The Inside Story of the Legendary 1972 WCC

When the Icelandic Chess Federation made a bid to host the 1972 world title match between Soviet icon Boris Spassky and American challenger Bobby Fischer, many Icelanders were rightly shaking their heads in disbelief. How could their small island country in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with a population of less than 300 thousand people stage such a prestigious event in the first place?

(aktualisierte und erweiterte Neuausgabe)

Der Weg zur Steigerung der eigenen Fähigkeiten liegt mit diesem Buch in Ihren Händen: Profitieren Sie von den kommentierten Partien des amtierenden Weltmeisters Magnus Carlsen!

Wer viel weiss, will noch mehr wissen. Diese Maxime gilt ganz besonders für die zahlreichen Schachfreunde weltweit. Das Eintauchen in die Kommentare und wichtigsten Partien des amtierenden Weltmeisters Magnus Carlsen bietet wertvolle Erkenntnisse und Steigerungspotential für das eigene Spiel.

Life stories, games and compositions

First published in Russian in 2004 and now available in English for the first time, The Lubyanka Gambit is a classic work investigating the darkest side of chess history in the Soviet Union. It is the culmination of nearly two decades of research by Correspondence Chess Grandmaster, historian and human rights campaigner Sergei Grodzensky, whose own father was sent to the Gulag in Stalin's times.

Mikhail Tal is one of the most celebrated World Champions in chess history, who confounded his opponents and dazzled chess fans around the world. Seemingly breaking every rule in the book, yet also breaking records with his accomplishments, Tal truly was The Chess Alchemist .

A Journey Through the World of Chess Improvemen

I was once dismissive of the attempts by amateur players to improve. To me it seemed too obvious – you either had it or you hadn’t. Talent was ultimately all that mattered. All my writing on chess was really for myself. If amateur players couldn’t follow, tough.

The book consists of forty of his best games, played between 1970 and 2008, annotated in the “Move by Move” format, with questions and exercises, a method which is effective both for training and teaching.

I found strange that there are almost no books about his games, because Ljubojevi\'e6 reached number 3 in the world rankings and he was a potential candidate for the world title.

From Steinitz to the 21st Century

"I as though traced the evolution of chess thought and repeated its basic steps in my own development … convinced that any player with high ambition should follow such a path" - Vassily Smyslov, 125 Selected Games (1983)

“Playing against him was always interesting: he was an exciting and creative player.” - Anatoly Karpov, 12th world champion

Kupreichik: The Maestro from Minsk features tributes to the legendary attacker from those who regularly faced him at the board, including Alexander Beliavsky, Oleg Romanishin, Evgeny Sveshnikov and Vladimir Tukmakov. Kupreichik also inspired the next generation, as the contributions of Boris Gelfand, Garry Kasparov, Andrey Kovalev and Rauf Mamedov reveal.

Wer Gerhard Richter kennt, der weiß, welche Bedeutung das Schachspiel in seinem Leben hatte und hat. Es ist eine Passion, die er mit vielen Menschen teilt.

Fast jede Partie, die Gerhard Richter gespielt hat, ist Teil einer Geschichte. Richter erinnert sich an Umstände, Gesichtsausdrücke, Kommentare. Er weiß, wie ihm und anderen zumute war.

"Chess is not for the faint of heart," Steinitz once said. I agree 100%!

Chess players do not need pumped up muscles, they need a stable neuropsychic organization. How else can you resist the constant pressure that every nerve cell of the player experiences? I don’t always like this constant struggle with the stress that hangs over you, especially when you are wrong in a winning position.

..to Enemy of the People

Petr Izmailov was considered to be one of the top four players of the Soviet Union in 1929 according to Yuri Averbakh, and he was ranked around number 50 in the world at the time based on Chessmetrics methodology. Izmailov won the 1928 Championship of Soviet Russia, reached the last four of the 1929 Soviet Championship, and had a 2/2 lifetime score against Botvinnik. He was a regular winner of Siberian regional and city championships as well as a pioneer in some openings, playing a line similar to the Makogonov Attack against the King’s Indian more than ten years before Makogonov himself.

Ian Nepomniachtchi’s 30 Best Wins

Ian Nepomniachtchi’s road from Grandmaster to becoming Magnus Carlsen’s world championship challenger in 2021 was a long one.

GM in 2007 and Russian champion for the first time in 2010, Ian only hit the elite in recent years. His victory in Ekaterinburg occurred at his very first candidates tournament. In this book Grandmaster Zenon Franco analyzes Nepo’s chess through his 30 best wins and several fragments, considering his style, his strengths, as well as his weaknesses and how he has overcome them

Ein Schachbuch von Dilettanten für Dilettanten

Robert Hübner ist immer für Überraschungen gut. Neben vielen Aufsätzen und gelegentlichen Vorträgen deutete dies bereits sein Erstlingswerk Fünfunfünzig feiste Fehler von 1990 an. Er ist wohl der einzige deutschsprachige Autor, der es nicht nur liebt, sondern auch versteht, fundierte Schachanalysen hin und wieder mit einer Prise hintergründigem und zuweilen skurrilem Humor zu würzen, ohne dabei den Bezug zur Lebenswirklichkeit zu verlieren. Das ist auch bei seinem neuesten Werk mit dem Titel SCHUND der Fall.

Introduction

Half a century ago I left a country, the red color of which dominated a large portion of the world map. One way or another, the fate of almost every single person described in this book is forever linked with that now none-existent empire. Many of them ended up beyond its borders too. Cultures and traditions, and certainly not least of all a Soviet mentality, couldn’t have just left them without a trace. Having been transplanted into a different environment, they had to play the role of themselves apart from certain corrections with regard to the tastes and customs of a new society. Nevertheless, every one of them, both those who left the Soviet Union, and those who stayed behind, were forever linked by one common united phenomenon: they all belonged to the Soviet school of chess.

A Memoir of Players, Games and Engines

Larry Kaufman can safely be called an exceptional chess grandmaster

Larry Kaufman started out as a prodigy, however not in chess but as a whizz kid in science and math. He excels at shogi (Japanese chess) and Go, and is also a world-famous computer programmer and a highly successful option trader. Remarkably, as a chess player he only peaked at the weirdly late age of fifty.