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As a nerdy kid growing up in New York in the 1970s, I got swept up in the “Fischer Boom” of 1972 when Bobby Fischer became the first official American World Champion, and chess clubs and tournaments sprouted up around the country. I persevered to become one of the top 30-ranked players. I’ve coached chess since my teens, with students ranging from ages 3 to 95. Not until my 40’s did I discover that I had perhaps an even greater talent and passion for writing. My first book Forcing Chess Moves presented a novel and challenging approach to how to think ahead in chess, and understand human biases which can blind us to winning ideas.
One thing that separates chess from all other games is the concept of checkmate. You’ve heard the word a million times, but what is it exactly? You’re probably thinking “Capturing the Enemy King”, but that would be incorrect. Actually it means threateningto capture the enemy King, while denying him any means of escape. I was already an experienced player when I read this book, but it was an “aha” moment. There are recurring checkmating patterns that are far from obvious to beginners; but once you learn to recognize them, you become a better player and enhance your appreciation for the beauty of chess.
"The art of the checkmate has at last been provided with a scientific foundation." — Chicago Sunday Tribune One of the most difficult situations in chess is seeing potential mates in the near future. All players, even grandmasters and champions, have missed such mates in actual play, to their chagrin and the bystanders' delight, for all too often it is easier to play for momentary advantage than to force a mate. This book by two former national chess champions of France provides a rational classification of mating situations, and shows how each possible type of mate has emerged with its…
As a nerdy kid growing up in New York in the 1970s, I got swept up in the “Fischer Boom” of 1972 when Bobby Fischer became the first official American World Champion, and chess clubs and tournaments sprouted up around the country. I persevered to become one of the top 30-ranked players. I’ve coached chess since my teens, with students ranging from ages 3 to 95. Not until my 40’s did I discover that I had perhaps an even greater talent and passion for writing. My first book Forcing Chess Moves presented a novel and challenging approach to how to think ahead in chess, and understand human biases which can blind us to winning ideas.
The legendary 18th-century chess champion Andre Danican Philidor called pawns “the soul of chess”. The Dutch master Hans Kmoch was the first to catalog all the nimble and fascinating tricks the humble pawn can do, and how the lowliest chess piece can work together with its neighbors to build a “structure” around which chess positions develop. Unlike computers, we humans need concepts to help us learn, and the ideas around pawn play I learned from this book have stuck with me for decades, helping me understand the correct strategy and tactics for different chess positions.
"One of the few books…which, at a glance, one can recognize as an immortal." — Chess. The proper use of pawns — of paramount importance in chess strategy — sometimes even puzzles experienced players. This profoundly original and stimulating book by an International Master and prolific chess writer offers superb instruction in pawn play by isolating its elements and elaborating on various aspects. After a lucid exposition of the fundamentals and the basic formations of one or two pawns that virtually constitute the keys to winning chess strategy, the reader is shown a multitude of examples demonstrating the paramount significance…
As a nerdy kid growing up in New York in the 1970s, I got swept up in the “Fischer Boom” of 1972 when Bobby Fischer became the first official American World Champion, and chess clubs and tournaments sprouted up around the country. I persevered to become one of the top 30-ranked players. I’ve coached chess since my teens, with students ranging from ages 3 to 95. Not until my 40’s did I discover that I had perhaps an even greater talent and passion for writing. My first book Forcing Chess Moves presented a novel and challenging approach to how to think ahead in chess, and understand human biases which can blind us to winning ideas.
When I’m not writing or researching chess books, history books and biographies are about all I read these days. Not until college did I realize how amazing a well-written history book could be, telling a great story about how people actually lived in different times and cultures. After 9/11 I wanted to avoid the soundbites and actually understand the history of religious conflict. In my view a great history book must have amazing research and wonderful writing, as well as being fair and balanced, and this trilogy was one of the best I’ve ever read on all counts. It still blows my mind that an author can put together a compelling, accurate, day-to-day account of events that happened 1000 years ago. You have to read it to believe it.
As a nerdy kid growing up in New York in the 1970s, I got swept up in the “Fischer Boom” of 1972 when Bobby Fischer became the first official American World Champion, and chess clubs and tournaments sprouted up around the country. I persevered to become one of the top 30-ranked players. I’ve coached chess since my teens, with students ranging from ages 3 to 95. Not until my 40’s did I discover that I had perhaps an even greater talent and passion for writing. My first book Forcing Chess Moves presented a novel and challenging approach to how to think ahead in chess, and understand human biases which can blind us to winning ideas.
For a true chess geek, it doesn’t get much better than this. The longest reigning world champion in modern times and some would say the greatest player ever, Gary Kasparov is also an important critic of the current Russian regime. In 5 volumes he dives deeply into the games and legacies of all world chess champions that came before him. His understanding is naturally off the charts, and he can write really well too! Reading this gave me a great window into how champions think, and the great games and personalities were fascinating. Warning though—the chess aspect is very advanced. You might want to read this with a worthy chess computer program to help with parts you don’t get—you might even want to first tackle my tactics manuals Forcing Chess Moves or Power Chess for Kids, for more grounding in the process of finding strong moves.
The battle for the World Chess Championship has witnessed numerous titanic struggles which have engaged the interest not only of chess enthusiasts but also of the public at large. The chessboard is the ultimate mental battleground and the world champions themselves are supreme intellectual gladiators. These magnificent compilations of chess form the basis of the first two parts of Garry Kasparov's definitive history of the World Chess Championship. Garry Kasparov, who is universally acclaimed as the greatest chessplayer ever, subjects the play of his predecessors to a rigorous analysis. Part one features the play of champions Wilhelm Steinitz (1886-1894), Emanuel…
We stumble onto games very early on in life and yet one game alone stood apart for me and hundreds of millions of other people over the centuries: chess. Across 1500 years of the games existence, chess has attracted players numbering in the billions regardless of language, culture, or creed, they were all unified in a passion for the irresistible allure of this remarkable game. In 2016, I was hired by Simon and Schuster to cover the world chess championship featuring arguably the greatest player ever to wield chess pieces, Magnus Carlsen. Fully immersing myself into the game during the researching and writing of the book, I collided with powerful themes.
Harold Schonberg explores the nuances of what goes into creating a brilliant chess player across the vast history of chess. The characters he details within this gem of a book rival anything he assembled in his other breathtaking tomb on classical music, “The Lives Of Great Composers.” Schonberg’s backstories of the rogues gallery of chess great add such texture and nuance to the vast eccentricity at the heart of genius chess players and also highlights the times in which they lived so that they and it comes to life. Probably my favorite resource for my work with “The Grandmaster.”
What makes a great chess player? Mr. Schonberg is explicit: vast memory, imagination, intuition, technique, a healthy body, relative youth, a high degree of visual imagery, and the unyielding determination to win are the prerequisites. Almost always child prodigies, chess geniuses invariably have massive egos. Mr. Schonberg begins with François Philidor, the eighteenth century French-man who laid the foundations for the game as it is played today. Among those who followed are the irascible Howard. Staunton, designer of the chess pieces that are still universally used; Paul Morphy, one of the best natural players who ever lived and one of…
We stumble onto games very early on in life and yet one game alone stood apart for me and hundreds of millions of other people over the centuries: chess. Across 1500 years of the games existence, chess has attracted players numbering in the billions regardless of language, culture, or creed, they were all unified in a passion for the irresistible allure of this remarkable game. In 2016, I was hired by Simon and Schuster to cover the world chess championship featuring arguably the greatest player ever to wield chess pieces, Magnus Carlsen. Fully immersing myself into the game during the researching and writing of the book, I collided with powerful themes.
Stephen Moss’s book about the history of chess and his obsession with it is one of the most pleasurable reads about chess for chess laymen. It’s a kaleidoscopic portrait of the game and the characters and his own personal journey with the game is filled with color and humor. As Moss seeks fulfillment and gratification from the game he encounters a kind of mental torture again and again that resonated a great deal for me with so many of the people who devoted their lives to chess, willingly or unable to resist.
Chess was invented more than 1,500 years ago, and is played in every country in the world. Stephen Moss sets out to master its mysteries, and unlock the secret of its enduring appeal. What, he asks, is the essence of chess? And what will it reveal about his own character along the way?
In a witty, accessible style that will delight newcomers and irritate purists, Moss imagines the world as a board and marches across it, offering a mordant report on the world of chess in 64 chapters - 64 of course being the number of squares on the chessboard.…
We stumble onto games very early on in life and yet one game alone stood apart for me and hundreds of millions of other people over the centuries: chess. Across 1500 years of the games existence, chess has attracted players numbering in the billions regardless of language, culture, or creed, they were all unified in a passion for the irresistible allure of this remarkable game. In 2016, I was hired by Simon and Schuster to cover the world chess championship featuring arguably the greatest player ever to wield chess pieces, Magnus Carlsen. Fully immersing myself into the game during the researching and writing of the book, I collided with powerful themes.
Frank Brady’s intimate portrait of Bobby Fischer, one of the most complex, confounding, and frustratingly remote and available American characters of the 20th Century, illuminates the genius and madness of a man whose daily exploits occasionally overshadowed the Vietnam War and Watergate. In 1500 years, the world had never been as transfixed by the game of chess as when Fischer sat at a board. Chess has never remotely been the same since Fischer refused to defend his title. No writer has written as compelling about Fischer as Brady.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Who was Bobby Fischer? In this “nuanced perspective of the chess genius” (Los Angeles Times), an acclaimed biographer chronicles his meteoric rise and confounding fall, with an afterword containing newly discovered details about Fischer’s life.
Possessing an IQ of 181 and remarkable powers of concentration, Bobby Fischer memorized hundreds of chess books in several languages, and he was only thirteen when he became the youngest chess master in U.S. history. But his strange behavior started early. In 1972, at the historic Cold War showdown in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he faced Soviet champion Boris Spassky, Fischer…
We stumble onto games very early on in life and yet one game alone stood apart for me and hundreds of millions of other people over the centuries: chess. Across 1500 years of the games existence, chess has attracted players numbering in the billions regardless of language, culture, or creed, they were all unified in a passion for the irresistible allure of this remarkable game. In 2016, I was hired by Simon and Schuster to cover the world chess championship featuring arguably the greatest player ever to wield chess pieces, Magnus Carlsen. Fully immersing myself into the game during the researching and writing of the book, I collided with powerful themes.
Waitzkin was a freelance journalist when he discovered his young son was a brilliant prodigy at the chessboard. This book offered the most useful and colorful portrait of the bizarre ecosystem of chess that I’ve ever come across in print. The story also documents a dangerous father-son relationship as Josh navigates his way to realizing the potential that has unexpectedly corrosive effects for both of them.
The father of a real american chess prodigy reflects on chess, competition, childhood, and his son's meteoric rise to the highest levels of global competition.
"[A] little gem of a book." -The New York Times
Fred Waitzkin was smitten with chess during the historic Fischer-Spassky championship in 1972. When Fisher disappeared from public view, Waitzkin's interest waned-until his own son Josh emerged as a chess prodigy.
Searching for Bobby Fischer is the story of Fred Waitzkin and his son, from the moment six-year-old Josh first sits down at a chessboard until he competes for the national championship. Drawn into the…
I can’t help but smile when I read stories about the underdog and the weak rising in strength. The small things that are overlooked are often what is most important, and something in me just itches to watch that tiny mustard seed grow into a powerful entity in its own right. When I started writing in earnest, I didn’t intentionally set my feet along the same paths. Nevertheless, the stories I write have my DNA within them. Though these books vary in genre, I’m excited to recommend them, and I expect that you’ll enjoy them as much as I did.
This book was easy to pick up and hard to put down, and immediately, I felt that the candor of the writing was like an extension of the main character, Beth. This is a tale about an orphaned girl who is beset on all sides by terrible situations, and of course, she is deeply affected by it all. I believe that tough times make tough people, and it always delights me to read about adversity being overcome by the downtrodden.
I loved how the story didn’t gloss over the inevitable changes that life brought Beth. She rose to the challenges and blossomed into a chess master in an arena that does not usually favor the young or the female. It’s inspiring!
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Engaging and fast-paced, this gripping coming-of-age novel of chess, feminism, and addiction speeds to a conclusion as elegant and satisfying as a mate in four. Now a highly acclaimed, award-winning Netflix series.
Eight year-old orphan Beth Harmon is quiet, sullen, and by all appearances unremarkable. That is, until she plays her first game of chess. Her senses grow sharper, her thinking clearer, and for the first time in her life she feels herself fully in control. By the age of sixteen, she’s competing for the U.S. Open championship. But as Beth hones her skills on…
As soon as I could read, my dad introduced me to the science fiction greats like Bradbury and Asimov. From there, I branched out to comics and fantasy. However, the tales that connected to me always had one thing in common: relatable characters. Whether it was the musing of Bradbury’s protagonists or the Hulk’s desire to be left alone, they all resonated with me personally. As a science fiction and fantasy author, it’s my job to make that same connection. Instead of escaping into imaginary realms, I have to figure out how to better observe the real world so I can tell better stories.
I bought this book from an Army PX in Germany four decades ago. I started it over lunch and ended up late for the night shift. The title would have you think it’s about swords, but it’s really about what happens when gods grow bored and play games with mortals as their chess pieces. This series, more than any other, reminded me of why I wanted to be a science fiction and fantasy writer.
It features one of my all-time favorite fantasy characters: Ben of Purkinje. Ben doesn’t want to be a hero. All he wants to do is become a minstrel and marry the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately, he can’t sing, and she doesn’t love him. It’s good that he’s also the most reliable guy you’ll ever meet.
The gods decide to devise a Game of great their colleague Vulcan forges 12 magic Swords, each with a different power, and scatters them across the world. Play begins in grand and gloriously violent fashion as Swords are gathered and used to control chance, enhance fortune, and change destiny. The holder of a Sword wields power undreamed... power to change the world and the holder.To add to the enjoyment, foolish mortals are invited to join, risking their puny lives. Demons and elementals need no invitation. But something had gone wrong in the forging, and the Game...
