The Complete Chess Swindler

Author: David Smerdon
Publisher: New In Chess
ISBN: 9056919121
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 762

Book Description
Chess is a cruel game. We all know that feeling when your position has gone awry and everything seems hopeless. You feel like resigning. But don’t give up! This is precisely the moment to switch to swindle mode. Master the art of provoking errors and you will be able to turn the tables and escape with a draw – or sometimes even steal the full point! Swindling is a skill that can be trained. In this book, David Smerdon shows how you can use tricks from psychology to marshal hidden resources and exploit your opponent’s biases. In a lost position, your best practical chance often lies not in the computer’s best moves, but in playing your opponent – however bad the evaluation! With an abundance of eye-popping examples and training exercises, Smerdon identifies the four best friends of every chess swindler: your opponent’s impatience, their hubris, their fear, and their need to stay in control. You’ll also learn about such cunning swindling motifs as the Trojan Horse, the decoy trap, the berserk attack, and ‘window-ledging’. So, come and join the Swindlers’ Club, become a great escape artist and dramatically improve your results. In this instructive and wildly entertaining guide, Smerdon shows you how.

Chess Traps

Author: I. A. Horowitz
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0671210416
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
From Simon & Schuster, Chess Traps is I.A. Horowitz's exploration of chess' pitfalls and swindes—both how to set them and how to avoid them. This is a rich storehouse of Chess 'crimes.' Sometimes the villain is thwarted: more often he gets away with his nefarious deeds. But, in either event, the tales, and their telling, will prove to be instructive and vastly entertaining.

Chess for Tigers

Author: Simon Webb
Publisher: Batsford Books
ISBN: 1849941599
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 170

Book Description
One of the most influential books on chess ever published – now in digital format. The Tiger is a vicious beast. He doesn't care about the aesthetic side of chess. He doesn't even care about making the 'best' moves. All he cares about is winning. Do you want to win more games? Then become a Tiger. 'Chess for Tigers' tells you how to make the most of your playing strength, how to play upon your opponent's weaknesses, how to steer the game into a position which suits you and not your opponent, how to get results against strong opposition and how to avoid silly mistakes. This is a cult classic that is as relevant to today's generation of chess players as the first edition was. Regularly voted in the top 10 best chess books of all time, this book should be read by all chess players, especially beginners who want to win at all costs. Author Information Mr Webb started to make an impact on the chess world in the 1960s. He learned the game at the age of seven and ten years later, in 1966, he was under-18 champion in Britain and fourth in the European junior Championship. He married and moved to Sweden in the 1970s and became one of the few correspondence chess Grand Masters. The first edition of Chess for Tigers was first published in 1978. The sad death of Simon Webb in March 2005 shocked the chess community.

Counterplay

Author: Prof. Robert R. Desjarlais
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520948203
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Book Description
"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.

Pawn Structure Chess

Author: Andrew Soltis
Publisher: Batsford Books
ISBN: 1849941157
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Book Description
Every chess player needs to know how to handle his pawns. Pawns form the 'playing fields' of chess games, a semi-permanent 'structure' that can determine whether a player wins or loses. This comprehensive guide to pawn structure teaches the reader where pieces are best placed, which pawns should be advanced further or exchanged, and why certain structures are good and others disastrous. This invaluable book is a major update of this chess-world classic, first published in 1975 and unavailable for several years.

Winning Chess Tactics

Author: Yasser Seirawan
Publisher: Everyman Chess
ISBN: 185744891X
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 444

Book Description
Learn sure-fire tactics and combinations from one of the worlds top chess players. Attack? Defend? Swap pieces? Tactics are the watchdogs of strategy that take advantage of short-term opportunities to trap or ambush your opponent and quite possiblychange the course of a game in a single move. Why play in a fog, only hoping that your opponent will blunder when International Grandmaster Yasser Seirawan can show you how to put the tactics of the worlds chess legends to work for you. Choose from the double attack, the pin, the skewer, deflection, the cor, x-rays, windmills and many more time-tested tactics.Using classic board situations arranged in chapters by tactical themes, Seirawan teaches you how to: * Plan your entire game from the very first move.Think ahead, step-by-step, anticipating every obstacle your opponent can throw your way * Position yourself for the smashing combination and endgame you've always dreamed of Board positions from actual games played by historys great chess tacticians are provided throughout. Review tests for each topic let you track your improvement. In no time you'll be playing better, with more confidence than you ever thought possible. Errata List

How I Beat Fischer's Record

Author: Judit Polgar
Publisher: Judit Polgar Teaches Chess
ISBN: 9781907982194
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
In chess, great achievements often take a lifetime of preparation, but when these achievements are becoming the World Number 1 woman chess player at the age of 12 and the youngest ever grandmaster at the age of 15, you have to start early! In this very personal book Judit Polgar describes her early moments of success and the chess ideas she needed to master in order to achieve them.This exceptional book is the beginning of a unique project where one of the greatest players of our time transforms her personal journey to the top into a roadmap for everyone who ever wanted to better themselves in the game of chess.

King's Gambit

Author: Paul Hoffman
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 1401389562
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 726

Book Description
As a young man, Paul Hoffman was a brilliant chess player . . . until the pressures of competition drove him to the brink of madness. In King's Gambit, he interweaves a gripping overview of the history of the game and an in-depth look at the state of modern chess into the story of his own attempt to get his game back up to master level -- without losing his mind. It's also a father and son story, as Hoffman grapples with the bizarre legacy of his own dad, who haunts Hoffman's game and life.

The Classical Sicilian

Author: Alex Yermolinsky
Publisher: Gambit Publications
ISBN: 9781904600428
Category : Sicilian defense (Chess)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Chess Explained is a new series of books about chess openings. They are not theoretical works in the traditional sense, but more a series of lessons from a chess expert with extensive over-the-board experience with an opening. You will gain an understanding of the opening and the middlegames to which it leads, enabling you to find the right moves and plans in your own games. It is as if you were sitting at the board with a chess coach answering your questions about the plans for both sides, the ideas behind particular moves, and what specific knowledge you need to have. The Classical Sicilian is one of the most popular and respected systems of the Sicilian, and has been used frequently by players such as Anand, Kramnik and Shirov. Black develops his pieces more quickly than in many Sicilian systems, and intricate piece-play often results. The Classical Sicilian arises after the moves 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 Nc6. White's most popular and critical response is the Richter-Rauzer Attack, and recent years have seen a diversification in the plans for both sides in this perennially popular line. Against White's alternatives to the Rauzer, Yermolinsky covers lines that retain the independent significance of the Classical move-order, such as 6 Bc4 Qb6 - a line in which he is a leading specialist.

Beyond Material

Author: Davorin Kuljasevic
Publisher: New In Chess
ISBN: 9056918613
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 604

Book Description
Giving up material is one of the most difficult decisions a chess player has to take. But the reality is that winning a game very often requires you to make that choice. The nagging question is always: what about my compensation? The old school used to relate compensation to ‘correctness’. A sacrifice was correct if the material was swiftly returned, if possible with interest. Generations of chess players spent lots of time counting, quantifying the static value of their pieces almost by reflex. In this book, Grandmaster Davorin Kuljasevic teaches you how to look beyond the material balance when you evaluate positions. With many instructive fragments he shows how the actual value of your pieces fluctuates during the game, depending on many non-material factors. Some of those factors are space-related, such as mobility, harmony, outposts, weaknesses, structures, squares, files and diagonals. Other factors are related to time, and to the way the moves unfold: tempo, initiative, a threat, an attack. Modern club players need to be able to suppress their need for immediate gratification. In order to gain the upper hand you often have to live with uncertain compensation. With the help of many fascinating examples, Kuljasevic teaches you the essential skill of taking calculated risks. After studying Beyond Material, winning games by sacrificing material will become second nature to you.