Sac "Eat Sleep Chess"

The seconds tick down relentlessly toward zero just as your game approaches the critical stage. Your higher-rated opponent is putting your game under severe pressure, so extreme accuracy is needed to hang tough and avoid falling into a losing position. What do you do now – should you exchange pieces to relieve the pressure, lash out with a sacrifice, probe for weaknesses in the opponent's camp, or maybe just give up and get a lesson on how to bring the point home?

The answer is… none of these! At such do-or-die moments, says Steve Hrop, the first thing to do is to sit on your hands and take a few deep breaths. In Defending Under Pressure and Managing Your Emotions at the Chessboard, the author uses critical moments from his own tournament games (most of them against players rated above 2200) to describe the difficulties of thinking straight when the enemy is at the gates, and then outlines methods and techniques to clear your head, evaluate the position, and find your way to the best move. Techniques include how to avoid redundant pieces that critically limit your mobility; when visualization is more important than calculation: and “freeze-framing” positions to eliminate blunders.

Save the draw – or turn a looming defeat into an astonishing victory – with the tips in this practical training manual! 236 pages

Pièces Staunton Meghdoot en sheesham (palissandre indien) triple plombage, feutrées cuir. Ces pièces conviennent à un échiquier dont les cases mesurent 55 ou 60 mm.

"For me, a draw is not a result at all. If the game develops normally, I never think about a draw. I always think about playing to win. I blame all chess players who play chess to make draw and thus degrade this ancient game!"

"I like fast, "rocket" chess and always play to win. It seems to me that chess was invented precisely to have winners and losers. If someone offers me a draw, I take it as an insult."

"I start every game with the firm intention of finishing it with, or on, the shield!"

"One pawn more or less. I have 8 of them, don't I?"

"I am very pleasant to talk to and very unpleasant to play chess with!"  307 pages Hardcover

There are many secrets in chess, knowledge of which distinguishes a chess virtuoso from an amateur. One of these secrets is the ability to play positions with opposite-colored bishops.

Why is it so important? The point is that the presence of opposite-colored bishops is not always a sign of an impending draw. Due to a number of factors, one of the bishops may turn out to be stronger than its opposite number. This can lead to a successful attack, material gains or obtaining some other advantages that contribute to winning the game.

Grandmaster Alexey Bezgodov has written a book analyzing 174 endgame positions with opposite-colored bishops as training material for advanced players who wish to deepen their endgame skills. Endgame theory, tactics and strategy are all covered, and this will help strong improvers to grind out wins instead of draws, and to avoid losing in difficult positions. Most positions are taken from modern games, and they mostly feature world champions and top grandmasters, including Carlsen, Anand, Kramnik, Kasparov, Karpov, Fischer, Tal, Korchnoi, Andersson, Shirov, Gelfand, Caruana, Nepomniachtchi, and others.

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.

In this unique book, Oleg Stetsko has compiled 80 of Tal’s most interesting games, as annotated by the Magician himself in a variety of sources, many of which have been translated into English for the very first time here.

Mikhail Tal became World Champion in 1960 by defeating the great Mikhail Botvinnik. Tal’s play is famed for its sacrificial brilliance, and he is also renowned as a witty and lively writer. 384 pages

Voici l'oiseau rare, un jeu accessible aux très jeunes enfants mais auquel les adultes peuvent jouer sans s'ennuyer. Des poulets courent en rond en essayant de s'arracher mutuellement des plumes. Pour ce faire, il faut d'abord se placer derrière l'adversaire puis le dépasser. La grande astuce, c'est que les déplacements ne s'effectuent pas à l'aide de dés, mais via un système inspiré du célèbre Memory (des tuiles retournées portent des symboles identiques aux cases de la piste, et il faut les retrouver pour avancer). Ajoutons que les retournements de situation sont permanents et qu'aucun joueur n'est sûr de gagner, ni surtout de perdre, jusqu'au dernier instant...