Best Books

It's not the book, it's what you can learn from it and use.

1. Ed. Lasker, Modern Chess Strategy (1963 edition).
2. Reti, Masters of the Chessboard.
3. Hans Kmoch, Pawn Power in Chess.
4. Herman Grooten, Chess Strategy for Club Players.
5. Znosko-Borovsky, How Not To Play Chess.
6. Kotov, How to Think Like a Grandmaster.
7. Alekhine's annotations to the Nottingham International Chess Tournament 1936.

In that order.

Read or used bits from all of the above except Alekhine notes on
the Nottingham congress.

But:

6. Kotov, How to Think Like a Grandmaster.
Can send a player way of course. I've seen more players knocking it than
saying it did them good.

It's in the marmite class. You either love it or hate it.

Peronally it never did me any good except the bit about a player spending
25 minutes on deciding a candidate move was no good so quickly selected
another move giving it 10 seconds thought.

Think the lad is looking for something more basic.

A First book of Morphy by Frisco Del Rosario was pretty good read and very practical for the improving player

[I] "Think the lad is looking for something more basic."

Agreed. I said "in that order." Most any solid introduction to strategy could be substituted for Ed. Lasker's (e.g. Chernev etc.). After that, it's all about learning to evaluate positions on principles and honing one's calculation skills (i.e., learning to concentrate on when to calculate at all, and then how to do it accurately).

Edit: I can take Marmite only in small doses, and only at long intervals.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
A First book of Morphy by Frisco Del Rosario was pretty good read and very practical for the improving player

Ah yes, every beginning player should be introduced to Morphy's games. Reinfeld & Soltis edited a nice collection with annotations understandable to the beginner.

Originally posted by moonbus
Ah yes, every beginning player should be introduced to Morphy's games. Reinfeld & Soltis edited a nice collection with annotations understandable to the beginner.

A Soltis book that I really enjoyed was 'How to study chess', he makes some very powerful arguments and it almost made me like studying the endgame after I read it!

Foundations of Chess Strategy by GM Lars Bo Hansen has made me rethink my whole approach to chess. You can get a good deal on it at Amazon.com.

Eh I am trying to get closer to 1800 2000 level consistently.

I just bought 19 books on chess 4 less. And have 35-40 now.

Fought my way through a handful of them. Currently working on Sherevesky End Game strategy.

I was trying to get a feeler for how others viewed different books
Reading Silmans books when I need a break from my regular studies. He is pretty good and direct. I knocked out one of his endgame books.

I appreciate all the advice and will take it into consideration.

Originally posted by greenpawn34
Read or used bits from all of the above except Alekhine notes on
the Nottingham congress.

But:

6. Kotov, How to Think Like a Grandmaster.
Can send a player way of course. I've seen more players knocking it than
saying it did them good.

It's in the marmite class. You either love it or hate it.

Peronally it never did me any good except th ...[text shortened]... another move giving it 10 seconds thought.

Think the lad is looking for something more basic.

I remember GM Anatoly Lein,during a Q&A period before a simul,really trashed Kotov's methodology: "I don't think like a tree,do you think like a tree?" LOL

Heree are some of the books I found helpful for the aspiring player

1.Winning Chess, by Reinfeld/Chernev
2.Logical Chess Move by Move,Chernev
3.The two 1001 books by Reinfeld
4.Any of Fred Wilson's books
5.Art of the Middle Game,by Keres/Kotov
6.Pawn Power in Chess,by Kmoch and Pawn Structure Chess,by Soltis
7.Common Sense in Chess,by Emanuel Lasker
8.Last Lectures,by Capablanca
9.The Art of Sacrifice in Chess by Spielmann
10.The Art of Attack,by Vukovic

I have a list of more advanced books for the player ready to move up,but I will give those at another time.

I was very disappointed with the Keres Kotov book, The Art of the Middle Game.

Hi Robbie,

Great minds etc... I was about to pull 'Art of the Middle Game,by Keres/Kotov'
out as it is very deep. Requires work by the reader and assumes you
already have a firm grasp of the basics.

But the poster is 59 and that is an old book so if says he got something
from it then know one can argue.

However I would add that the lad appears to be looking for basic books.
The Art of the Middle Game may scare him or put him off.

(the poster) I bought the art of the middle game, not realizing it was an older version of descriptive text.

After a finish a few more books I may delve into it. The descriptive text turns me off so much as its another thing I have to learn. But I may.

I just bought Aagaards attacking manuals 1-2

I was looking for a bit of stuff 1600 and up.

My two cents goes to "The idiot's guide to Chess"