Irving Chernev was a prolific Russian-American chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 author. He was born in Priluki in the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 (now in Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

) and emigrated to the United States in 1920. Chernev was a national master strength player, and was obsessed with chess. He wrote that he "probably read more about chess, and played more games than any man in history." Chernev's deep love for the game is obvious to any reader of his books.