Recommended Books

I'm an occasional, low to intermediately experienced player and am looking to improve my game. I've googled chess books and the results are endless.

Can anyone recommend a couple of good books for me to get, that will be good or someone at my level to be able to read and improve my game.

Thanks,
David

Many, many books. Chess for dummies is actually good to brush up on fundamentals. Mensa 30 days to better chess. 64 things you need to know in chess by John Walker. Reassess Your Chess, by Jeremy Silman. These are all available at your local library if you do not want to buy these

Arthur Bisguier's "Ten Tips," in evil .pdf file, so you need Adobe.

http://www.chess.com/download/view/ten-tips-to-winning-chess-arthur-bisguier

Chess wisdom of the ancients. It's short, and it's free.

Best Lessons of a Chess Coach by Sunil Weeramantry and Ed Eusebi

Originally posted by phlebas
I'm an occasional, low to intermediately experienced player and am looking to improve my game. I've googled chess books and the results are endless.

Can anyone recommend a couple of good books for me to get, that will be good or someone at my level to be able to read and improve my game.

Thanks,
David

1) start doing tactics daily: http://chess.emrald.net/ this is the most important piece of advice you'll ever get, and ignoring it (yeah, I know it's hard work, but it's also fun!) will leave you where you are, no matter how many books you'll read.

2) for a beginner, there's no book with more unanimous acceptance than chernev's logical chess move by move. probably has it's place up to 1800 if it for some reason has been left unread. it'll hammer all basic concepts into your head.

3) don't procrastinate by stacking up books. studying one single chess book, any book, from cover to cover thoroughly will give you far more than merely reading a thousand books. it'll also put you ahead of 99% of players in 'having things down cold', because hardly anyone puts in the necessary time. reading about something in chess is 1% of the necessary work, the last 99% is training those things over and over and over, until you CAN'T get them wrong. - read less, train more.

The only "must read" chess book IMO is Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev. Every single move of about 30 master games is annotated.

But before reading the Chernev book, you might want to read ONE of the following books to make sure that you understand all the basics:

Chess for Dummies by James Eade
Play Winning Chess by Yasser Seirawan and Jeremy Silman
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess by Patrick Wolff
Guide to Good Chess by Cecil Purdy.

That last one by Purdy is my favorite, but it's also probably the hardest to find.

Guide to Good Chess in mint condition is available from a shop in Sweden. They are not willing to sell internationally but something could be worked out!

Originally posted by wormwood
[b]1) start doing tactics daily: http://chess.emrald.net/ this is the most important piece of advice you'll ever get,

Hi Wormwood,

Thanks for the web site, love it. Gives the mind some exercise. After 46 attempts, my brain started to hurt.

All good though, and thanks again.
David.

Originally posted by phlebas
my brain started to hurt.

that is what it takes to get better. 🙂 get whatever book you will, but if you don't make it hurt your brain, it isn't worth much.

Originally posted by phlebas
... After 46 attempts, my brain started to hurt.

All good though, and thanks again.
David.

like diskamyl already said, that's a sign of doing it properly. 🙂 watch out for burnout though, it'll stop your training for months easily.

Originally posted by phlebas
I'm an occasional, low to intermediately experienced player and am looking to improve my game. I've googled chess books and the results are endless.

Can anyone recommend a couple of good books for me to get, that will be good or someone at my level to be able to read and improve my game.

Thanks,
David

1) ART OF THE CHECKMATE by Georges Renaud & Victor Kahn
2) HOW TO PLAY GOOD OPENING MOVES by Edmar Mednis
3) CHESS PRAXIS by Aron Nimzovich
4) THE MIDDLEGAME (especially volume 2) by Max Euwe
5) CHESS & LONG RANGE PLANNING by Mikhail "Iron Mike" Botvinnik
6) TACTICAL CHESS EXCHANGES by Gennady Nesis
7) THE CHESS SELF-TUTOR by David Bronstein
8) THE ART OF ATTACKING CHESS by Zenon Franco
9) DYNAMIC PAWN PLAY IN CHESS by Drazen Marovic
10) HOW TO DEFEND IN CHESS by Colin Crouch
11) THE CHESS MIND by Gerald Abrahams

I am looking for someone to work with me through "My System" by Aron Nimzowitsch. In addition to the book I purchased the Roman Lab DVD for this book.

Originally posted by phlebas
I'm an occasional, low to intermediately experienced player and am looking to improve my game. I've googled chess books and the results are endless.

Can anyone recommend a couple of good books for me to get, that will be good or someone at my level to be able to read and improve my game.

Thanks,
David

One not mentioned is Simple Chess by Michael Stean. He talks about strategic ideas like using outposts and so on - it has the extra advantage of being relatively cheap. Books by Tal are also worth looking at as he was a journalist as well as a chess player, so he writes well.

Alternatively buy some alcohol instead, it won´t help your chess, but it´s probably more fun!

I´ve got to ask, is your user name a reference to T.S.Elliot or to Iain M. Banks?

I would heartily agree with the post about "Logical Chess Move By Move and add "The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played".

Understanding Chess Move by Move by Chernov is so Brittany Spears, so last week. Understanding Chess Move by Move by John Nunn, or Instructive Modern Chess Masterpieces by Igor Stahl. Both by Gambit Press, large format paperback available everywhere. These are fairly high level but if you are going to recommend Chernov, these are distinctly better. But if you don't want to buy, there are hundreds of free internet resources available. So stop being lazy and asking and get cracking with some research of your own !!