Chess is a mental game, but you don't have to strain your brain to learn the basics—not with this guide that shows you how to play. Teach Yourself VISUALLY Chess covers how to set up the board, how each piece moves, opening strategies and variations, attacking themes and common sacrifices, and more. Photos of the board let you see strategies in action. For hands-on practice, you can even set up your board and make your moves as you learn. With this book and practice, you'll be saying "Checkmate" in no time.
My Daily Exercise - $39.95
365 Tactical Tests to Improve Your Chess
by
Heinz Brunthaler
The fastest way to win more games of chess is to improve your
tactics.
A few minutes a day with My Daily Exercise will make you a much better player.
Most games of chess are decided through tactics. This is good news, since virtually all players love tactics. The best advice for a novice who wants to improve quickly is therefore: improve your tactical abilities. This books helps in identifying weak points in the position of your opponent, in recognizing patterns of combinations, and in visualizing tricks.
My Daily Exercise is neither just a
freewheeling puzzle book, nor a systematic course in which the thematic grouping
of the positions gives an unwelcome hint to the solution. Here the tactical
themes are clearly explained, but the random order in which the exercises are
presented, makes studying the material much more similar to what a player
experiences in an actual tournament game.
Tactics are both the wonder and the terror of chess, and regular practice is the
key word in getting better at it. The book starts easy, but don’t worry: the
level of difficulty will steadily increase. Don’t skip the explanation if you
have found the solution, because only if you read the solutions carefully you
will maximize the improvement of your skills.
The way in which Heinz Brunthaler, a successful coach and author from Germany, has listed the solutions makes it impossible to take a peek at the key moves of the next exercise. My Daily Exercise is particularly useful during commercial breaks in your favorite television program!
Rybka
2.3 UCI & Chess Openings 2007 - $75.00| |
Rybka 2.3 is for sure the strongest playing program in the
world with the unique game style. The main developer of the
program - international master Vasik Rajlich ( Hungary ) has
inserted the algorithms of positional estimation into it which are
as close to the chess-player's style of thinking as possible.
Rybka 2.3 UCI & Chess Openings 2007 is a standalone program which includes an advanced interface:
Chess Opening Encyclopedia 2007 includes rich theoretical material on all the openings, more than 8,000 annotations from GM Kalinin and 500,000 expert evaluations to key opening positions. The theoretical material is presented in a familiar form of the encyclopedic table and allows you to replay the opening lines on the chessboard. As well as all of this you can add engine Rybka 2.3 UCI to the main chess programs e.g. Fritz, Chess Assistant 9, Shredder and free interface Arena. Rybka 2.3 UCI includes versions for 32 Bit and 64 Bit processors. Ratings according to CEGT on February (40 moves in 20 minutes): 1. Rybka 2 - 3028 System requirements: IBM-compatible PC, 128 MB RAM, Hard Disk (1 GB of free disk space), VGA graphics, Windows 2000/NT/XP/Vista. |
Andrew Martin is 47 years old and lives in Sandhurst, England, with his wife and four children. He has written several best-selling chess books, including the recent ‘King’s Indian Battle Plans’ and ‘Secret Weapons’. He writes for ChessPublishing.com and has several monthly columns at chessville.com, JeremySilman.com and for CHESS magazine. He is a noted trainer and coach.
System requirements: Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows XP, Windows Vista, DVD drive, mouse, soundcard
Chess Endgames 4 – Strategical Endgames -
$49.95
In the fourth
volume of the endgame series a lot of themes with more material are included
like rook and minor piece vs rook (and minor piece), rook vs two minor pieces,
double rook endings, queen and knight vs queen and bishop, the bishop pair and
endgame principles. Typical topics are: the so called Fischer endgame rook and
bishop vs rook and knight, which occurs quite frequently in practical play and
is very often favourable for rook and bishop; with opposite coloured bishops the
presence of one rook each greatly increases the winning chances of the attacker
compared to the pure opposite coloured bishop endgame (see DVD 1); when are
queen and knight stronger than queen and bishop; which drawing methods exist in
the pawnless endgame rook and bishop vs rook, which is quite often won over the
board. Those who have always found studying endgames with chess textbooks too
dry and tedious will enjoy this DVD with its comfortable training system and
benefi t enormously – in brilliant endgames at the actual board. Complete video
running time: approx. 6 hours.
Since 1988 grandmaster Dr. Karsten Mueller from Hamburg plays for the Hamburger Schachklub in the Bundesliga and in 1996 and 1997 he fi nished third in the German Championship. As an internationally renowned endgame expert he is the author of the endgame column in the ChessBase magazine and the author of the Endgame Corner column on ChessCafe.com. His book „Fundamental Chess Endings“, which he co-authored with Frank Lamprecht and which was published in 2001 by Gambit is already considered to be a modern classic.
System requirements: Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Media Player 9.0, DVD drive