Vinay Bhat rose through the ranks of American chess in the 1990s and 2000s, overcoming plateaus, competitive challenges, and academic and professional commitments, before achieving the highest title in chess. Follow Vinay’s path to improvement and the struggles he had to go through, to carve out your own path to improvement and achieve your chess goals.
How I Became a Chess Grandmaster is a personal story that entertains as it instructs. With numerous photographs and anecdotes, you can follow the inspirational rise of a young player from novice to Grandmaster.
Vinay Bhat became a National Master at the age of 10 and an International Master at 15 – at the time the youngest American IM since Bobby Fischer. He later went on to gain the ultimate title of Grandmaster in his mid-twenties.
Almost as fascinating as chess is the community of chess players. In every major city in the world, you are guaranteed to meet interesting people when you walk into a local chess club or chess cafe. This book pays tribute to one of those characters who gave colour to the chess world, the Russian grandmaster Alexey Vyzhmanavin.
The best chance to bump into Vyzhmanavin in the 1980s and early 1990s was in Sokolniki park in Moscow, playing blitz. You could meet him at the 1992 Chess Olympiad as a member of the winning Russian team. Or in the finals of the PCA rapid events of the 1990s, frequently outplaying his illustrious opponents with his fluent and enterprising style. In Moscow in 1994, he reached the semi-final, narrowly losing out to Vladimir Kramnik, having already beaten Alexei Shirov and Viktor Korchnoi. Commentating at a PCA event, Maurice Ashley described Vyzhmanavin in predatory terms: ‘He’s a dangerous one, looking like a cat, ready to pounce.
For this book, grandmaster Dmitry Kryakvin has talked to dozens of people, enabling him to give a complete picture of Vyzhmanavin’s life. The result is a mix of fascinating chess, wonderful anecdotes, and some heartbreaking episodes. The stories are complemented by the memories of Vyzmanavin’s ex-wife Lyudmila. They revive his successes but also reveal the dark side of this forgotten chess genius who battled with depression and the ‘green serpent’, a Russian euphemism for alcoholism. He died in January 2000 at the age of forty, in circumstances that remain unclear. The stories and games in this book are his legacy.
Dmitry Kryakvin is an International Grandmaster from Russia and an experienced chess trainer and author. For New In Chess he wrote Attacking with g2-g4: The Modern Way to Get the Upper Hand in Chess.
No other chess tournament has such a long and rich history as the annual gathering 'in between the years' at the English seaside resort of Hastings. Countless chess players, professionals, and amateurs alike have celebrated Christmas and welcomed the New Year in Hastings while battling it out on the chessboard.
German FM Jürgen Brustkern has been making the annual pilgrimage to Hasting ever since 1977. Together with his compatriot Norbert Wallet, he describes the tournament's fascinating history and portrays forty of the most colourful participants.
The stories begin in 1895 when the young American Harry Pillsbury shocked the European chess elite with his victory, and they span 125 years. In this book, you will meet the strongest female players of all time, Vera Menchik, Nona Gaprindashvili, and Judit Polgar. You will get to know the mysterious Sultan Khan and the unorthodox Michael Basman and enjoy anecdotes about Mikhail Tal, Viktor Kortchnoi, and his rival Anatoly Karpov. How many World Champions came to Hastings? How expensive was the Golden Knight trophy that Lajos Portisch won? What was the effect of the British Chess Explosion?
This collection of games and stories is enjoyed best in the dark days between Christmas and New Year's Eve, after a stroll on the beach, immersed in the spirit of Hastings. 'Should I trade my Romantic style for the modern way and only hunt for points?', Nicolas Rossolimo is quoted as asking himself. 'No, I won't. I will fight for chess as an art form.'
The rivalry between William Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort, the world's strongest chess players in the late nineteenth century, became so fierce that it was eventually named The Ink War. They fought their battle on the chessboard and in various chess magazines and columns. It was not only about who was the strongest player but also about who had the best ideas on how to play the game.
In 1872, Johannes Zukertort moved from Berlin to London to continue his chess career. Ten years earlier, William Steinitz had moved from Vienna to London for the same purpose; meanwhile, he had become the uncrowned champion of the chess world. Their verbal war culminated in the first match for the World Championship in 1886.
Zukertort is certainly the tragic protagonist of this book, but is he also a romantic hero? He has often been depicted as a representative of romantic chess, solely focusing on attacking the king. Steinitz is said to have put an end to this lopsided chess style with his modern scientific school. This compelling story shakes up the traditional version of chess history and answers the question which of them can claim to be the captain of the modern school.
With his first book, Move First, Think Later, International Master Willy Hendriks caused a minor revolution in the general view on chess improvement. His second book, On the Origin of Good Moves, presented a refreshing new outlook on chess history. In The Ink War, Hendriks once again offers his unique perspective in a well-researched story that continues to captivate until the tragic outcome. It gives a wonderful impression of the 19th-century chess world and the birth of modern chess. Hendriks invites the reader to actively think along with the beautiful, instructive and entertaining chess fragments with many chess exercises.
American-Czech Grandmaster Lubomir Kavalek (1943-2021) was a three-time US Chess Champion and one of the best chess writers of the last decades. He reached millions of chess fans with his much-acclaimed columns in the Washington Post and the Huffington Post.
Kavalek could speak from experience as he had played with or met all the chess greats of the last century. He assisted Bobby Fischer during the legendary Match of the Century in 1972, and in later years, he was the second of Nigel Short and Jan Timman. He also was the tournament director of the prestigious World Cup organized by the Grandmasters Association. But first and foremost, he was an elite player, winning countless tournaments and brilliancy prizes.
Kavalek rose spectacularly fast to the rank of grandmaster. With attractive and sharp play, he twice won the national championship in his native Czechoslovakia. In 1968, after the Soviet invasion had ended the Prague Spring, he fled his home country and eventually settled in the United States with his wife Irena.
At the end of his life, Lubosh Kavalek started writing his memoirs. With humour, wit and passion, he put on paper the compelling story of his adventurous life and rich chess career. When he passed away in 2021, he had all but finished the book he had been working on with the Czech-American writer Jan Novak.
Kavalek’s memoir makes for compelling reading and evokes his fascinating journey in life and the chess world. His story is supplemented by more than fifty of his best games, many with Kavalek’s entertaining comments.
In this revealing self-portrait of Abhimanyu Mishra, he tells the story of a highly ambitious family project. Supported by his father, mother and sister, Abhi sets out to beat a nineteen-year-old world record. He wants to become the Youngest Chess Grandmaster in the World.
In June 2021, at the height of the Covid pandemic, he succeeds against all odds.
Abhi was born on February 5, 2009. On June 30, 2021, he became the youngest grandmaster in the world at 12 years 4 months and 25 days.
In this book, he explains the extraordinary training methods of his father, who not only helped Abhi develop his talents and fighting spirit but also selected his professional chess coaches to constantly improve his skills. Together they travelled from New Jersey to Budapest, Hungary, for the last part of the journey – a non-stop barrage of chess games to secure the necessary results.
‘The pressure was immense both for me and my opponent. It was a dead equal game and I decided to sacrifice my Knight for a pawn. It was right at this moment that my opponent gave in to the severe time pressure and ended up making a mistake. After a few moves, GM Leon resigned. I had won the game. I went out and saw Bapu waiting for me. I rushed to him and gave him a big hug. I had become the youngest Grandmaster in the entire world. I had beaten a nineteen-year-old world record. I should have been jumping with excitement, but my heart was so full that I ended up teary-eyed in the arms of my father.’
Abhimanyu Mishra (born February 5, 2009) is an American chess prodigy from New Jersey. On June 30, 2021, he became the youngest grandmaster in the world at the of 12 years 4 months and 25 days, beating a nineteen year old record.
The World Championship match between Fischer and Spassky in Reykjavik 1972 was played at the height of the Cold War. The image of a lone American genius defeating the Soviet machine captivated a worldwide audience unlike anything else in chess history. Exactly fifty years later, Fischer – Spassky 1972 takes a fresh look at both the chess and the human aspects of this monumental match.
Bobby Fischer is one of the greatest chess players of all time. His astonishing journey up to the 1972 match was documented in The Road to Reykjavik. In this volume, award-winning author Tibor Karolyi completes his study of Fischer’s career with in-depth analysis of the legendary Reykjavik match and the controversial Fischer – Spassky 1992 rematch.
International Master Tibor Karolyi is a renowned author and trainer from Hungary. His biographical works for Quality Chess have received glowing praise from readers and reviewers.
In "The Duel", Alessandro Bossi and Claudio Brovelli go deep into the lives of these two legendary World Champions, who have left their mark in an unforgettable manner on their epoch (the first forty years of the 20th century) and who remain – in part, due to their very different personalities and relationship with the game – inimitable examples for all the chess-playing generations to come. The choice to present in parallel the two biographies (in my opinion quite rightly so), shows clearly and effectively similarities and differences, not only in the style of play, but also in the approaches to life of the two protagonists. With very precise historical descriptions and presenting the events in chronological order, the authors accompany us on a journey alongside the lives of these two legends of chess. In this fashion the personalities emerge, in many ways antithetical but equally fascinating: Capablanca, friendly and charming in society, precocious, genial and nearly invincible on the chessboard, and Alekhine, who combined a wonderful talent with a capacity for work, a competitive attitude and an energy which was truly enviable.
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. It describes the careers and life stories, based on archival documents and witness testimony, of Soviet chess composers, players and famous amateurs who were repressed by the Soviet authorities, ending up either executed or sent to the Gulag. Featured names include Lazar Zalkind, Arvid Kubbel, Vladimirs Petrovs, Petr Izmailov, Georgy Schneideman, Nikolai Krylenko and Natan Sharansky, among many others. The theoretical contribution to the history of composition is one key theme in this work.
The Lubyanka Gambit also looks in detail at the historical context of the purges of chess players and describes how chess was played by prisoners in the Gulags and internal exile. Perhaps the icing on the cake is provided by Grodzensky’s personal memories of the Soviet Union’s foremost Gulag writers Alexander Solzhenitsyn (his schoolteacher) and Varlam Shalamov (his father’s close friend). This book contains 72 full games and fragments analyzed by the participants, contemporaries, the author and other leading players, as well as 145 computer-checked compositions.
Our short life together was fun, fascinating and happy. I accompanied my husband to chess tournaments. We traveled a lot, saw a lot, met the most interesting people. Meeting Alekhine, Euwe, Flohr, Capablanca, Keres was unforgettable. We became friends with many of them. Now, when I turn the pages of my life and remember my family, which was obliterated so ruthlessly, the old wounds open again and start bleeding.
This book tells the story of one of the most enigmatic and tragic figures in chess history – the Latvian grandmaster Vladimirs Petrovs (1908 – 1943). His name was struck out of chess literature for decades. His games and biography are largely unknown to the public – even though Petrovs defeated Alekhine, Fine, Reshevsky, Boleslavsky and many other great players of the past, gained prizes at supertournaments including joint first at the famous Kemeri 1937 tournament, and performed strongly for Latvia at chess Olympiads. According to the Chessmetrics website, Petrovs was ranked no. 14 in the world in November 1938, and his performance at Kemeri 1937 was 2709. He had a 2.5-2.5 lifetime score against Alekhine.
In the first part of this book, grandmaster and chess historian Dmitry Kryakvin instructively analyzes Petrovs’ career through 52 games and fragments. As well as the above players, opponents include Smyslov, Euwe, Bogoljubov, Keres, Stahlberg, Flohr, Spielmann, and many other global stars of pre-war chess. In the second part, Petrovs’ widow Galina Petrova-Matisa recounts the tragic fate of her husband and family members and her search for the truth of what happened to Petrovs. She further provides biographical details of their short, blissful family life for four-and-a-half years, including unforgettable meetings with the world’s strongest chess players and their families. The work contains a large number of rare family and tournament photos.
Joel Benjamin is one of the most prominent faces in the history of US chess. At thirteen years of age he broke Bobby Fischer's record as the youngest ever national master, and this was followed by countless tournament successes. Perhaps most famously, in 1997 he hit the headlines when he became the chess consultant for IBM's Deep Blue computer, which made history by beating World Champion Garry Kasparov in an epic encounter.
In American Grandmaster, Benjamin takes the reader on a journey through chess adventures spanning more than thirty years. Tracing through his own career, from being a prodigy in the 'Fischer boom' era thorough to an experienced Grandmaster with many titles, Benjamin is in a unique position to highlight the major changes that have occurred both in US and international chess throughout the last four decades.
Ljubomir Ljubojević belongs to a generation of extraordinary chessplayers, whose most outstanding representative is Anatoly Karpov.
Ljubojević reached number 3 in the world rankings and a potential candidate for the world title.
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.
At the start of his career Ljubojević was notable for his dynamic and original style but his play gradually became more rounded and positionally refined.
As usual, Franco is keen to highlight the practical aspects of competitive chess, since we are playing, not against computers, but against human beings like ourselves, who make mistakes, like or dislike the position, get tired etc.