This is a completely unabridged reprinting of the last revised edition of the most famous general study of chess ever written. Prepared by an early twentieth-century master, it was designed to teach the beginner and the intermediate player just about everything he needed to know about openings, middle game, and end game. It has never been superseded as the most practical and easily followed book of its sort. It is unusual in presenting both ideas and actual moves (taken from master play) in the most easily assimilated form. Revised and brought up to date by Fred Reinfeld and Sidney Bernstein, this book explains and makes easy for you more than 90 different openings, ranging from the classical Ruy Lopez up to the work of Alekhine, Reti, Nimzovich, and others. Combinations are analyzed and presented so clearly (yet without sacrificing depth) that you will soon find yourself seeing moves ahead more clearly than you did before. You will learn how to plan your game with a purpose, how to attack, sacrifice, defend, exchange, and govern your general strategy. Endings are also thoroughly covered. All in all, there is not an aspect of practical chess that is not treated, and there is hardly a player living below the rank of grandmaster who could not profit form Mason's work. If you follow Mason's exposition thoroughly, you will probably obtain as much knowledge of chess as you could short of making chess a full-time study for years. Bound in with Mason's Art of Chess is an entirely new booklet by Fred Reinfeld, How Do You Play Chess? In this booklet, Mr. Reinfeld uses lively questions and answers to tell novices of the basic fundamentals of the game.

This essential work provides modern explanations of principles, varieties, and techniques of combination maneuvers, plus the ideas behind them. Examples from the games of many great players provide illustrations. 200 diagrams.

The Art of the Game of Chess is the first English translation of Fr. Ruy López’s 1561 book about chess, Libro de la invención liberal y arte del juego del ajedrez. López was a priest who served as King Philip II’s confessor and royal advisor. As a connoisseur of chess, King Philip II promoted the game in his court, and it did not take long for López to become known as Spain’s and one of Europe’s greatest chess players. López is widely acclaimed as one of the most influential chess thinkers of all time whose theories of chess are an integral part of how chess is played today. Academics, including historians, linguists, sociologists, and Hispanists, as well as non-academics, especially chess enthusiasts, will appreciate this translation, which opens with a Foreword by Andrew Soltis, who is a Grandmaster and a United States Chess Hall of Fame Inductee, and includes a critical introduction and more than 275 footnotes.

"The beauty of a game of chess is usually appraised, and with good reason, according to the sacrifices it contains. On principle we incline to rate a sacrificial game more highly than a positional game. Instinctively we place the moral value above the scientific. We honor Capablanca, but our hearts beat higher when Morphy’s name is mentioned." — Introduction. Perhaps the strongest Austrian-born grandmaster of the20th century, Rudolf Spielmann (1883–1942) defeated such world-class opponents as Nimzovich, Tartakower, Bogoljubov — and even the great Capablanca. Among the reasons for his success was his mastery of the art of sacrifice. In this ground-breaking classic, distilled from 40 years of tournament play, he outlines the hard-won lessons that enable a player to win games by giving up pieces! Drawing on dozens of his own games against such topflight players as Schlechter, Tartakower, Bogoljubov, Reti, Rubinstein and Tarrasch, Spielmann describes and analysis various type of sacrifices: (positional, for gain, mating) and real sacrifices: (for development, obstructive, preventive, line-clearance, vacating, deflecting and more). The result was the first systematic attempt to explain and exploit the theory of chess sacrifice; it remains an extremely helpful and useful weapon in the arsenal of chess players at every level.

Schafroth explores the historical development of the game of chess, and chess pieces as both art forms and reflections of the cultures which produced them. The author includes worldwide collections of chess pieces, with particular focus on the diverse collection of some 300 sets at the Maryhill Museum of Art in Goldendale, Washington. The text is academic, but accessible to the general reader interested in chess, history, and art and culture. Lavishly illustrated with color photographs. The author's credentials are not stated. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR