Strong players all explain their career highlights.
AlphaZero was the first neural net chess engine, but it only played a couple of matches before retiring. Its mantle has since been taken up by Leela Chess Zero, the winner of the 2020 Computer Chess Championship. Take a look at Leela's greatest games!
The tactical heritage of Mikhail Tal is enormous and I hope that a third course on his brilliant ideas will please the reader...and bring the reader to the next level of tactical mastery!
Mikhail Tal was the eighth world champion (1960). He shined like a meteor all his life and was known for his brilliant attacking chess. His play could be described by all the colours of the rainbow. All of them, but the grey one! Enjoy his sparkling combinations!
Here I have collected 25 examples from the games of another chess legend - 2nd World Champion Emanuel Lasker who was World Chess Champion for 27 years. Lasker is generally regarded as one of the strongest players ever. It is said that Lasker often deliberately played inferior moves that he knew would make his opponent uncomfortable. They often failed to recognize these critical positions and make the best moves! Can you do better?
The 8th World Champion Mikhail Tal was one of the most brilliant chess players of all time. His games inspired not only the spectators, but his opponents as well. Sharp sacrifices were his trademark, often played by instinct rather than by calculating concrete variations.
Here I collected 25 examples from the games of chess legend, 11th World Champion Robert Fischer. In each of these examples, you will 'partner' with Fischer's opponent and be given an opportunity to examine Fischer's last move, identify Fischer's objectives, come up with your move-candidates and execute the best move (and often a series of moves).
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine became the fourth World Chess Champion by defeating Jose Capablanca in 1927. He is remembered for his fierce and imaginative attacking style. The great English master C. H. O'D. Alexander wrote "In playing through an Alekhine game one suddenly meets a move which simply takes one's breath away."
These 24 challenges come from the historic 1996 match and 1997 rematch between World Champion Garry Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer. These challenges are richly annotated with extensive natural language to allow beginners and novices to follow world class chess. Experienced players will want this collector's item for their mentor library.
