The youngest first–grader in the USSR, the world champion among young men, a participant in the candidates tournament at the age of 19 - Boris Spassky's rise was rapid. And then fate gave the brilliant chess player a test of strength: he stumbled twice at the decisive moment and remained beyond the threshold of interzonal tournaments ... Only ten years after his first great success, Spassky managed to pass all the qualifying tests and earn the right to a match for the crown, but he failed to defeat the Iron Tigran Petrosian the first time. It took three more years of super–efforts: by Sisyphus he rose again to the foot of Olympus and did not miss a second chance - in 1969 he became the Tenth king of chess! An essay about the life of Boris Vasilyevich and his sporting path full of ups and downs was written by Dmitry Oleynikov, Candidate of Historical Sciences, curator of the Chess Museum of the Chess Federation of Russia. 70 beautiful and instructive games of Spassky were commented on by the champion of Russia in 1993, the famous author and theorist grandmaster Alexey Bezgodov, as well as grandmaster Dmitry Kryakvin and FIDE master Steve Giddins. The preface was written by the 14th world champion Vladimir Kramnik. For a wide range of chess fans.

In the vast ocean of chess literature there are relatively few books about the endgame, and only a few of them can be considered true chess classics. And the most outstanding among the classics — Reuben Fine's book "Basic Chess Endings". Reuben Fine (1914−1993) was for a long time one of the best chess players in the world. As an author, Fine showed himself to be an excellent analyst who understood the full depth and peculiarities of the endgame. Having studied various types of standard positions, Fine established useful rules for practical play and proved himself to be an experienced teacher who, using skillfully chosen examples, was able to teach the reader all the necessary lessons and introduce him to the basic ideas of the endgame. Many generations of chess players in different countries of the world keep copies of “Basic Chess Endings”. For example, Mikhail Botvinnik considered Fine's work the most worthy of all that had ever been written on endgame theory.

In front of you – the famous book by the most experienced coach (among the students is Alexander Grischuk), international grandmaster and bestselling chess author Maxim Bloch. The publication contains almost 1,500 combinations from practical games and specially composed positions. All tasks are characterized by intense struggle, in which the goal is achieved with only one move. The arrangement of examples by topic and the highlighting of the main diagrams on the first pages of the chapters allow the book to be used not only as a problem book, but also as a textbook for advanced training. Numerical assessment of the difficulty level of each task allows testing the strength of chess players' play, and also helps coaches select suitable examples for practice. Of particular interest are over two hundred super-tense positions specially compiled by the author, in which when White moves, White wins the only way, and when Black moves – black. Many examples are published for the first time. You'll be sure to step up your game by solving these instructive combinations. For a wide range of chess fans and specialists.

The height of the king is 95 mm, the diameter of the base of the king is 42 mm. Currently used in tournaments of the Central House of Chess Players. The kit is sold without a board.