Here is a great list of chess books, categorized according to playing strength, with brief descriptions of each book. If you are a beginner or intermediate player and want to get serious about your chess study, this list would be a great place to start:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/syltguides/fullview/39SYY4XAXZ5WW
Originally posted by onyx2006Take two 1200 players and have one of them study only Silman's Reasses Your Chess and have the other one study only tactics. After six months have them play each other. I'm almost certain that the player who studied only tactics would demolish the Silman-only reader.
thanks for that, Silman's Reasses your Chess always pops up doesn't it 🙂
Great book, picked it up again last week in NYC, gave a friend my copy last year and haven't seen him since, felt lost without it.
My point is that strategy is subordinate to tactics, and can only be understood in the light of tactics.
Originally posted by Zander 88IM Rashid Ziatdinov wrote in an article that sub-masters should not study strategy at all. He said to study tactics.
Not really. I mean, you work your tactical fibers everytime you sit down and play. Strategy, on the other hand, is not something that you can pick up as easily. My first book was a Silman book, and I gained enormous strength after reading it.
One point can be made, however: Strategy is useless without tactics. My own history supports this. For example, over last summer, I studied varied topics, from strategy to tactics to endgames. And while my rating did rise from 1100 to 1200, I wasn't getting my full potential; no doubt I had improved due to my new found strategical and endgame skills (and a little improved tactics) but I was stuck at 1200 from June to November. Then I started a program just to get rid of the blunders I make. I started it in November. Since November, mu USCF rating has jumped from 1198 to 1483, a gain of 285 points, in a few months. I do not think this is due to the stopping of blunders, but rather by stopping my blundering, I was able to use my endgame and strategical skills more effectively.
What's the point of knowing the lucena position when you blunder a knight in the middlegame?
Originally posted by malingahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucena_position
Lucena Psition?
Sounds saucy... What's that then?
You can check out my games against fluffymop for progressively harder studies of the Lucena. This is it in it's most basic form...Game 3100590
You also need to know the Philidor position to be proficient in Rook endings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philidor_position
D