The KGB Plays Chess is a unique book. For the first time it opens to us some of the most secret pages of the history of chess. The battles about which you will read in this book are not between chess masters sitting at the chess board, but between the powerful Soviet secret police, known as the KGB, on the one hand, and several brave individuals, on the other. Their names are famous in the chess world: Viktor Kortschnoi, Boris Spasski, Boris Gulko and Garry Kasparov became subjects of constant pressure, blackmail and persecution in the USSR. Their victories at the chess board were achieved despite this victimization. Unlike in other books, this story has two perspectives. The victim and the persecutor, the hunted and the hunter, all describe in their own words the very same events. One side is represented by the famous Russian chess players Viktor Kortschnoi and Boris Gulko. For many years they fought against a powerful system, and at the end they were triumphant. The Soviet Union collapsed and they got what they were fighting for: their freedom. Former KGB Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Popov, who left Russia in 1996 and now lives in Canada, was one of those who had worked all his life for the KGB and was responsible for the sport sector of the USSR. It is only now for the first time that he has decided to tell the reader his story of the KGB�s involvement in Soviet Sports. This is his first book, and it is not only full of sensations, but it also dares to name names of secret KGB agents previously known only as famous chess masters, sportsmen or sport officials. Just a few short years ago a book like this would have been unimaginable. Read this book. It is not only about chess. It is about glorious victory of the great chess masters over the forces of darkness.

He describes and analyses, in depth, his most memorable encounters-both famous victories and painful defeats, against the best chess players of the last 50 years. --

This magnificent volume contains the extraordinary story of the prolonged battle between Bobby Fischer, the lone American genius who is perhaps the most famous chess player of all time, and the long-standing and all-dominating Soviet chess machine. For the first time readers will be able to view virtually all the secret documents on "the Fischer problem", many of which have never previously been published. These include papers from the archives of the KGB, the Communist Party Central Committee, the USSR Sports Committee, and the Chess Federation. Together with this, there are reports and analysis of Fischer's personality and play, written at the demand of the Soviet authorities by the country's leading Grandmasters, legends such as Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Vassily Smyslov, Paul Keres, Victor Korchnoi, and Efim Geller. Also contained in Russians Versus Fischer are annotations and the stories on all of the 158 chess encounters between Fischer and his Soviet adversaries, and a large number of rare photographs and drawings. This book is a significantly enlarged and updated version of the one first published in Russia in 1994.

Memoirs of a Chess Official, organizer and member of the FIDE Executive Board who participated in many controversial chess events including the matches by Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov for the World Chess Championships. The insider story of these important chess events.

The stunning story of Russia's slide back into a dictatorship-and how the West is now paying the price for allowing it to happen. The ascension of Vladimir Putin-a former lieutenant colonel of the KGB-to the presidency of Russia in 1999 was a strong signal that the country was headed away from democracy. Yet in the intervening years-as America and the world's other leading powers have continued to appease him-Putin has grown not only into a dictator but an international threat. With his vast resources and nuclear arsenal, Putin is at the center of a worldwide assault on political liberty and the modern world order. For Garry Kasparov, none of this is news. He has been a vocal critic of Putin for over a decade, even leading the pro-democracy opposition to him in the farcical 2008 presidential election. Yet years of seeing his Cassandra-like prophecies about Putin's intentions fulfilled have left Kasparov with a darker truth: Putin's Russia, like ISIS or Al Qaeda, defines itself in opposition to the free countries of the world. As Putin has grown ever more powerful, the threat he poses has grown from local to regional and finally to global. In this urgent book, Kasparov shows that the collapse of the Soviet Union was not an endpoint-only a change of seasons, as the Cold War melted into a new spring. But now, after years of complacency and poor judgment, winter is once again upon us. Argued with the force of Kasparov's world-class intelligence, conviction, and hopes for his home country, Winter Is Coming reveals Putin for what he is: an existential danger hiding in plain sight.

Perceptive coverage of all 210 games from the legendary tournament, which featured Smyslov, Keres, Reshevsky, Petrosian, and 11 others, including the author. Suitable for players at all levels. Algebraic notation. 352 diagrams.

Daniel Johnson--journalist, scholar, and chess enthusiast--is the perfect guide to one of history's most remarkable periods, when chess matches were front-page news and captured the world's imagination.