Thiteca - Exercices de tactique (combinaisons - études - finales - mats) du niveau débutant à expert

While today, Reginald Pryce Michell (1873-1938) is largely forgotten, he was a quiet giant of his time. A leading British master, he beat all nationally leading players from Blackburne and Atkins to Golombek, as well as internationally renowned players such as Bogoljubow, Reti and Sultan Khan, and drew former, reigning, and future world champions such as Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe, and Botwinnik.
His best individual result was in Margate 1923, where he shared second place with Alekhine and Bogoljubow. As a team player, Michell was part of the team that won bronze in the 1927 Chess Olympiad.
In 1947, Julius Du Mont, then editor of British Chess Magazine, wrote a biography on Michell with a selection of his games. The annotations to the original game selection have been considerably expanded, and another thirty thoroughly annotated games have been added by Carsten Hansen. 313 pages

Après l'incroyable succès du jeu Les piliers de la terre inspiré du roman de Ken Follett, Filosofia vous propose l'adaptation pour deux joueurs de ce classique littéraire et ludique !

Angleterre, fin du XIIème siècle. Le conflit entre le prieur Philip et l'évêque Waleran prend de l'ampleur. Tandis que Philip s'affaire à la construction de la cathédrale de Kingsbridge, Waleran entreprend d'ériger une imposante forteresse en symbole de sa puissance. Les deux adversaires s'affrontent afin de collecter les matériaux nécessaires et de s'entourer des meilleurs artisans possibles pour parvenir à leur but. En se reposant sur le soutien de leurs alliés les plus fidèles, peut-être parviendront-ils à terminer leur œuvre avant leur concurrent !

Rudolf Spielmann was one of the strongest chess players in the world in the first half of the 20th century. Following his shared second place at the Carlsbad tournament in 1929 with Capablanca, half a point behind Nimzowitsch, he was considered one of the world's top five. His career spread over four decades and included a host of tournament and match victories, such as defeating Bogoljubov over ten games in 1932.

Often known as the Last Romantic in chess with his predilection for the King's Gambit and Vienna Game and love of sacrifices, he bequeathed a rich legacy of ideas and techniques. These combinational and positional master classes are examined here in 213 instructional games and fragments, organized thematically in a way similar to Grigory Bogdanovich's previous volumes on Bogoljubov.

Detailed commentary is provided on games against leading contemporaries. Opponents in this work include five world champions Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe, and Botvinnik, as well as Marshall, Janowski, Tarrasch, Tartakower, Nimzowitsch, Reti, Rubinstein, Romanovsky, Bogoljubov, and many others. Bogdanovich's commentary is richly supplemented by that of stars of the epoch and, above all, of Spielmann himself.

The book further contains a biographical sketch and is supplemented by a large number of tournament photographs and portraits. Spielmann's life was ultimately tragic - a lonely death in Sweden aged just 59 as a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany following the demise three years earlier of his sponsor, while several family members failed to escape the Holocaust.

Additional materials in the book include a detailed table of tournaments and matches from his career, as well as a translation of Spielmann's fascinating article dating to 1923 called "From the Sickbed of the King's Gambit". 460 pages

La bible du backgammon enfin disponible en français. Au backgammon, comme dans tous les grands jeux de réflexion, une position présente des forces, des faiblesses, des potentialités qu'il faut savoir reconnaître et utiliser. A cet aspect positionnel, les dés ajoutent une part d'incertitude qui rend ce jeu unique, où compréhension stratégique et maîtrise des probabilités doivent aller de conserve. Ce premier tome commence par exposer les règles, avant de présenter les concepts de base (course, holding game, blitz et primes) à travers quatre parties-types. Quelques notions simples sur les ouvertures et le videau complètent cette partie qui suffira au bonheur du joueur occasionnel. La fin du volume traite de concepts stratégiques (constructeurs, flexibilité, diversification...) et tactiques (blots forcés) nettement plus ambitieux, à aborder donc en liaison avec le second tome.