“Understanding Chess. My System, My Games, My Life” by William Lombardy © 2011; limp cover; 312 pages; 119 annotated games; 37 games by other players. Hundreds of anecdotes and stories. THE CHESS BOOK OF THE YEAR! $60.00 post paid Order from: William Lombardy 12 Stuyvesant Oval #6B New York, NY 16009 Highly recommended by James [...]

Help stamp out ignorance. Send your used books to prison! Send me all kinds of books, not crime stories. I will send them to jail birds. Send chess magazines: “New in Chess”, foreign languages, NOT “Chess Life”. The rate of recidivism of inmates who played chess in prison is 10%. The rate of recidivism of [...]

Book review by James Schroeder The Art of Bisguier Volume Two One Hundred Selected Games 1961 – 2003 © 2008; 267 pp.; figurine algebraic The introduction by Berry is atrocious. He is incredibly egotistic and stupid and not qualified to make any comment about master play, much less grandmaster play. He is especially insulting by [...]

Prison Chess Program In addition to sending $2,000 worth of chess sets to prisons in 2007, I sent boxes of books to: Attica, NY; Amarillo, TX; Abilene, TX; Adeelanto, CA; Auburns, NY; Beeville, TX; Creighton, ND; Crescent, CA; Camp Hill, PA; Corcoran, CA; Central, AR; Coleman, FL; Canton, IL; Coxsackie, NY; Dallas, TX; Dannemora, NY; [...]

  by James Schroeder My first Brilliancy. Julius Geodman – James Schroeder; Ohio Championship 1949 [Click HERE for game board.] 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 O-O 5. Qc2? c5 6. dxc5 Nc6 7. Nf3 Bxc5 8. a3 b6 9. Be2 d5 10. O-O dxc4 11. Bxc4 Bb7 12. b4 [...]

Robert Fischer, March 9, 1943, Chicago, Illinois – January 17, 2008, Reykjavik, Iceland. A tormented genius who won the 1957 US Open, Cleveland, Ohio; USA Championships 1957/58, 1958/59, 1959/60, 1960/61, 1962/63, 1963/64, 1965/66, 1966/67. Won the World Championship Match in 1972 from Boris Spassky: W7 L3 D11. FIDE declared Anatoly Karpov world champion after Fischer [...]

MATHEMATICS AND CHESS Miodrag Petkovic Dover Publications, 1997 Limp cover Reviewed by Dave Davis This is a collection of 110 problems in geometry, algebra, and combinations based on the moves of the chess pieces. The only chess knowledge required is the rules of the game. The amount of mathematical skill needed is considerable. The preface [...]

[This book review was published in the Australian magazine Chess World and is written by Cecil Purdy.] “The Art of Checkmate” by George Renaud. and Victor Kahn, former champions of France, is yet another demonstration of how very suited the French literary tradition is to chess exposition. The close attention to the order and neatness [...]

The Life and Games of Carlos Torre by Gabriel Velasco; Russell Enterprises; published 2000; 301 pp; limp cover; excellent printing and diagrams. More than 103 games in figurine algebraic notation but too many are poorly played and/or horrible exhibition games. Born November 23, 1904 in Merida, Yucatan province, Mexico, his family moved to New Orleans [...]

Aaron Isayevich Nimzovich (1886-1935) is considered, along with Breyer and Reti, to be a founding father of the Hypermodern School. A preeminent theoretician, Nimzovich was also a potential challenger for the World Championship title: in 1926 Capablanca accepted his match offer, though Nimzovich was unable to raise the necessary funding. Nimzovich was from the beginning [...]