by
Man vs. MachineTechnology continues to advance at a rapid pace. It may sound quaint today, but not so long ago, computers battled humans for supremacy at the game of chess. The challenge of building a computer program capable of defeating the best of human-kind at chess was one of the original grand challenges of the fledgling field of artificial intelligence. On one side were dedicated scientists and hobbyists who invested decades of effort developing the software and hardware technology; on the other side were incredibly talented humans with only their determination and preparation to withstand the onslaught of technology.The man versus machine battle in chess is a landmark in the history of technology. There are numerous books that document the technical aspects of this epic story. The human side is not often told. Few chess players are inclined to write about their man-machine encounters, other than annotating the games played. This book brings the two sides together. It tells the stories of many of the key scientists and chess players that participated in a 50-year research project to advance the understanding of computing technology."Grandmaster Karsten Müller and Professor Jonathan Schaeffer have managed to describe the fascinating history of the unequal fight of man against machine in an entertaining and instructive way. It evoked pleasant and not so pleasant memories of my own fights against the monsters. I hope that their work gives you as much pleasure as it has given me." - From the Foreword by Vladimir Kramnik, 14th World Chess Champion
A Cultural History of Chess-Players by
This inquiry concerns the cultural history of the chess-player. It takes as its premise the idea that the chess-player has become a fragmented collection of images, underpinned by challenges to, and confirmations of, chess's status as an intellectually-superior and socially-useful game, particularly since the medieval period. Yet, the chess-player is an understudied figure. No previous work has shone a light on the chess-player itself. Increasingly, chess-histories have retreated into tidy consensus. This work aspires to a novel reading of the figure as both a flickering beacon of reason and a sign of monstrosity. To this end, this book, utilising a wide range of sources, including newspapers, periodicals, detective novels, science-fiction, and comic-books, is underpinned by the idea that the chess-player is a pluralistic subject used to articulate a number of anxieties pertaining to themes of mind, machine, and monster.
Chess in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age by
Die neue englischsprachige Reihe zur Mediävistik strebt eine methodisch reflektierte, anspruchsvolle Verbindung von Text- und Kulturwissenschaft an. Sie widmet sich den kulturellen Grundthemen der mittelalterlichen Welt aus der Perspektive der Literatur- und Geschichtswissenschaft. ,Grundthemen' sind die kulturprägenden Denkbilder, Weltanschauungen, Sozialstrukturen und Alltagsbedingungen des mittelalterlichen Lebens, also z. B. Kindheit und Alter, Sexualität, Religion, Medizin, Rituale, Arbeit, Armut und Reichtum, Aberglauben, Erde und Kosmos, Stadt und Land, Krieg, Emotionen, Kommunikation, Reisen usw. Die Reihe greift wichtige aktuelle Fachdiskussionen auf und stellt ein Forum der interdisziplinären Mittelalter-Forschung dar. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture steht Sammelbänden ebenso offen wie Monographien. Intention ist immer, kompendienhafte Werke zu zentralen Fragen der mittelalterlichen Kulturgeschichte vorzulegen, die einen soliden Überblick über einen geschlossenen Themenkreis aus der Perspektive verschiedener Fachdisziplinen vermitteln. Im Ganzen bietet die Reihe so eine Enzyklopädie der mittelalterlichen Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte und ihrer Hauptthemen. Es werden ca. zwei Bände pro Jahr erscheinen.
Chess Metaphors by
How the moves of thirty-two chess pieces over sixty-four squares can help us understand the workings of the mind. When we play the ancient and noble game of chess, we grapple with ideas about honesty, deceitfulness, bravery, fear, aggression, beauty, and creativity, which echo (or allow us to depart from) the attitudes we take in our daily lives. Chess is an activity in which we deploy almost all our available cognitive resources; therefore, it makes an ideal laboratory for investigation into the workings of the mind. Indeed, research into artificial intelligence (AI) has used chess as a model for intelligent behavior since the 1950s. In Chess Metaphors, Diego Rasskin-Gutman explores fundamental questions about memory, thought, emotion, consciousness, and other cognitive processes through the game of chess, using the moves of thirty-two pieces over sixty-four squares to map the structural and functional organization of the brain. Rasskin-Gutman focuses on the cognitive task of problem solving, exploring it from the perspectives of both biology and AI. Examining AI researchers' efforts to program a computer that could beat a flesh-and-blood grandmaster (and win a world chess championship), he finds that the results fall short when compared to the truly creative nature of the human mind.
Chess Pieces by
From handling of the chessmen you infer the secret springs of human character. To pluck the enemy chessman between your fingers and replace it with your own reveals the cultivated, well-bred killer who cannot stand the sight of blood; knock the chessman over with a small click of wood on wood tells of an aesthetic craving for the fatal instrument, of one more passionate than violent; to push the piece from its intended square is signal of aggressive character and plainly indicates that power is the motive for committing murder; some will hold the captured piece and caress it nervously: these kill from cowardice; those who seem apologetic, taking pawns reluctantly, kill for noble reasons; and he who clears the board with one great sweep of his hand will kill from lack of hope, defeated by the prospect of defeat, as did my father only death could mate.
Counterplay by
"Chess gets a hold of some people, like a virus or a drug," writes Robert Desjarlais in this absorbing book. Drawing on his lifelong fascination with the game, Desjarlais guides readers into the world of twenty-first-century chess to help us understand its unique pleasures and challenges, and to advance a new "anthropology of passion." Immersing us directly in chess's intricate culture, he interweaves small dramas, closely observed details, illuminating insights, colorful anecdotes, and unforgettable biographical sketches to elucidate the game and to reveal what goes on in the minds of experienced players when they face off over the board. Counterplay offers a compelling take on the intrigues of chess and shows how themes of play, beauty, competition, addiction, fanciful cognition, and intersubjective engagement shape the lives of those who take up this most captivating of games.
Philosophy Looks at Chess by
Chess, the ancient strategy game, meets the latest, cutting-edge philosophy in this unique book. When 12 philosophers weigh in on one of the world's oldest and most beloved pastimes, the results are often surprising. Philosophical concepts as varied as phenomenology and determinism share the page with a treatise on hip-hop chess tactics and the question of whether Garry Kasparov is, in fact, a cyborg. Putting forth a remarkable array of different views on chess from philosophers with varied chess-proficiency, Philosophy Looks at Chess is an engaging read for chess adherents and the philosophically inclined alike.
Chess Periodicals by
This comprehensive reference work presents detailed bibliographical information about worldwide chess periodicals past to present. It contains 3,163 entries and many cross-references. Information for each entry includes year and country of publication, frequency, sponsors, publisher, editors, subject, language, alternate titles, mergers, continuations, and holdings in chess libraries. Includes an index of periodicals by country and a general index of periodical titles.
How Life Imitates Chess by
One of the most highly regarded strategists of our time teaches us how the tools that made him a world chess champion can make us more successful in business and in life. Garry Kasparov was the highest-rated chess player in the world for over twenty years and is widely considered the greatest player that ever lived. In How Life Imitates Chess Kasparov distills the lessons he learned over a lifetime as a Grandmaster to offer a primer on successful decision-making: how to evaluate opportunities, anticipate the future, devise winning strategies. He relates in a lively, original way all the fundamentals, from the nuts and bolts of strategy, evaluation, and preparation to the subtler, more human arts of developing a personal style and using memory, intuition, imagination and even fantasy. Kasparov takes us through the great matches of his career, including legendary duels against both man (Grandmaster Anatoly Karpov) and machine (IBM chess supercomputer Deep Blue), enhancing the lessons of his many experiences with examples from politics, literature, sports and military history. With candor, wisdom, and humor, Kasparov recounts his victories and his blunders, both from his years as a world-class competitor as well as his new life as a political leader in Russia. An inspiring book that combines unique strategic insight with personal memoir, How Life Imitates Chess is a glimpse inside the mind of one of today's greatest and most innovative thinkers.
Computers, Chess, and Cognition by
Computers, Chess, and Cognition presents an excellent up-to-date description of developments in computer chess, a rapidly advancing area in artificial intelligence research. This book is intended for an upper undergraduate and above level audience in the computer science (artificial intelligence) community. The chapters have been edited to present a uniform terminology and balanced writing style, to make the material understandable to a wider, less specialized audience. The book's primary strengths are the description of the workings of some major chess programs, an excellent review of tree searching methods, discussion of exciting new research ideas, a philosophical discussion of the relationship of computer game playing to artificial intelligence, and the treatment of computer Go as an important new research area. A complete index and extensive bibliography makes the book a valuable reference work. The book includes a special foreword by Ken Thompson, author of the UNIX operating system.
1000 Games Chess by
Here, each introduced with a brief, pungent or witty commentary, are 1,000 of the sweetest sugar-coated pills in all chess literature presented in author Irving Chernev's 1,000 Best Short Games of Chess. Author Irving Chernev's 1,000 Best Short Games of Chess offers descriptions of the winning moves are elaborated by commentary and anecdotes.
International Championship Chess: A Complete Record of FIDE Events by The New York Times Report On The Chess Match Of The Century by 
Chess Strategy for the Tournament Player by
Chess Strategy for the Tournament Player is the fifth volume in Grandmaster Lev Alburt's Comprehensive Chess Course series. Endorsed by world champion Garry Kasparov as revealing "the once-secret Russian method of chess training," this uses only materials and techniques that worked well in the former USSR. It contains hundreds of strikingly beautiful positions arranged by difficulty and designed to sharpen tactical recognition and vision. Nothing is left to chance in this work. All materials have already shown their worth in Russian chess instruction.
Chess Tactics for the Tournament Player by 
The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by
62 masterly demonstrations of the basic strategies of winning, featuring games by the greatest chess masters -- Capablanca, Tarrasch, Fischer, Alekhine, Lasker, others. Each game 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.
Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur by
25 chess games chosen, arranged, and annotated to help amateurs learn how to avoid a variety of weak strategic and tactical moves. Selected, with commentary, by World Chess Champion Max Euwe and by Walter Meiden, an amateur player, the games point out graphically how the chess master exploits characteristic errors of the amateur.
Comprehensive Chess Course by
Amateur chess players have a new weapon in the battle to improve their game. Based on the famous, formerly secret "From Beginner to Master" course of study developed over decades in the Soviet Union, the Comprehensive Chess Course provides students with all the essential information they need to learn chess and then to improve their skills steadily and efficiently. The contents of this book and its companion volume 2 (sold separately) include every diagram and every problem, and leave little to chance. The Course is filled with what has worked well in practice in Russian classrooms and teaches all the rules of chess, all the fundamentals, and how to visualize the board and pieces--the prerequisite for success in chess.