I have many chess books...too many maybe... :-)
Theres something about buying chess books that seems to spark something in every aspiring chess player.
Maybe the promise of increased strength, or more understanding of this great game.
But which books really help?
When i was about 1300 or so, reinfelds 1001 tactics books, and lou hays combo challange, helped me get to about 1600.
Recently my chess teacher recomended Seirawans chess brilliances. I thought this was for beginners, around 1200 or so, but even a somewhat experienced player like myself can get a lot of benefit from this and his other books.
I like his writing style, easy to understand with out too much vocabulary to slow you down.
What books have you found very good and helped you get stronger?
I liked all of Seirawan's books. There's a great website where you can get all the pgns from Chess Brilliancies. If you're interested, let me know and I'll try to find it for you. I also REALLY liked My System, by Nimzowitch. I could go on amazon and order 100 chess books at a time. It's tempting, but I try to restrain myself because I know if I do, I'll never read them. I also own some of the Roman's Lab DVDs. Those are great. The lectures on chess.fm aren't bad either.
Originally posted by rbmorrisI disagree about the Roman's Lab DVD, I found them of little value. He more or less states that using the DVD's is a lazy way of learning as compared to sitting down and reading a book. I guess they are ok if you have little time.
I liked all of Seirawan's books. There's a great website where you can get all the pgns from Chess Brilliancies. If you're interested, let me know and I'll try to find it for you. I also REALLY liked My System, by Nimzowitch. I cou ...[text shortened]... s. Those are great. The lectures on chess.fm aren't bad either.
I found "Judgement and Planning in Chess" by Max Euwe to be well worth reading (more so than "My System" IMHO ). If your looking for a book with well defined exercises/progression then I would go for "Chess Lessons" by Artur Yusupov.
sounds intresting, i'd like to see that site with the seirawan pgn's.
I agree about the Roman DVD's. I just couldnt get into them. I like them for entertainment value though...
Reading "How karpov wins" by Mendis right now. Discriptive notation sucks. Would have liked to have this one with algerbraic.
Originally posted by GrandmousterNot all of Seirawan's, but collections from a lot of books:
sounds intresting, i'd like to see that site with the seirawan pgn's.
http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/~gossimit/c/book.htm
Renaud and Kahn, The Art of the Checkmate improved my play. The book is in descriptive notation, however.
Cool site. Speaking of books, also have lots of software.
Used the CT-ART for a while, but now im using the endgame cd by covetka.
Trying to get more strategy knowledge, rather then tactics.
De LaMazza'a book (rapid chess improvement) Recomends CT-ART,
but I found my self looking for tactics too much, and switched to positional learning. Seems to have helped my game recently.
I liked Ron Curry's "Win at Chess". Curry is an expert and an award winning teacher. He uses a "7 things to look for in evaluating a position" way of thinking, similar to Jeremy Silman. Check this out if you see it in a store. I would even recommend buying it online, sight unseen. I think it can help players at a lot of levels.
The Seirawan series "Winning Chess Endings/Tactics/Brilliancies, Strategies/Openings" also appears to be excellent. I recently purchased the entire series, so I haven't gone thru it all yet. But it looks very good.
Logical Chess, Move By Move (Irving Chernev) is excellent. Gives move by move annotations on 30 or so grandmaster level games.
I recently purchased "My System" and am looking forward to going through it, but I can't really comment on it at this time.
Emmanuel Lasker wrote a book that is supposed to be excellent (I think it might be called "Lasker's Manual of Chess" or something like that). I've never seen the book myself, but I heard that it is still published in descriptive notation (which I grew up with, but I prefer algebraic).
Capablanca's "Primer of Chess" also looks good, but it is also in descriptive notation. That's another farily recent purchase for me.
I'd recommend Silman's Reassess Your Chess as well.
I've read de la Maza's "Rapid Chess Improvement" and while the program looks like it would work, I don't have the time every day to devote myself to it, even for only a five month period. But as you have probably found out, studying tactics is the major way to improve one's game at the "class" level.
Judgement and Planning in Chess, recommended earlier, is also good. I have that book in descriptive notation (purchased sometime in the '80s I believe)...don't know if it's available in algebraic.