With Weapons of Chess, National Master and highly acclaimed teacher Bruce Pandolfini brings us the most accessible and easy-to-use chess strategy book ever.

Written for beginning and intermediate players, Weapons of Chess is the first encyclopedia of chess strategies that doesn't rely on the usual baffling chess notation. There are no symbolic chess moves, no charts or sequences in chess notation: every move is explained in words.

Arranged alphabetically for easy use and based mainly on pawn formation, the incredibly detailed and thorough entries in this book talk a player through dozens of common strategic dilemmas, such as "doubled pawn," "bishops vs. knights," and "hanging pawn pair." Diagrams illustrate the terms, first showing the basic position and then strategically moving to more complicated versions of it. Players will learn how to formulate plans once they have reached a middlegame, enabling them to make wiser strategic decisions after the first few moves of the game.

Designed for use as a ready reference during actual practice games, and usable without a chess board, Weapons of Chess is a unique and invaluable resource for any developing chess player....

From the author's Introduction of the first edition: Chess is by far the most popular board game in the world. There are millions of players of all ages and the number keeps growing. Maybe it's because you become a general who directs an army against your opponent in an exciting battle of wits. Whatever the reason, chess is challenging and fascinating. This is my attempt to lure you to the royal game. It's based on the very same lessons I have given to thousands of beginners. Their questions and problems have shaped it. Moreover, some of the best ideas in the book were actually suggested by new players! I have tried to be as direct as possible. To make your journey a smooth one, the fundamentals have been broken down into short, logical statements. Each idea is numbered, ordered, and clearly stated. For the most part, statements are linked in graded sequence with the easier ones preceding the harder. The format is unique and easy to follow. You should feel yourself learning step by step. You will see how chess players think about their moves. Where desirable, explanation has replaced calculation. The stress is on understanding, not memory. There are plenty of diagrams for almost every idea. Except for one practice section, you can even read this book without a chess set!...

Here are 111 instructive, quirky, surprising, and fun tactical chess problems to improve anyone's game, created by renowned chess teacher Bruce Pandolfini. Designed to promote creativity and imaginative play, all the problems are endgame miniatures, with seven or fewer pieces on the board.

· Every solution has two parts, the setup and the requisite tactic, each of which also reveal broader lessons on general game play
· Points are awarded with each solution, so players can track their progress as they work through the book
· Answer pages offer descriptions and explanations of the winning procedure employed
· Problems are organized thematically, to reinforce the lessons they impart...

This is an endgame book. It deals with the final phase of a chess game, the one that comes after the opening and the middlegame. But it doesn't take the point of view that the endgame is separate from the other two phases. Rather it argues that the game is an organic whole, and that everything is related, at least up to a point. What happens earlier can explain what happens later. The book also recognizes that the endgame tends to have special characteristics. As much as possible, the author tries to bring out those characteristics so that the reader can come away with basics and underlying principles to help find his or her way through the final phases of their own games. In Endgame Workshop the author explores subjects that are typically covered in most endgame treatments, but does it differently. To be sure, he follows the format usually employed in his own lessons, treating ideas across the board as they seem to apply. To be sure, he offers most of the standard stuff, from basic mates, to the opposition, critical squares, and many of the standard techniques used to advance and promote pawns, as well as the defensive weapons to fight against such enterprise. Pandolfini looks at chess positions, the stuff the game is made of, with less regard to simplicity and more to aptness and circumstances. By playing through the book, however, one should come away with a full array of tactical and strategic weapons to improve their overall endgame play....