Idle Passion


Book Description




Lessons from My Games a Passion for Chess


Book Description

This rich book distills the experience gained during one of the most brilliant chess careers of our time - a career that has been distinguished equally in chess play and in chess analysis. Lessons from My Games combines the best of Reuben Fine the famous grandmaster, who has been a top contender in many of the century's greatest tournaments, with the best of Reuben Fine the writer, whose matchless books have been landmarks in chess history. Here are Fine's games with World Champions Capablanca, Alekhine, and Euwe, with Dake, Horowitz. Flohr, Kashdan, Tartakower, Lasker, Botvinnik, Reshevsky, and other masters. Here are scintillating games of ten-second blindfold chess, at which Fine is sensational. And perhaps most important for both the amateur and professional, here in generous profusion are Fine's incisive notes and comments on every game, with searching discussion of alternatives, blunders, brilliancies, and turning points. Here, indeed, are not only. the outstanding games of a great career but the lessons from the games, drawn as only Fine could draw them. All this would be enough, but this book offers something else as well, for enlivening the accounts of the matches and tournaments in which he played are Reuben Fine's personal impressions of his great antagonists. As an observer of human nature, he is entertaining and astute, and he shows how the ability to take a foe's psychological measure can help to win. Reuben Fine has been a member of three U. S. World Championship Teams. He tied for first prize with Keres in the great AVRO tournament of 1938 and has won the U. S. Speed Championship four rimes. Among his famous books are The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings, The Middle Game in Chess, Basic Chess Endings, Practical Chess Openings, and his great and continuing best seller, Chess the Easy Way.




Philosophy Looks at Chess


Book Description

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.




All the Wrong Moves


Book Description

An enthralling journey into the world of chess--a story of heartbreak, obsession, failure, and the hunger for greatness Sasha Chapin is a victim of chess. Like countless amateurs before him--Albert Einstein, Humphrey Bogart, Marcel Duchamp--the game has consumed his life and his mind. First captivated by it as a member of his high school chess club, his passion was rekindled during an accidental encounter with chess hustlers on the streets of Kathmandu. In its aftermath, he forgot how to care about anything else. He played at all hours, for weeks at a time. Like a spurned lover, he tried to move on, but he found the game more seductive the more he resisted it. And so, he thought, if he can't defeat his obsession, he had to succumb to it. All the Wrong Moves traces Chapin's rollicking two-year journey around the globe in search of glory. Along the way, he chronicles the highs and lows of his fixation, driven on this quest by lust, terror, and the elusive possibility of victory. Stylish, inventive, and laugh-out-loud funny, All the Wrong Moves is a celebration of the purity, violence, and beauty of the game.




The Art of Chess


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The Best I Saw in Chess


Book Description

At the U.S. Championship in 1989, Stuart Rachels seemed bound for the cellar. Ranked last and holding no IM norms, the 20-year-old amateur from Alabama was expected to get waxed by the American top GMs of the day that included Seirawan, Gulko, Dzindzichashvili, deFirmian, Benjamin and Browne. Instead, Rachels pulled off a gigantic upset and became the youngest U.S. Champion since Bobby Fischer. Three years later he retired from competitive chess, but he never stopped following the game. In this wide-ranging, elegantly written, and highly personal memoir, Stuart Rachels passes on his knowledge of chess. Included are his duels against legends such as Kasparov, Anand, Spassky, Ivanchuk, Gelfand and Miles, but the heart of the book is the explanation of chess ideas interwoven with his captivating stories. There are chapters on tactics, endings, blunders, middlegames, cheating incidents, and even on how to combat that rotten opening, the Réti. Rachels offers a complete and entertaining course in chess strategy. At the back are listed 110 principles of play—bits of wisdom that arise naturally in the book’s 24 chapters. Every chess player will find it difficult to put this sparkling book down. As a bonus, it will make you a better player.




Capablanca


Book Description

Jose Raul Capablanca is renowned for his exquisite positional play and flawless endgame technique. But The Chess Machine was also a master of that other way to deliver mate: the attack on the enemy king.In this groundbreaking work, award-winning chess coach and author Frisco Del Rosario shines a long-overdue light on this neglected aspect of Capablanca's record. He illustrates how the Cuban genius used positional concepts to build up irresistible king hunts, embodying the principles of good play advocated by the unequaled teacher, C.J.S. Purdy. The author also identifies an overlooked checkmate pattern - Capablanca's Mate - that aspiring attackers can add to the standard catalogue in Renaud and Kahn's The Art of the Checkmate. As Del Rosario shows, Capablanca has inspired not only generations of players, but also many of the classics of chess literature.Easy to read but chock-full of advice for study and practical play, Capablanca: A Primer of Checkmate fills a gaping hole in our understanding of the third World Champion.




Marcel Duchamp, the Art of Chess


Book Description

Edited by Francis M. Naumann. Text by Francis M. Naumann, Bradley Bailey, Jennifer Shahade.




The Kids' Book of Chess and Chess Set


Book Description

A direct, lively introduction to the game that's inspired passion and challenge for over 900 years—for kids ages 8-12. Everything a child needs to learn how to play chess, hone your skills, and become a grandmaster, including a custom-designed chess board and full set of 32 chess pieces! A 96-page book leads kids through the fundamentals of beginning, middle, and end game, and shows winning strategies for offense and defense. Full-color fantasy art captures the energy and excitement of chess's origins—the medieval battlefield. Over 1 million copies in print. For ages 8-12.




Chess is Child's Play


Book Description

An introduction for parents who wish to teach their young children (ages 2-7) to play chess.