All 14 champions of the world from Wilhelm Steinitz to Vladimir Kramnik. About their life and creativity, competitions with their participation, about their contribution to chess art and rivals. The best games, combinations, endings. Archival materials and numerous photographs. Personal impressions of the authors about the matches for the world championship and meetings with the champions. The authors are well-known chess historians and writers.

The book is devoted to the life and work of the second world champion Emanuel Lasker, who occupied the chess throne for a record time of 27 years. Philosopher by reason and mathematician by education, Lasker became an outstanding chess professional at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and knew no equal in tournament and match battles. He was called a king and a wizard, a sage and a hypnotist. Unique in achievements, unsolved by contemporaries, mysterious for posterity ... In his monograph the famous Russian chess historians Isaak and Vladimir Linder depart from the generally accepted stereotypes, attempting to cover the main cause of Lasker's sporting and creative longevity in a new light. You will find in the book the 100 best, detailed commented games and endings of the great chess player, as well as 50 photo-illustrations, some of which are published for the first time.

Party, biography, photo, statistics. Among chess professionals, he was known as an amateur for many years, and among chess amateurs he was always considered a true professional. Gentle and kind by nature, helped by the teaching in the female lyceum, and the girlish kingdom in his own home (three daughters!), He became decisive and uncompromising in the chess struggle. Chess, math, computer - & quot; life triathlon & quot; Max Euwe, who managed to succeed in each of these areas thanks to a special internal self-control, the ability to isolate the most important thing at the moment and a stunning ability to concentrate all efforts to achieve the goal. From time to time he would postpone the blunt & quot; chess lance & quot; and was taken for a brilliantly honed & quot; literary spear & quot ;. His works on the theory and practice of chess became bestsellers. And today they are considered classics.

Party, biography, photos, statistics. Mikhail Botvinnik (1911 - 1995) - man-era! He was born under the last Russian emperor Nicholas II, and died under the first president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin. He received instructions from the second world champion Emanuel Lasker and gave lessons to the fourteenth champion Vladimir Kramnik himself. While studying at school, he did not know the slide rule, and at a respectable age he played chess with a computer. Botvinnik was not yet 25 years old when he became one of the living symbols of a great power and remained it for the next 60 years. His remarkably solid nature was mixed up with a mixture of communist education, the Spartan regime and an innate sense of intelligence. He was one in two persons - the Champion and the Scientist. Doctor of chess and grandmaster of electrical engineering. The main advantages of Botvinnik - iron will, a scientific approach, a clear vision of the goal. Botvinnik accumulated the best features of the Soviet chess school. And at the same time, this school embodied many of the priorities it proclaimed. Botvinnik devoted thirty years of his life to the creation of an “artificial intelligence” - a chess program, not only a “master playing by virtue”, but also “thinking like him.” "Pioneer" was his pride, and his pain, and his "blue bird". Botvinnik's multivolume legacy is a classic of world chess, his life is an example of disinterested service to chess art.

Party, biography, photos, statistics. Mikhail Tal, the eighth world chess champion. A short, fragile youth with big black eyes, a phenomenal memory and unique intuition proved to the chess world that 2x2 = 5 (!). A genius of attacks and combinations, he always acted in accordance with S. Tartakower's postulate - “sacrifice in order not to become a victim!”. For Tal, chess matter in battles is nothing, beauty is everything! He melted the "chess Antarctica", took millions of fans into voluntary chess captivity. In the life of Tal, there was no everyday life, the game of chess for him has always been a holiday. Truly the gigantic strength of the spirit again and again prevailed over the hardships of the flesh. He did not think about the future, giving joy to his contemporaries, and his descendants left his creativity - an imperishable bible of chess combinations.