Simen Agdestein was awarded the title of chess grandmaster at the age of eighteen, the youngest in the world at the time. Two years later he wrote in his diary that he believed he could become the best in the world.

But chess wasn"t his only passion. He also excelled at football and was selected nine times for the Norwegian national team. Foreign clubs wanted to sign him as a professional.

Simen Agdestein"s combined careers are unique and amazing. "I can"t choose between my left and my right arm", he once said of the choice between chess and football.

His international football career was cut short when he refused to play for Norway in a World Cup qualifier against Scotland. He opted instead to play Garry Kasparov in a chess tournament in Belgrade. A few years later, a knee injury put an end to his footballing dreams.

These days Agdestein is a coach and teacher at the Norwegian College for Top Athletes, a fertile breeding ground where his most successful pupil, Magnus Carlsen, also attended. Agdestein continues to compete in chess. In 2023 he won the Norwegian Championship for the ninth time, 41 years after his first successful bid.

Games and Goals is a gripping biography of a unique double talent, revealing his insecurities and ambitions, his doubts and dreams. The author had access to Agdestein"s private letters and diaries and conducted numerous interviews with relatives, friends and Agdestein himself.

Victor Bologan is not only a strong and creative chess grandmaster, he has also made a career in Moldovan and world chess politics. His strong will and incredible versatility have enabled him to lead a colourful and interesting life. ‘Believe in yourself’ is his motto and it has taken him to places many of us will never see.

A sparkling description of the many roads Bologan has travelled lies before you. In this autobiography you will read about the adventures of an enterprising youngster in turbulent Moldova, his collaborations with renowned chess coaches such as Vyacheslav Chebanenko, Zigurds Lanka and Mark Dvoretsky, and his alliances with top players such as Alexander Morozevich, Ruslan Ponomariov, Vladimir Kramnik and Garry Kasparov. The book also offers a candid insight into Bologan's activities as Executive Director of the World Chess Federation FIDE and his career in Moldovan national politics.

Central to this book, of course, is Bologan's chess career. His most impressive tournament victory was in Dortmund in 2003, where he beat both Vishy Anand and Vladimir Kramnik. But he also won the incredibly strong Aeroflot Open in Moscow in 1995 and twice came first in a personal favourite, the annual Poikovsky tournament. Bologan has extensively annotated 88 of his best and most attractive games. 424 pages

Zwischenzug! is the first-ever comprehensive guide to the chess tactic also known as the intermediate move, or intermezzo. This exciting manoeuvre can catch opponents off guard because it is against the expected run of play. You will learn how to spot Zwischenzugs, when to look out for them, and how to set them up in your games.

The authors have studied thousands of games and have identified the patterns that appear frequently in practical play. The book categorizes the different types of Zwischenzugs and distils them into easily accessible themes. The concepts are given catchy names to make them more memorable, and historical details and anecdotes are added throughout the book.

Included is an extensive mix of sample puzzles for learning and practice.

When published on Chessable, the course was received very enthusiastically and awarded an average rating of 4.82 out of a possible five stars. Another welcome effect is that the authors are now finding a lot of Zwischenzugs in their own games! 280 pages

Ce livre est paru chez Gambit en 2009 en anglais. John Nunn est un auteur réputé pour ses analyses profondes et détaillées, ça tombe bien car les finales d'échecs méritent cela. Ce livre s'adresse plutôt à des joueurs ayant déjà une bonne connaissance sur les fins de parties. l'auteur s'est concentré sur trois aspects: la liste des sujets couverts, le choix des positions retenues et la présentation. 235 pages

Turbo-Charge Your Tactics 1 is essentially a chess puzzle book, but not a typical one. It’s a multi-year effort by GM Mykhaylo Oleksiyenko and his world-renowned trainer IM Vladimir Grabinsky to introduce you to the world of “unnatural” tactical moves.

Presenting examples of extreme beauty, no matter where they come from – be it online bullet or world-class grandmaster praxis – this book will cure your “selective blindness” by destroying the false notion of chess principles being a set of rules, instead of helpful guidelines. Most chess games are decided by tactics, so solving tactical puzzles is the most effective path to improvement. hardcover 328 pages

Turbo-Charge Your Tactics 2 concludes a multi-year effort by GM Mykhaylo Oleksiyenko and world-renowned trainer IM Vladimir Grabinsky to create the perfect chess puzzle books. This second volume builds upon the first, using games from the World Champions and their challengers. Most chess games are decided by tactics, so solving tactical puzzles is the most effective path to improvement.

This book also contains a special chapter with expert guidance on how to use chess engines. The engines might analyse precisely but they can also harm our chess understanding if followed blindly, so we must know when and how to use them. 280 pages Hardcover

Glue to preserve and fix your puzzles. One tube can glue a 1000-piece puzzle.

Practical and effective.

Tube size: 3.5 x 12 cm

Deze doos bevat een verzameling gemengde puzzels. Er zitten zowel houten puzzels met touwtjes als metalen puzzels in. Bovendien traint elk van de puzzels de belangrijkste hersenkwabben: geheugen, beweging, tastzin, zicht en coördinatie.

Benut je potentieel en train je hersenen!

Afmetingen doos 22 x 16,5 x 5 cm

Een houten puzzel in de vorm van een hangslot. Het doel is om het te openen. Het probleem is dat er geen slot of sleutel is. De enige manier om het te openen is door je verstand en rationaliteit te gebruiken. Deze puzzel is gemaakt door Jean-Claude Constantin, al tientallen jaren een van de beste TC-ontwerpers ter wereld.

Verbeeldingskracht, geduld en creativiteit zullen je helpen om hem op te lossen!

afmetingen 19 x 12.5 x 3 cm

Moeilijkheidsgraad 4/5

Een houten puzzel waarin het de bedoeling is om de twee glijbanen te bevrijden. Maar dat wordt moeilijker dan verwacht!

CT ontworpen door Jean-Claude Constantin, de Koning van de puzzels!

afmetingen 23.5 x 9 x 3 cm

Moeilijkheidsgraad: 4.5/5

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

This book – the sequel to Studies for Practical Players released over a decade ago – is mostly aimed at practical players who wish to improve their chess skills by developing imaginative and preventive thinking, while perfecting calculation of variations and knowledge of basic endings. In addition, this work will certainly be appreciated by every lover of beauty, logic and paradoxicality of the game. 176 pages

Without doubt, one of the best difficulty/price ratios in cubes, the famous square-1, here in an old-fashioned sticker version.

This carpet is the perfect complement to your speedcubing sessions.

It comes with a storage bag and supports for your chronograph.

Material used is like mousepad.

Size : 49x 30 cm

Latest version of GAN available with Maglev technology for maximum stability and fluidity.

A collection of 32 brain teasers in metal. These metal brain teasers provide for a great challenge it comes with wire pieces twisted together, to unlock the ring puzzle you need to maneuver the pieces until you will be able to separate them.  

UITVERKOCHT

The history of the Queen’s Gambit is connected with the very beginnings of modern chess, the opening being cited in the earliest published books on the science of the game, such as the Göttingen manuscript (1490) and the books of Ruy Lopez (1561) and Salvio (1604). The so-called Queen’s Gambit Declined – or Refused – is, together with the Slav, the main defense in the universe of queenside openings, and shares with the aforementioned defense a well-earned reputation for being a reliable and very solid scheme.

The main aim of the present work is to show that Black can indeed obtain positions where all three results are possible. The Queen’s Gambit Declined, about a century after its golden age, is still a reliable and lively defense, where despite all the theory developed during its long existence it still holds secrets for analysts and offers new positions to enjoy a lively game, both strategically and tactically. 620 pages Hardcover