Garry Kasparov was the highest-rated chess player in the world for over twenty years and is widely considered the greatest player that ever lived. In How Life Imitates Chess Kasparov distills the lessons he learned over a lifetime as a Grandmaster to offer a primer on successful decision-making: how to evaluate opportunities, anticipate the future, devise winning strategies. He relates in a lively, original way all the fundamentals, from the nuts and bolts of strategy, evaluation, and preparation to the subtler, more human arts of developing a personal style and using memory, intuition, imagination and even fantasy. Kasparov takes us through the great matches of his career, including legendary duels against both man (Grandmaster Anatoly Karpov) and machine (IBM chess supercomputer Deep Blue), enhancing the lessons of his many experiences with examples from politics, literature, sports and military history. With candor, wisdom, and humor, Kasparov recounts his victories and his blunders, both from his years as a world-class competitor as well as his new life as a political leader in Russia. An inspiring book that combines unique strategic insight with personal memoir, How Life Imitates Chess is a glimpse inside the mind of one of today's greatest and most innovative thinkers.

A Wonderful Set of Easy to Understand Philosophies for Life derived of the Centuries old Game of Chess. Tips on how to Juggle between your Passion, Desires, Courage, Spirit, and Wisdom.The final aim of all of us playing on this board of life is to somehow break out of this board and be free. Freedom of course shall not come in that way, but if we are able to understand the board, and master the play, we shall be able to forget the board. So my Action Play is to let you Rip the Board from under you. So that you can forget the Squares and focus on the Unchess of it. I want you to understand chess in such a simple way that your Life can be UnChessed.

The book was published in Italy by the "Città del Sole" Publishing House of Reggio Calabria in July of this year, in print only and is achieving great success both with bookstore sales and online sales on Amazon. It is part of the series "La vita narrata" and talks about the story of my Grandfather Daniele, who emigrated to New Jersey in 1910 and returned to his native Calabria in 1953 after 43 years of America, finds himself living the last years in an alienating way of life, no longer feeling completely Calabrese and not even Italian and least of all American . There are four reading levels: 1)alongside his personal one there is the story of the numerous grandchildren who surround him and love him but at the same time fear him because of his grumpy and irascible character. 2)In the background, the village of Satriano is represented, located in the Serre Aspromontane, in poverty because it has been bled by emigration, as a result of which it is mostly populated by wives left alone with their children, often small. The emigration is also narrated through the photographic documentation of the papers belonging to Grandfather and through that of the "ships" he took to go to America. 3)The last level of reading is that of Satriano's historical cultural roots in which the narrating voice, which is mine as a Latin and Greek scholar, reconnects the threads that lead back to the great Classical Greek culture of origin. A book, therefore historical-biographical but also of formation of the gang of cousins who grow up without too many controls trying to understand and interpret the life that surrounds them and who find in it the roots of their future (Rosanna, for example, will choose as an adult emigrate like her as my grandfather to America, while I, Luisa, will never want to break away from Italy but, due to family events, I will at the same time become a "citizen of the world"). The writing of the book was requested by my niece Daniela who lives in California and who wanted me to tell her the story of her father Daniele as a child, my brother. It is dedicated, in order: 1) to migrants of yesterday and today 2) to Daniele, who died in California last February of a fulminant heart attack and to whom I also dedicated the back cover with the poem that inspired me about his story and that of the other deceased relatives of our family.

'A nuanced and witty meditation on confronting the challenges life throws at us all' Oliver Burkeman Jonathan Rowson's competitive success as a chess Grandmaster and work as an applied philosopher have given him a unique perspective on why the great game is more important than ever for understanding the conflicts and uncertainties of the modern world. In sixty-four witty and addictive vignettes, Rowson takes us on an exhilarating tour of the game of life, from the psychology of gang violence, to the aesthetics of cyborgs, the beauty of technical details, and the endgame of death. Chess emerges as a singularly powerful metaphor for the thrills and set-backs that invest our daily lives with meaning and complexity.

Examines how chess style and abilities vary with age. By making a number of case studies and interviewing players who have stayed strong as they have aged, the authors show in detail how players can steer their games towards positions where their experience can shine through.

The Life & Games of the Seventh World Chess Champion Vasily Smyslov, the seventh world champion, had a long and illustrious chess career. He played close to 3,000 tournament games over seven decades, from the time of Lasker and Capablanca to the days of Anand and Carlsen. From 1948 to 1958, Smyslov participated in four world championships, becoming world champion in 1957. Smyslov continued playing at the highest level for many years and made a stunning comeback in the early 1980s, making it to the finals of the candidates’ cycle. Only the indomitable energy of 20-year-old Garry Kasparov stopped Smyslov from qualifying for another world championship match at the ripe old age of 63! In this first volume of a multi-volume set, Russian FIDE master Andrey Terekhov traces the development of young Vasily from his formative years and becoming the youngest grandmaster in the Soviet Union to finishing second in the world championship match tournament. With access to rare Soviet-era archival material and invaluable family archives, the author complements his account of Smyslov’s growth into an elite player with dozens of fascinating photographs, many never seen before, as well as 49 deeply annotated games. German grandmaster Karsten Müller’s special look at Smyslov’s endgames rounds out this fascinating first volume. [This book] is an extremely well-researched look at his life and games, a very welcome addition to the body of work about Smyslov... – from the Foreword by Peter Svidler

"Chess gets a hold of some people, like a virus or a drug," writes Robert Desjarlais in this absorbing book. Drawing on his lifelong fascination with the game, Desjarlais guides readers into the world of twenty-first-century chess to help us understand its unique pleasures and challenges, and to advance a new "anthropology of passion." Immersing us directly in chess’s intricate culture, he interweaves small dramas, closely observed details, illuminating insights, colorful anecdotes, and unforgettable biographical sketches to elucidate the game and to reveal what goes on in the minds of experienced players when they face off over the board. Counterplay offers a compelling take on the intrigues of chess and shows how themes of play, beauty, competition, addiction, fanciful cognition, and intersubjective engagement shape the lives of those who take up this most captivating of games.