With a fresh, contemporary new design, How To Win At Chess introduces each piece and its moves, explains key principles such as check and how to open a game, before exploring tricks such as forks, pins and skewers. It’s packed with graded test positions and training exercises to help young players improve their game as they progress through the book. What’s more, readers can brush up on the fascinating history of chess, with features on legendary matches and the greatest players, including the current world champion, Magnus Carlsen.

Chess has been revolutionized in recent years - thanks to the success of Netflix’s world-beating The Queen’s Gambit, the rise of chess streaming on Twitch, the desire for self-improvement during lockdown, and the global appeal of Magnus Carlsen, the youngest player ever to top the world rankings - and its newfound popularity with young and old alike shows no sign of waning.

THE RISE OF CHESS - IN NUMBERS - The chess category on Twitch boomed from 1 million hours watched in February 2020, to 21 million hours watched in February 2021 - Chess.com, one of the leading chess websites in the world, reported 1 million daily active players in March 2020, 3 million in November 2020, and 6 million in April 2021 - In 2020, US sales of chess books shot up by 603% in the first three weeks after the release of Netflix’s hit show The Queen’s Gambit

CONTENTS 6-7 What is chess? 8-9 History 10-11 Setting up 12-17 The pieces 18-19 Notation 20-21 Check and checkmate 1 22-23 Check and checkmate 2 24-25 Material chess 26-27 Special moves, including castling 28-29 Opening the game 30-31 Forks, pins and skewers 32-33 Four lethal attacks 34-35 Sacrifice 36-37 What is a draw? 38-39 Training exercises 40-41 Test positions 42-43 The world championship 1 44-45 The world championship 2 46-47 The greatest - Magnus Carlsen and Garry Kasparov 48-49 Longest and shortest games 50-51 Starers and shakers - how to unsettle your opponent 52-53 The Russians and chess 54-55 Computers and chess 56-57 Garry Kasparov vs Deep Blue 58-59 Glossary 60-61 Resources 62-63 Index