The goal of chess is to checkmate your opponents' king, but to be successful, you must know the basic combinations necessary to accomplish this.  Easy-to-read and concise, Robertie's guide makes winning at chess easy.  You'll learn all the essential mates, including the scholar's mate, mate with two bishops, the corridor mate, the smothered mate, five patterns of diagonal mates, king hunts, and the key strategies needed to set up future mates.  Each concept is fully explained in easy-to-understand language with examples, game situation, insightful commentary, and more than 120 diagrams, so readers understand the thinking and game plan behind every move and stratagem.  Robertie also shows advanced, surprising, and unconventional mates, the most effective pieces needed to win, how to work two rooks into an unstoppable attack, wield a queen advantage with deadly intent, and even how to mate opponents with just a single pawn advantage.  176 pages