Book1847
The Chess-Player's Handbook
Howard Staunton
Systematised the openings and rudiments of chess into one teachable method, and set the template every opening manual since has followed.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeEntry
Applied & Practical
Games, Strategy & Play
Structured competition — small enough to analyse completely, complex enough to teach real lessons.
6 fields · 53 topics · 57 curated works
Fields within Games, Strategy & Play
Chess
10The most studied game in history.
Foundations & Overviews · Opening Principles · Chess Tactics · Positional Play · Endgame Technique
Go & Abstract Strategy
9Games with simple rules and deep structure.
Foundations & Overviews · Go Fundamentals · Go Strategy · Shogi · Xiangqi
Card & Probability Games
9Decisions with hidden information.
Foundations & Overviews · Poker Fundamentals · Poker Strategy · Bluffing & Game Theory Optimal Play · Bridge
Strategy & Wargaming
8Simulating conflict and competition.
Foundations & Overviews · Wargaming Method · Red Teaming · Simulation & Scenario Games · Strategy Board Games
Puzzles & Recreational Mathematics
9Problems built purely to be interesting.
Foundations & Overviews · Logic Puzzles · Mathematical Puzzles · Cryptic Crosswords · Sudoku & Variants
Play, Sport & Culture
8Why games matter socially — theories of play, sport as culture, fandom and rivalry, and the harms of gambling.
Foundations & Overviews · Theory of Play · History of Games · Sport as Culture · Gambling & Its Harms
Reading in Games, Strategy & Play
57A way in
Start here
No prior grounding assumed.
The Chess-Player's Handbook
Howard Staunton · 1847
Systematised the openings and rudiments of chess into one teachable method, and set the template every opening manual since has followed.
+16 more at this level
Then
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
A Budget of Paradoxes
Augustus De Morgan · 1872
A running catalogue of circle-squarers, angle-trisectors and other self-published mathematical cranks the author corresponded with, arguing their…
+17 more at this level
Go deeper
Primary sources and full treatments.
My System
Aron Nimzowitsch · 1925
Systematises positional chess — blockade, overprotection, prophylaxis — and reshaped how the game is taught.
+21 more at this level
12 of 57 works
Book1859
The Exploits and Triumphs, in Europe, of Paul Morphy, the Chess Champion
Frederick Milnes Edge
An eyewitness account arguing Morphy's dominance came from rapid, intuitive calculation rather than the accumulated opening theory his European rivals relied on.
about 3.5 hours to readlink checked 17 Sept 2026FreeEntry
Book1890
Fools of Fortune; or, Gambling and Gamblers
John Philip Quinn
A reformed professional gambler exposes how confidence games and rigged gambling houses actually operate, arguing the house's edge is usually supplemented by outright mechanical cheating.
about 20 hours to readlink checked 17 Sept 2026Book1892
Mathematical Recreations and Essays
W. W. Rouse Ball
Treats puzzles, paradoxes and games as a single subject on the grounds that solving any of them is a small piece of genuine mathematical research, not entertainment adjacent to it.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Book1896
Common Sense in Chess
Emanuel Lasker
Argues that a chess combination is not brilliant improvisation but the mechanical exploitation of an advantage that already exists, teachable as a method of valuation rather than a collection of set patterns.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeEntry
Book1897
Foster's Complete Hoyle
R. F. Foster
Codifies the rules and sound play of every card and table game in common Western use into one reference, on the premise that most players lose not to bad luck but to not knowing the correct play.
about 22 hours to readlink checked 17 Sept 2026Book1905
Japanese Chess (Shogi): The Science and Art of War or Struggle, Philosophically Treated
Choyo Suzuki
Frames shogi as a philosophy of struggle for an early Western audience, arguing that letting a captured piece change sides and return to the board makes it a fundamentally different model of conflict from chess, where a captured piece is simply gone.
242 pageslink checked 17 Sept 2026Book1908
The Game of Go: The National Game of Japan
Arthur Smith
The first full English-language account of Go, arguing its strategic depth comes from simple rules generating positions too numerous for the exhaustive calculation chess allows.
about 3 hours to readlink checked 17 Sept 2026Book1913
Little Wars
H. G. Wells
Sets out rules for refighting battles with toy soldiers and a spring-loaded gun, arguing a game can model real tactics closely enough that its outcomes teach something true about actual warfare.
about 60 minutes to readlink checked 17 Sept 2026Book1914
Sam Loyd's Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles, Tricks and Conundrums (With Answers)
Sam Loyd
A posthumous compilation of puzzles Loyd created for newspapers and exhibitions, arguing a puzzle's value is the single moment of insight that makes its trick look obvious in hindsight.
link failing as of 17 Sept 2026Book1917
Amusements in Mathematics
Henry Ernest Dudeney
Argues the value of a puzzle is in the general method needed to crack it, and groups hundreds of problems by the reasoning technique they teach rather than by subject.
about 11 hours to readlink checked 17 Sept 2026Book1921
Chess Fundamentals
José Raúl Capablanca
Argues that the endgame teaches chess principles more clearly than the opening or middlegame, and should be the beginner's starting point rather than the last thing studied.
about 3 hours to readlink checked 17 Sept 2026FreeEntry