Master chess psychologist Amatzia Avni outlines a new approach to playing chess – be tricksy about your game, bend the rules where possible and always come out on top! Players of all abilities are urged, step-by-step, to unlearn everything they've learned so far and adopt a fearless attitude to the game. Every tip for bending the rules is included here with comprehensive illustrated games. Includes: The Nature of Tricky Chess: Virgin land • Raising the tension to boiling point • Coffeehouse chess • Not so elementary, my dear Watson • Peculiar moves Principled Issues of 'Tricky Chess': Twists and turns • The trap vs blunder dilemma • Methods of conducting 'tricky chess' Illustrative Games Assesment and Implementation: Evaluation of tricksy chess • Transforming into a 'tricky chess' player

Chess, the ancient strategy game, meets the latest, cutting-edge philosophy in this unique book. When 12 philosophers weigh in on one of the world's oldest and most beloved pastimes, the results are often surprising. Philosophical concepts as varied as phenomenology and determinism share the page with a treatise on hip-hop chess tactics and the question of whether Garry Kasparov is, in fact, a cyborg. Putting forth a remarkable array of different views on chess from philosophers with varied chess-proficiency, Philosophy Looks at Chess is an engaging read for chess adherents and the philosophically inclined alike.

Mr Holmes, save my sister from whatever nameless horror has just driven this friend of ours to her death! It is late on a foggy November afternoon and a desperate young woman arrives at Baker Street, imploring Sherlock Holmes to help her. She is terrified about what may be going on inside a secretive London refuge for Russian exiles, where her sister works. And so begins a frightening case which deeply strains both Holmes and Watson because of dreadful consequences of failure and the mystifying nature of the forces against them. The case leads into strange territory. Into the circles of Victorian London's radicals and idealists, where early feminists and socialists rub shoulders with exiled foreign revolutionaries. To a utopian anarchist commune in Essex wilderness, which imitates Tolstoy's farm communes in Russia. Into the dark political world from which London’s Russian exiles have fled. The trail leads on - to one shocking discovery after another, as Holmes unravels a conspiracy as evil and twisted as a labyrinth in hell. Lengthwise, The Case of the Russian Chessboard totals three original Sherlock Holmes Short Stories. Narrated by Dr Watson, the tale respects Sherlock Holmes traditions and 1890s historical facts. Mingling mystery with gaslight, it offers a gripping, atmospheric and thought-provoking read.

With tongue in cheek and laughter aforethought, Jerry Sohl takes his readers on a merry romp through all the deceits and tricks of one-upmanship as it is practiced in the game of chess. Drawing from his own experiences, he sets out in amusing detail a host of put-offs, come-ons, psychological maneuverings, lures, and frauds to accomplish checkmate. All illustrated with drawings by artist Roy Schlemme. The author's inventiveness is limitless. All kinds of ploys are carefully described: the amazing effectiveness of reverse polarity; adopting some of Bobby Fischer's tactics; the Freudian gambit; the Blencher; the Hassled Castle; befuddling rule fanatics; talking your way to victory; coffeehouse counter-gambits; when and how to lose; advanced duplicity; and chess of the last resort. TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1: THE FIRST MOVE 2: PRELIMINARIES AND PREPARATIONS 3: THE PROPER SPIRIT 4: HOW TO TALK A GOOD GAMBIT 5: HOW TO BEFUDDLE RULE FANATICS 6: HOW TO PLAY AGAINST WEIRDOS 7: COFFEEHOUSE CHESS COUNTERGAMBITS 8: WHEN TO LOSE 9: ADVANCED DUPLICITY 10: DESPERATE MOVES CHESS OF THE LAST RESORT APPENDIX: USEFUL TRIVIA

Willie Doyle is not the genius everyone thinks he is. After he fails the primary certificate in 1952 and is denied access to any secondary school in Ireland, his annoyed mother abandons him at an exclusive boarding school in Dublin and forces the priests to adopt him. Willie survives for six years, only because the academy is a bee-hive of midnight businesses managed by students. After Willie starts a lottery on predicting football results, he makes enough money to support himself. While suffering from persistent insomnia in a forty-bed dormitory, Willie explores the secret lives of the academy's priests, the unusual sleep habits and behaviors of its students, and the possibility of ghosts who purportedly wander the halls, planning to scare students. In this coming-of-age tale, a boy abandoned by his mother in a Dublin boarding school must learn to fend for himself while exploring the lives of the priests, students, and ghosts who surround him.

The historical journey of the composition of an Opera from its conception to its performance. Woven skillfully, with the position, power, and privilege of the Artists involved. Corruption, allied with the intellectual and physical seduction that lit the dark torch of insanity that was the Bonfire of the Vanities.

Bestselling author Viktor Moskalenko takes on another important chess opening! The Pirc and Modern are flexible openings, rich in strategic and tactical ideas. They feature in the repertoire of great players like Kramnik, Grischuk and Ivanchuk, but are also quite popular at club level. Moskalenko, a renowned champion of dynamic play, highlights the ideas and plans, offers invaluable insights into transpositions and pawn structures, and reveals numerous novelties and new resources in well-known lines for both Black and White. In his usual crystal clear style, with a light touch, Moskalenko takes the reader by the hand and shares his own wide experiences and deep analysis in the Pirc-Modern. Great opening instruction and a joy to read! ,