Games, Stories and Instruction

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.

Who Became Chess Champion of the Empire

Hardly anyone paid attention when Sultan Khan arrived in London on April 26, 1929. A humble servant from a village in the Punjab, Khan had little formal education and barely spoke English. He had learned the rules of Western chess only three years earlier, yet within a few months he created a sensation by becoming the British Empire champion.

Hein Donner (1927-1988) was a Dutch Grandmaster and one of the greatest writers on chess of all time. He was born into a prominent Calvinistic family of lawyers in The Hague. His father, who had been the Minister of Justice and later became President of the Dutch Supreme Court, detected a keen legal talent in his son. But Hein opted for a bohemian lifestyle as a chess professional and journalist. He scored several excellent tournament victories but never quite fulfilled the promise of his chess talent.

Revised and Updated Edition

Nearly 30 years since his last chess game, Bobby Fischer´s fame continues to grow. Appearing in Hollywood movies, documentaries and best-selling books, his life and career are as fascinating as they ever were and his games continue to generate discussion.
Indeed, with each new generation of computer, stunning discoveries are made about moves that have been debated by grandmasters for decades.

A Chess Prodigy’s Career in 64 Games

Ivan Bukavshin, born in Rostov-on-Don in 1995, was a Russian chess prodigy. He was European U12, U14 and U16 champion and placed third in the world U16 championships among many other successes, gaining the Grandmaster title at just 16 years of age. Ivan finished third in the Aeroflot Open in 2015, behind Daniil Dubov and Ian Nepomniachtchi, where he put in a performance rating of 2803. Ivan achieved a series of 2700+ performances over 2013-2015. He tragically died in early 2016 at the age of 20.

The Life and Games of Grigory Levenfish

Grigory Levenfish was twice Soviet Champion and drew a match with the great Botvinnik, yet despite his skills, he was never a favoured son of the Soviet Union. Rejected for selection to key events and the only Soviet grandmaster to be denied a stipend in later life, Levenfish was a Soviet Outcast.

Return (2004-2013)

Gata Kamsky was born 2 June 1974 in Siberia, Russia. At the age of six he moved to Leningrad, where he became a student of the renowned trainer Vladimir Zak. He moved to the USA in 1989. He is a graduate of Brooklyn College and the Touro Law Center in New York. He became a grandmaster at the age of sixteen, is a five-time US Champion and six-time US Olympiad team member, was the 1996 FIDE World Champions ip challenger, 2007 FIDE World Cup winner and 2010 World Rapid Chess Champion. He was inducted into the World Chess Hall of Farne in 2016.

"I do not accept an absolute limit to my knowledge. I have a zeal to understand that refuses to die."— Emanuel Lasker, 1919

Among great chess masters, Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941) stands unique for the depth and broad scope of his intellect. Most of the game’s world champions have been single-mindedly chess-obsessed, with few outside interests. Lasker, however, was very much a polymath, making major contributions to mathematics and philosophy, plus writing on many other subjects:

The Man Who Taught America Chess

Fred Reinfeld-his name used to be known to almost every chess player in the United States. Not so well known are his accomplishments. One of the strongest players of his time, he ranked just below Reuben Fine and Samuel Reshevsky (against whom he had a plus score). He was the accomplished author of some of the best chess books of the 1930s and 1940s, and a respected numismatist, recognized as a pioneer in the field. He was an editor or major contributor to almost every major chess magazine through the 1940s-Chess Review, Chess Correspondent and Chess Life .

Selected Games of Igor Kurnosov

This book contains fifty illustrative games and a career overview of Chelyabinsk grandmaster Igor Kurnosov, who was tragically hit and killed by a car in 2013 at the age of just 28. At his last tournament prior to his death, Igor attained a super-grandmaster tournament performance rating in excess of 2700.

Kurnosov left an indelible mark on the chess world - he was a Russian youth champion, a member of the Russian national team that won the world student team championship and the Tomsk-400 team that finished first at the Russian championship. He won or placed highly at dozens of international tournaments.

Romain Edouard, highest rating 2702, has been a member of the French national team since 2011. As a teenager, he won the gold medal at the European U16 Championship in 2006 and silver at the European and World U18 Championships in 2007. He became an IM at the age of 16, GM at 17, French Champion at 21, and has won numerous international events all over the world.

During my chess career I have played almost 4000 classical games, a good deal of them against grandmasters, including world's top players, a number of which I managed to defeat. A lot of these games are interesting and instructive, and studying them will definitely help any player to get new expertise, learn new ideas and therefore improve their chess skill.

A Chess Biography with 499 Games

German master Kurt Richter (1900 - 1969) made significant contributions to the chess world as a player, and as an editor and author. Unassuming in real life, Richter was a fearsome opponent who expressed himself mainly through his over-the-board results, as well as through his chess journalism and literary output. He was responsible for several innovative openings, some of which gained renewed status in later years

The Inside Story of a Chess Genius

Vladimir Kramnik is one of the greatest chess players of all time. From 2000 to 2007, the Russian held the title of Classical World Chess Champion. He contributed significantly to the reunification of the world title, set trends in numerous opening systems, and remains one of the strongest and most influential players on the planet.

Grandmaster Alexei Shirov’s best selling books, Fire on Board and Fire on Board Volume 2 are now brought together in a single volume. ln this collection of his best games from 1983 to 2004, Grandmaster Alexei Shirov shows why he is widely regarded as one of the most aggressive and inventive players of the modern era.