Who were the most successful and unsuccessful chess players in history?  Which combination was calculated furthest ahead?  Which chess contest offered the biggest prizes?  Which player thought for longest over a move?  This fascinating collection of chess superlatives has the answers to all these questions.

Includes the following chapters:

• Games:  the shortest and the longest chess games, the most spectacular king marches and knight's tours, the longest sequence of checks and the records for multiple pawn promotions.
• People:  charts meteoric careers and falls from grace, lists some of the luckiest and unluckiest players in history, and reports the chess achievements of famous people from scientists to monarchs, musicians to footballers.
• Tournaments, matches and events:  lists the most peaceful and most bloodthirsty contests, the most persistent chess traditions, and those mysterious games that never happened but still appear in magazines and books.
• Around the chequered board:  contains a miscellany of chess records, such as records for simultaneous displays and the record number of mistakes in a chess publication.

Packed with entertaining facts and figures, annotated games and biographical details, this book is a must for all chess lovers.

Specifications:

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Batsford (August 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1 inches