are chess books and magazines...

a thing of the past? With online coverage of GM events..who needs (expensive) magazines? Most books are now written by obscure IM's and GM's you've never heard of...

@ogb said
a thing of the past? With online coverage of GM events..who needs (expensive) magazines? Most books are now written by obscure IM's and GM's you've never heard of...

Last book I bought was End Game - John Nunn, that was ages ago. I look at the puzzle in the U.K. times paper on a commute. Lost touch with current Masters as in reading material🤷‍♂️ Most of my stuff is the old text.

@ogb said
a thing of the past? With online coverage of GM events..who needs (expensive) magazines? Most books are now written by obscure IM's and GM's you've never heard of...

are chess books and magazines... a thing of the past?

I don't think so. It's true that chess books and publications, that have served so many players in the past have a lot of competition from chess sites and youtube, but I don't think they'll vanish. Printed material is generally smaller, more portable, and easier to use next to your chess board than a computer. (Add a book stand that keeps your written material at the desired angle for easier viewing)

Taking this one step further, I've compiled all the games in my opening repertoire from my collections of Informants, Chess Life, NW Chess Magazines etc. neatly handwritten them on 5X8 cards and placed them in a file box by ECO classification. If I want to study the A13 English or the B17 Caro-Kann it's fast and easy to reach in my box, pull out a few cards, set up my board, and I'm ready to go. No internet connections, computer boot up time, pop up's, distracting ad's, usernames and passwords.

Sorry to have gotten long winded with my answer, but I've been thinking about this subject a lot recently, and you've given me an excuse to babble. 🙂

I'm one of a dying breed that actually likes to hold a book when reading. One of my favorite series is the Quaterly For Chess History, by Fiala, published by Olemauc. Fiala is dedicated to finding lost games, forgotten tournaments and players, and many other aspects of chess history. For those of you who just like playing over the games of the old masters, these are the books for you.

Modern chess books are terrible.
They put some famous chess player on the cover and load the book with computer analysis that only a Master could understand.
The opening books are the same way. A bunch of computer lines with almost no explanation to the moves.

Or the book is for complete beginners.
They have always failed the intermediate level players when it comes to chess books.

I think the best books for instruction and strategy are the old classics by such players as Lasker, Tarrasch, Nimzowitch and others.

The best opening books were in the 1980's when they explained every move and they would have an analysis tree that made studying easy.
They also inspired you to play that opening and made it feel like you would never lose again.

As far as tactics are concerned the computer/phone makes it quick and easy to work on your tactical ability and videos online are enjoyable like "agadmator"
His videos on YouTube are awesome.

I think a combination of book and board and online studying is best.

Magazine's are going away with the Dodo.

Hi e4e5f4d5

"Magazine's are going away with the Dodo."

Maybe some but with printed matter you can locate something you read
about a few years back right away. Trying to find something of interest
that you need to see on the net can be a pain, even if it's a few weeks old.

(sometimes what ever it was has gone forever and recently thanks to British
Telecom I was off air for 11 days. Thank heaven for chess books & magazines)

Also it's good to have a hard copy you can read on a journey or take
to a board to play out the games in 3d. (that way the OTB patterns stick)

UK's CHESS magazine has risen to the challenge of instant internet coverage.
The August issue happens to be one of their best (my bit in it is so-so in comparison,
if they are going to keep this up I'll have to raise my bar.)

You can get a free pdf look at some of it and you can see by the index
what various aspects of chess it covers. Online Cheating - the whole article
is in the PDF file, how to make money self publishing a chess book, hints and
tips on how to play internet chess, chess history, puzzles, (that pdf file has a load
and it gives the solution, they are arranged in order of difficulty)

Danny Kings; 'how good is your Chess' humour (?) (my bit, not too bad,
could be better when I compare it to the rest of the mag.) interviews, book reviews,
Chess and The Beatles and of course games, loads and loads of games

All for £4.95, which is just about the same as the price of pint in Edinburgh.
(I only write now and then for CHESS, the editorial staff think their readers
should be exposed to me in small doses.)

https://www.chess.co.uk/downloads/chess-magazine-august-2020-sample.pdf

@greenpawn34 said
Hi e4e5f4d5

"Magazine's are going away with the Dodo."

Maybe some but with printed matter you can locate something you read
about a few years back right away. Trying to find something of interest
that you need to see on the net can be a pain, even if it's a few weeks old.

(sometimes what ever it was has gone forever and recently thanks to British
Telecom ...[text shortened]... ed to me in small doses.)

https://www.chess.co.uk/downloads/chess-magazine-august-2020-sample.pdf

Also it's good to have a hard copy you can read on a journey or take to a board to play out the games in 3d. (that way the OTB patterns stick)


Yes - playing over your chess lessons and games with board and pieces is still the best IMO

HI mchill,

I do know if they are lessons, I like to think I'm giving ideas for you lot to chase
at the same time I'm having fun and keeping myself sane, At my age the only
other option is too stop doing things and go old. That is the path to Bingo.

The only time I enjoy going over games/lessons with a board is with 500 Master games of Chess by Tartakower and Du Mont.

I do read Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess a lot because of the history in it.

Chess Life magazine turned me off from magazine's.
I feel they focus too much on kids.

(Chess Life reporter)
"Hey Billy! You're a 9 year old chess Master!"

(Billy)
"Thanks"

(Chess Life reporter)
"What else do you like?"

(Billy)
"I collect baseball cards and I like to go camping"

Meanwhile the reporter walked past and old lion who has played in the tournament for the last 40 years and has awesome stories to tell but we have to read about Billy's baseball cards and look at pictures of him and his runny nose.

@greenpawn34 said
HI mchill,

I do know if they are lessons, I like to think I'm giving ideas for you lot to chase
at the same time I'm having fun and keeping myself sane, At my age the only
other option is too stop doing things and go old. That is the path to Bingo.

Greenpawn - Your posts here are very much appreciated. We're about the same age, and I agree the path to the bingo board is the path to the dark side of the universal force. 🙂

@hells-caretaker said
Last book I bought was End Game - John Nunn, that was ages ago. I look at the puzzle in the U.K. times paper on a commute. Lost touch with current Masters as in reading material🤷‍♂️ Most of my stuff is the old text.

lol John Nunn ??!! LOL Yikes he was from the 60's or 70's ?? the chess publishers haven't gotten much from you ...ha ha ...

@ogb said
lol John Nunn ??!! LOL Yikes he was from the 60's or 70's ?? the chess publishers haven't gotten much from you ...ha ha ...

Some good authors back then, another old text I have is: Chess Olympiad, Skopje 1972 - Ray Keene, David Levy.

Petrosian (USSR)
Schmidt (Poland)

English Opening/Neo-Grunfeld (saving brain cells so I can't pgn/fen🤦‍♂️).

A fascinating game. on how one can wander into trouble.

Hi e4e5f4d5,

The kid with the baseball cards, did he have a Mickey Mantle?

LoL

My most recent Chess book purchases: 'Active Pieces', game collection by IM Jay Bonin; hardly an obscure IM, since every player in NYC knows him well. Also, 'Game Changer', by GM Sadler and WIM Regan. Natasha Regan played me at another website, and sent me an autograph via email to attach inside the book!
So, no.
(meow)