Vladimir Kramnik is a giant of the chess world. He firmly secured his legendary status when he won the World Championship in 2000 by defeating the previously dominant Garry Kasparov - the only player ever to do so in a match. Kramnik held on to his crown for seven years, and today he remains one of the World's elite players. In this book, former American Open Champion Cyrus Lakdawala invites you to join him in a study of his favourite Kramnik games. Lakdawala examines Kramnik's renowned skills in attack and defence, exploiting imbalances, dynamic elements, accumulating advantages and endgame play, and shows how we can all improve by learning from Kramnik's masterpieces. Move by Move provides an ideal platform to study chess. By continually challenging the reader to answer probing questions throughout the book, the Move by Move format greatly encourages the learning and practising of vital skills just as much as the traditional assimilation of knowledge. Carefully selected questions and answers are designed to keep you actively involved and allow you to monitor your progress as you learn. This is an excellent way to improve your chess skills and knowledge.

Since he first burst onto the world chess scene in 1992, displaying a maturity of play far beyond his sixteen years, Vladimir Kramnik has been tipped as a future World Champion. Still only in his mid-twenties, he is now firmly consolidated in the world's top three. He has won numerous tournaments in many countries, and is one of the very few players regularly to hold his own with Kasparov. This book, Kramnik's first, describes his life and chess career, beginning with his unusual childhood. It features more than 50 of his best games, deeply annotated, plus numerous additional games and game extracts, including some from quickplay and blindfold events. (7 x 9 3/4, 240 pages, illustrations)

Man vs. Machine Technology continues to advance at a rapid pace. It may sound quaint today, but not so long ago, computers battled humans for supremacy at the game of chess. The challenge of building a computer program capable of defeating the best of human-kind at chess was one of the original grand challenges of the fledgling field of artificial intelligence. On one side were dedicated scientists and hobbyists who invested decades of effort developing the software and hardware technology; on the other side were incredibly talented humans with only their determination and preparation to withstand the onslaught of technology. The man versus machine battle in chess is a landmark in the history of technology. There are numerous books that document the technical aspects of this epic story. The human side is not often told. Few chess players are inclined to write about their man-machine encounters, other than annotating the games played. This book brings the two sides together. It tells the stories of many of the key scientists and chess players that participated in a 50-year research project to advance the understanding of computing technology. “Grandmaster Karsten Müller and Professor Jonathan Schaeffer have managed to describe the fascinating history of the unequal fight of man against machine in an entertaining and instructive way. It evoked pleasant and not so pleasant memories of my own fights against the monsters. I hope that their work gives you as much pleasure as it has given me.” – From the Foreword by Vladimir Kramnik, 14th World Chess Champion

Vladimir Kramnik is one of the greatest chess players of all time. From 2000 to 2007, the Russian held the title of Classical World Chess Champion. This book tells the remarkable story of Kramnik's top-level clashes, while providing an exciting view behind the scenes of the chess world. Added to this are Kramnik's own comments on some of his most memorable games, as well as numerous color photographs.

In this book Crouch examines the tremendous fighting qualities of today' s top grandmasters. Analysing key games from 2012, Crouch demonstrates how they give nothing away to opponents but are always alert to punish any slight errors, and crucially, how we can apply these lessons to help us in our own games.

This series provides an ideal platform to study chess openings. By continually challenging the reader to answer probing questions throughout the book, the Move by Move format greatly encourages the learning and practising of vital skills just as much as the traditional assimilation of opening knowledge. Carefully selected questions and answers are designed to keep you actively involved and allow you to monitor your progress as you learn. This is an excellent way to study any chess opening and at the same time improve your general chess skills and knowledge. The Petroff Defence is a solid and reliable way to meet 1 e4. It has a strong reputation and has been employed regularly by many grandmasters, most notably former world champions Anatoly Karpov and Vladimir Kramnik. By choosing counterattack instead of defence as early as the second move, Black immediately avoids many favourite weapons for White, including the Ruy Lopez, Italian Game, Scotch Game and a number of daunting gambits. This practical advantage for those playing Black in the Open Games cannot be underestimated. In this book, International Master Cyrus Lakdawala invites you to join him in studying all the important lines in the Petroff. Using illustrative games, he explains the main positional and tactical ideas for both sides, provides answers to all the key questions and tells you everything you need to know about successfully playing the Petroff Defence. Essential guidance and training with the PetroffProvides repertoire options for BlackUtilizes an ideal approach to chess study