A Chess Biography

On 30 April 2023, in Astana, Kazakhstan, Chinese grandmaster Ding Liren sensationally defeated Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi in a dramatic battle for the chess crown. Ding Liren not only became the 17th World Chess Champion, but he also won the hearts of chess fans across the globe with his incredible fighting spirit and disarming interviews. At the final press conference, the new champion said the match ‘reflected the deepest of his soul’.

A Chess Biography of Boris Verlinsky

Born in Bakhmut, Ukraine, and brought up in Odessa, Boris Verlinsky (1888-1950) was the first holder of the grandmaster title in the Soviet Union, and he was consistently one of the top Soviet players in the 1920s.

A Chess Biography of Vsevolod Rauzer

Vsevolod Rauzer, born in Kiev in 1908, was one of the world’s leading chess opening theoreticians and thinkers in the 1930s. As a player, he was an uncompromising attacker, trying to avoid draws as well as to prove that 1.e4 wins by force. According to Mikhail Botvinnik, “His opening research…with linked middlegame plans, gives us every reason to place V. Rauzer among the founders of the Soviet chess school.” Awarded the Master of Sport title in 1929, Rauzer’s best tournament performances included joint eighth place in the 1931 Soviet Championship, sixth in 1933 and eighth in 1937. According to Chessmetrics, he was ranked in the world’s top 30 for several years.

Viktor Korchnoi (1931 to 2016) was a giant of the chess world with a career embracing seventy years and over 5,000 recorded games. He contested two world championship matches against Anatoly Karpov, coming within a whisker of being crowned World Champion in 1978. He was a world championship candidate, Soviet champion and Olympiad medal-winner on numerous occasions.

Akiba Rubinstein is universally considered one of the strongest chess players who never won the world crown. From a modest upbringing in the Polish city of Lódz, he rose to become the principal challenger to the world champion Emanuel Lasker in the years leading up to the First World War. Although their world title match failed to take place, mainly due to the outbreak of wartime hostilities, Rubinstein's legacy has remained equal to that of any world champion.

In 1967, 25-year-old Rolf Martens won the Swedish Championship playing faster than anyone before. In the Student World Championship he defeated one of the world’s ten best players, and at the end of the year he became the first Swede to make an IM-norm. Efim Geller said: “If Martens comes to Moscow, he will become one of the best players in the world.”

The 5th World Chess Champion (1935-37)

World Chess Champion Max Euwe, who held the title from 1935-1937, is one of the greatest chess players in history. Much has been written about him, and he authored dozens of books himself. But missing was an outstanding collection of games of this 'efficient, man-eating tiger' as the American grandmaster Reuben Fine once called Euwe.

Der Berliner Friedrich Sämisch ist ein fast vergessener Meister, der erst nach schweren Kriegsverletzungen sein Schachtalent entdeckte. Schnell stieß er in die Weltklasse vor und konnte sich auch gegen die Weltmeister Lasker, Capablanca, Aljechin und Euwe behaupten. Seine Erfolge beim Blindsimultanspiel machten ihn in Europa zum Star mit Kultstatus. Michael Dombrowsky erzählt von seinem aufregenden und tragischen Leben auch abseits der Schachfelder.

384 Seiten, gebunden, 1. Auflage 2023

A Chess Biography of Szymon Winawer

Szymon Winawer was a world top-10 player in the 1870s and 1880s, dueling with such titans as Steinitz, Lasker, Anderssen, Marshall, Chigorin, Zukertort, Louis Paulsen, Janowski, Maroczy, Tarrasch and others, and defeating most of the leading players of his time. He won or took prizes in major international tournaments, including Paris 1867 (second, behind Kolisch and above Steinitz), Leipzig 1877 (fourth, behind Paulsen, Anderssen and Zukertort), Paris 1878 (first equal with Zukertort, though he lost the play-off), Berlin 1881 (third equal with Chigorin, behind Blackburne and Zukertort), Vienna 1882 (first equal with Steinitz), and Nuremberg 1883 (first, ahead of Blackburne).

The Power of Middlegame Knowledge

• Compensation is a chess concept that we only fully understand when we enter the world of serious chess. • The relative value of pieces is perhaps the most difficult chess concept of all to explain. • It is one that every player must feel and believe in and can only be accepted with the help of our own practice, and when we feel it come together as though a part of us.

Life and Games of a World Champion

The games of Mikhail Botvinnik, world chess champion from 1948 to 1963, have been studied by players around the world for decades. But little has been written about Botvinnik himself. This book explores his unusual dual career--as a highly regarded scientist as well as the first truly professional chess player--as well as his complex relations with Soviet leaders, including Josef Stalin, his bitter rivalries, and his doomed effort to create the perfect chess-playing computer program.

Second revised & extended edition

Here is what has been added to this edition: More accurate and more extensive annotations, computer-assisted. Every game has been examined under Stockfish 14, probably the best analytical engine available for home computers at this time. For the first edition we had only Fritz 4 and 5, which compare to Stockfish like a Model T Ford to a Ferrari, and many games were given no computer examination at all.

The Fascinating Games and Tragic Life of...

Almost as fascinating as chess is the community of chess players. In every major city in the world, you are guaranteed to meet interesting people when you walk into a local chess club or chess cafe. This book pays tribute to one of those characters who gave colour to the chess world, the Russian grandmaster Alexey Vyzhmanavin.

Now in Hardcover - limited edition

In this modern chess classic, the great David Bronstein shares his insights in his wonderful games. The revised and expanded edition that was published in 2009, two years after Bronstein passed away, is now released in hardcover. The expanded edition contains additional material, 32 pages of unique photographs, extensive articles by Bronstein himself, and two moving In Memoriams, one by Bronstein’s widow Tatiana Boleslavskaya and one by his co-author and friend Tom Fürstenberg. Winner of The Guardian 2009 Chess Book of the Year Award and The British Chess Federation 1995 Book of the Year Award.

A Chess Memoi

American-Czech Grandmaster Lubomir Kavalek (1943-2021) was a three-time US Chess Champion and one of the best chess writers of the last decades. He reached millions of chess fans with his much-acclaimed columns in the Washington Post and the Huffington Post.