One of the Great Chess Tournaments of All Time! The Famous Tournament Book by the Second World Chess Champion The International Chess Congress at St. Petersburg was the premier event of 1909, by far the strongest chess competition held that year. Even today, St. Petersburg 1909 ranks high on any list of top tournaments, a trial of skill which produced more than a few "anthology" games. In February 1909, nineteen of the world's best chessplayers gathered in St. Petersburg to play in one of the most famous tournaments in chess history. World Champion Emanuel Lasker topped the list of competitors, which also included Akiva Rubinstein, considered by many to be Lasker's likely successor, Carl Schlecter, who would play one of the most infamous matches against Lasker a year later, and many other of the "greats" of the era Spielmann, Bernstein, Teichmann, Mieses and Tartakower, to name but a few. This is the official tournament book available for the first time in English in algebraic notation written by Emanuel Lasker. He annotated all 175 games in the clear, instructive style that would become his trademark. The great 1909 International Chess Congress has long since taken its place among the greatest chess tournaments of all time. Now you may experience this 21st-century edition of Lasker's terrific tournament book.

The Genius of Alekhine In chess literature, there have only been a very few chess books that have immediately - and permanently - established themselves as classics. Lasker's Manual of Chess by Emanuel Lasker, Masters of the Chessboard by Richard Réti and Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual by Mark Dvoretsky are three that come to mind. There are of course others, among them My Best Games of Chess, 1908-1937 by the fourth world chess champion, Alexander Alekhine. The original English edition, published three-quarters of a century ago, used English descriptive notation, contained one photograph, no crosstables and was released in two separate volumes. This new 21st-century edition, presented with modern algebraic notation, has combined both books into a single volume, added more than three dozen archival photographs, crosstables, Alekhine's complete match and tournament records, a foreword by Russian grandmaster Igor Zaitsev, as well as many more diagrams. A comprehensive computer-assisted analytical supplement has also been prepared and is available for download at no extra charge, so that, if you wish, you may compare Alekhine's impressive notes with the preferences of the silicon monster. Whether you feel as if you are revisiting an old friend, or being introduced to this splendid game collection for the first time, you will marvel at how Alekhine's games and works remain in many respects extraordinarily consonant with the modern approach. And you will not fail to be impressed by the genuine genius that is Alekhine.