Competing coordination: Ambident ligands in the modern chemistry of metal complexes

The data on competing coordination mostly published in the past 10 years are surveyed and described systematically. competing binding of metals in the complexes of di- and polydentate ligand systems-simple di- and triatomic molecules (N-2, O-2, CO, CO2, CS2, etc), ambident anions (CN-, NCX-, NO2-, SO3-, etc,), neutral aliphatic, aromatic and heterocyclic compounds including chelating organic ligands - is considered. Attention is concentrated on nontraditional methods of coordination of typical ligand systems and on regionselective synthesis as a method for target-directed preparation of metal complexes with a specified type of localisation of the coordination bond.