Lakdawala/Hansen - The Chess Wizardry of Wotawa

Perpetual Chess Improvement : Practical Chess Advice from World-Class Players and Dedicated Amateurs, by Ben Johnson. In a world awash in educational chess content, knowing how to study the game most effectively can be challenging.

As the Perpetual Chess Podcast host, USCF Master Ben Johnson has spent hundreds of hours talking chess with many of the world’s top players and most accomplished trainers. In the popular Adult Improver Series, he has spoken with dozens of passionate amateurs who have elevated their games significantly while pursuing chess as a hobby.

Guests like former World Champion Viswanathan Anand and YouTube Stars IM Levy Rozman and GM Hikaru Nakamura have shared insights and told memorable stories. And Ben has learned just as much from the many dedicated amateurs who applied their considerable professional (non-chess) experience to their chess learning.

In Perpetual Chess Improvement, Ben looks for common ground and shared principles in all chess advice given on the podcast. Chess players do not always agree on the best improvement methods, so he even adjudicates a few disagreements! The book will show you the following:

•     How to approach and study different aspects of the game, including openings, endgames, tactics, tournament games, and speed chess.
•     How to find a chess coach and a like-minded chess community.
•     How to properly utilize all the powerful chess study tools available.
•     Instructive chess positions illustrate the topics discussed.

The guests shared a wealth of beautiful stories, and chess study advice on the Perpetual Chess Podcast. This book compiles the highlights and will help you make a holistic plan for your chess studies.

Ben Johnson is a USCF Master and accomplished chess coach. In 2016, he started the Perpetual Chess Podcast, the most successful chess podcast, with over five million downloads and streams in over a hundred different countries - and counting. Ben grew up in Philadelphia and lives in New Jersey with his family. Before dedicating his life to chess, he was a professional poker player and a stock trader.

245 pages

Throughout the history of chess, elite players have been studied, celebrated and adored. But there also been  players, while perhaps not regarded as world-class competitors, who had a precious gift, but who did not know (or could not find) the way to success. They were lost in the labyrinth of difficulties that life always places before every human being.

In the end, for various reasons, history forgot this select group of masters. For some, their careers were very bright (as in the cases of von Kolisch, Neumann and Charousek) but also extremely short, limiting their renown and depriving them of deserved laurels. For others, chess turned out to be excessively demanding for which their minds were unprepared. Finally, for a truly unfortunate few, tragedy – always an unwelcome guest – took over their lives and then took life itself from them.

An exceptionally researched historical work, these pages contain the stories of 23 players with a very unique way of understanding chess (sometimes ahead of their time) and who prioritized the artistic side of the game over the results: an approach that was not properly appreciated in their time.

Now, for the first time, Spanish author and chess historian Javier Cordero puts these Forgotten Talents in the limelight. Archival photos and almost 200 selected games nicely supplement the biographies of these star-crossed players who became Lost in the Labyrinth of Life. 288 pages

Just like previous while black pieces are sculpted in rosewood. 

History: In the 1950s and 1960s the Zagreb chess set was one of the most popular chess sets used at the major international chess tournaments. It gained popularity when it was used in the World Championship Candidates Match that was held in Bied, Zagreb in 1959. Design & Quality:   Appropriately weighted and felted these pieces are very stable on board and a pleasure to touch and feel, size of king is 8,8 cm.  For this set we choose a classical walnut board of 50 cm with square of 5 cm.

Playing for a win with ...b6 by Semko Semkov. The author proposes a full repertoire against 1.d4 and 1.c4, which is theoretically sound and leads to sharp, strategically unbalanced positions. It is based on the so-called English Defence 1.d4 e6 2.c4 b6 or 1.c4 b6. A great deal of the book is devoted to White's tries to deviate from theoretical dispute and transfer the game into the Queen's Indian with g3. 236 pages