Play Chess to Win

Do you lose chess games without knowing why? You give away pieces, fall for the same traps, and reach endgames you don't know how to play. Play Chess to Win explains the why behind every move: once you understand the cause, you decide well even in positions you have never seen. It is a guide for starting from zero and getting to the level of a club player. In four parts it covers the rules that decide games, your first checkmates, the principles of the opening, tactics (double attacks, pins, discovered attacks, checkmate patterns, and calculation), a repertoire with White and another with Black, a map of 14 openings, pawn strategy and piece play, and pawn and rook endgames. 500 drawn positions illustrate it, diagrams and worked examples that give the best move, the reason for it, and, in most, the tempting move that fails. It includes eight complete annotated games, by Morphy, Anderssen, Réti, Lasker, Capablanca, and Fischer, and each chapter ends with "The essentials" to reread before you play. Everything is inside the book: no QR codes, no apps, and no exercises to fill in. It closes with a method for improving, a glossary, and a table of notation. Play Chess to Win.