New Releases by Andy Soltis

Frank Marshall (1877-1944) reigned as America''s chess champion from 1907 through 1936--the longest stint of anyone in history. A colorful character almost always decked out in an ascot and chewing a cigar, his career coincided with many evolutionary changes in competitive chess. Marshall was a master gamesman. He took up the game of salta, akin to Chinese checkers, and was soon world champion. But more than anything, he loved chess, claiming that after he learned the game at 10 he played every day for the next 57 years. Marshall''s life and playing style are fully examined here, including 220 of his games (some never before published) with 190 positional diagrams.

The best, the worst, the shortest, the oddest, the longest, the most deceitful, the most memorable, the most brilliant, the dumbest--of players, games, matches, tournaments, books, ideas, etc. The lists are replete with background detail and exact facts--this second edition of Soltis''s classic 1984 book is altogether an essential part of any chess collection and a browser''s delight. The new edition contains 25 percent more lists, games, diagrams and annotations. The majority of lists from the first edition have been updated or expanded--or both.

The rules of "The Greatest Tournament in Chess History," the $20 million Sheldrake Memorial Tournament, a.k.a. Los Voraces 2019, are: no seconds, no agents, no computers, no entourages, no pagers, no power palms, no phone calls--no outside contact of any kind--as the fourteen greatest chess players in the world gather to compete for money and fame. These geniuses of the game are strange characters--including two Russian world champions solely responsible for article 17.1 of FIDE''s Laws of Chess (the "anti-hair-pull rule"), the Rumanian who speaks a "kind of personal Esperanto, using odds and ends of other languages," and a possible member of the Russian mafia--and when the tournament begins with the death of the ninth highest rated player in the world, everyone is under suspicion. This fabulous chess novel is full of game scores and diagrams--some pretty amazing games are played at Los Voraces! It''s all told from the point of view of the arbiter, who is quickly drawn from his role as observer to that of target and suspect. By the time the tournament has only five rounds to go, five corpses have been discovered. Just who is the serial killer with a preference for 2700+ rated grandmasters? This edition is a revision, with illustrations, of a serialized electronic version run by Hanon Russell on ChessCafe from September 2001 to September 2002.

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. The book has more than 85 games, 127 diagrams, twelve photographs, a chronology of his life and career, a bibliography, an index of openings, an index of opponents, and a general index.

This thoroughly updated and revised edition of the highly acclaimed 1986 reference work provides a definitive history of all championship events in the United States through April, 2011. Both the games and the occasions are covered in depth, including biographical details, descriptive settings, anecdotes, tournament drama, unusual games, and grandmaster analysis. Included in this edition are 13 new tournaments, 40 new diagrams and 13 additional crosstables.

In chess, a transposition is a known position reached by a different move order than usual – a less obvious way of getting to somewhere you want to go, leading to confusion for your opponent. Every chess player has a number of them in his arsenal, and they are used most often in openings. There are transpositional tricks in all openings, but this is the first book devoted to them. As the book covers all the key openings variations it can be used by most chess players. The introduction explains what transpositions are and why they''re invaluable, followed by 8 chapters discussing transpositions, illustrated by some notorious examples from top-flight matches. Chapters are divided by opening group – Double e-pawn openings; Sicilian Defense; Other Semi-Open openings; Double e-pawn openings; Indian openings; Other 1 d4 openings; Reti, English, 1 g3. The benefits and drawbacks of each set of move orders are discussed throughout. This is an ideal book for all club players and is written by one of the best chess writers in the world today.

This thoroughly updated and revised edition of the highly acclaimed 1986 reference work provides a definitive history of all championship events in the United States through 1995. Both the games and the occasions are covered in depth, including biographical details, descriptive settings, anecdotes, tournament drama, unusual games, and grandmaster analysis. Filled with quotations from the winners, losers and many others, this is an authoritative and indispensable volume.

Professionals know that during the course of a game, the value of chess pieces change. And they use this knowledge to decide which pieces to exchange--and when. International grandmaster Andrew Soltis, the author of Bobby Fischer Rediscovered, helps pass this important information on to novices so they can benefit, too. He investigates why the traditional "chart of relative values" or computer analysis so often fails to explain why certain trades and sacrifices work and others just don''t. All the typical decisions a player has to make, such as whether to swap two minor pieces for rook and pawn, receive detailed scrutiny. Players will appreciate the insightful analysis.

Compiled by three grandmasters and two international masters this scholarly treatise explains in depth the thinking behind a defence that has been a favourite of champions such as Capablanca, Botvinnik, Petrosian and Karpov. Even Kasparov has been known to use the Caro Kann on occasion, for example in one case to defeat Mikhail Tal.

An "in-depth look at 100 chessboard masterpieces that helped make [Bobby Fischer] a living chess legend."

How does one determine the "best" chess games? What one may see as brilliant, another may see as simply necessary. Like some art lovers, chess fans claim that they know a good game when they see it, and that they know better from good. But "best"? How is this articulated? This book, itself a work of art, is brought together by the use of five criteria: the overall aesthetics (clever and relentless are insufficient qualities); the originality (e.g., not yet another white knight sacrifice in a Sicilian); the level of opposition (the loser played very well); the soundness (i.e., are the moves refutable with perfect play?), accuracy (few of the moves are second-best), and difficulty (the winner overcame major obstacles) of the game; and finally the overall breadth and depth (one wants a series of sparkling ideas, with no dry patches). The 100 best games were taken from an initial field of about 7,000 played from 1900 through 1999 that had already gained some attention in magazines, books and periodicals. Three hundred games were then selected that appeared to have features consistent with the criteria. The 300 games were evaluated with scores-points given for each category of criteria. The games were then ranked, one to 100, by the score they received. No attempt was made to balance the selection according to period, nationality of players or opening. Also included is a chapter on the most overrated games of the twentieth century and one on games that would have made the list if... Includes 335 diagrams, an index of players and an index of openings by ECO codes.

An American grandmaster explains how correct pawn play leads to advantage in the mid-game and ending.

How to use tactics to achieve strategic goals,with many striking examples.,.