Another Chess Book??? - 2008/09/01 05:48Do I realy have to buy yet another chess book? Buying goes on and on and on... and I'm not improving my chess-IQ at all!
Use you old chess books and read them again! When your chess understanding evolves over time so will your ability to see and learn new things from your old books. Furthermore, while reading again you will begin to recognize certain pattern and so will you when playing the game. Pattern-Recognition is one of the most important key-ability to better chess!
The best way to improve pattern recognition is by solving a lot of theoretical positions, problems, studies, combinations and mate-exercises on Middle- and Endgames.
Anyway, why buying book while the Internet is full of free chess waiting to be downloaded?! You can save a lot of money!
to be continued...
Sorry for my English!
Martin
(Chess is a wonderful thing, but do not let chess take charge of your life).
Re:Another Chess Book??? - 2008/09/01 17:48Buying a book doesn't help to improve your chess, but reading a book may help I agree with you that in order to learn tactics the best method is to do a lot of exercises. Repeating is the clue to success. I think that in order to learn strategy this isn't (completely) true.
And indeed, a lot of free chess lessons and chess material is available on the internet. I have added some of this stuff on this site and on Chess Teaching. But I have to admit that I sometimes like to have a real book, but I may be a little bit old fashioned.
Re:Another Chess Book??? - 2008/09/02 11:02Somehow, but I don't know why, I think reading a book and not looking at the pc-screen is a more calm way of reading - and thus better digestible. Probably I am wrong but it is how I am experiencing it.
Re:Another Chess Book??? - 2008/09/05 23:42In my opinion it is very important to have the right kind of books rather then a lot of books! Out of my recommendation you can see what types of books I have in mind:
Fundamental Chess Endings (Karsten Muller/Frank Lamprecht); Everything you ever need to know about the Endgame! If I had to throw away all my chess books but keep only one, this would be "the one".
Playing chess is like solving a chess problem move by move, that is, you want to find the best move. Because time is always essential you can not afford to calculate everything. Here is when Pattern-Recognition becomes an important tool:
Chess Middlegames (Laszlo Polgar, father of famous Zsuzsa, Zsofia and Judit Polgar); A collection of training material for his daughters. 77 types in 4158 positions! You will see that certain things occur again and again (Pattern-Recognition).
Chess Endgames (Laszlo Polgar); 171 types in 4560 positions!
Chess (Laszlo Polgar); 5333+1 positions. Checkmate exercises, Miniature games and Polgar sister's combinations.
When a critical position has been reached, accurate calculations are a key-ability for successful chess:
How to calculate chess tactics (Valeri Beim); You will get an answer to questions like: What is a critical position? How do we know that we have reached such a position? What are candidate moves? How to find such moves?
Solving in Style (John Nunn, a gold medallist in solving chess problems); He explains the methodes by which chess problems are solved. This will help players to find solutions in their games.
You don't want to lose a chess game right in the opening do you?
Understanding the chess openings (Sam Collins); I believe it is the best one-volume opening book available. If you really want to understand chess then you have to learn all the openings weather you are going to play them or not! You need to know the ideas behind them. I also can recommend the opening-series:
Starting out (Everyman Chess); They concentrate on the key principles. Nice illustrative games give you the idea on how to precede after the opening! Tip!, do not buy books on opening lines like Starting out: the Dragon, look for Starting out: the Sicilian.
After acquire the opening ideas you may want to precede with some more demanding and sophisticated books on openings:
Mastering the chess openings Volume 1-3 (John Watson).
Re:Another Chess Book??? - 2008/09/06 09:31Thanks for your post, Martin - looks good indeed! What about the "How to calculate chess tactics"? Is it well written? To which level is intended? I would love the idea of just understand how to reason to find a tactic and how to know when to stop and look for one! Andrea ---------
Playing on Playchess.com as AndreaCoda.
Grandmaster Valeri Beim has earned a reputation as an author of user-friendly instructional textbooks meant for any level.
Much of the previous literature on the subject has presented little more than suggestion and nothing really practical for chess players.
Thinking methods are at the heart of the chess struggle, yet most players devote little conscious effort to organize chess thoughts in order to improve their calculating ability.
In his book "How to calculate chess tactics"? you will get a clear picture on what to do before starting to calculate, logical analysis and the technique of calculating variations. He gives you an answer to questions like: how to develop tactical skills, what to do in unclear and complex situations, how to realize an advantage, when to stop calculating und much more.
There are many exercises to train what you just have learned. All In all, 175 pages worth study. Keep up improving yourself!
Re:Another Chess Book??? - 2008/09/06 12:24Thanks (again) for such a thorough review! The two below just ended up in my to-buy list How to calculate chess tactics (Valeri Beim) Solving in Style (John Nunn) ---------
Playing on Playchess.com as AndreaCoda.
Re:Another Chess Book??? - 2008/09/25 09:43I agree with martinv. What books is more important than how many. My recommendation differs from his but I suppose the list is up to the individual. It should also differ on the basis of what level you are currently playing at.
At intermediate level it should however include the following:
One endgame book. Here I completely recommend Fundamental Chess endings by Karsten Muller.
Two, Three or even four tactics books. I dont know about the polgar books. I had an oppurtunity to buy them but I did not. I still dont know whether that was a good or a bad decision. What I did buy was Palisar's Complete chess workout. Many people swear by it but I am sorry I bought it. I think a tactics book should be more general so that the reader can master the intricities of piece movement and basic tactics like fork, pin, discover etc. But that is just me. Like I said many swear by it.
What I can say good about it is that it seems as if it would work excellent with a king attack book. I know of only two but i am sure there are more. They are, "The king in jeopardy" and 'The art of attack in chess". I would recommend one of these for anybody anyway. Personally I would go for The art of attack in chess. Again that is personal preference. What I would say however is dont get either before you have a reasonably good grasp of tactics.
What I would recommend is Troitzky 360. Do a google search for it. Chances are you can download it for free and it is excellent for learning various piece movements.
One or perhaps two opening books. However here I must stress that it should be general opening books and not books for specific openings. I have never read Understanding chess openings but that sounds like the type of book I am talking about. It should be the type of book that tells you why white moves his knight to f3 in the Ruy Lopez or why white plays c4 in the Queen's gambit as opposed to the the type of book that gives a set of variations and ends with a plus/minus sign. The point is. One book that gives a detailed explanation of evry single or almost every single opening in existence. Dont worry about variations at this point. Worry about two things. One understand openings in general and what they have in common and their aims and specifically your openings and its aims. Two build a repertoire based on your one style of play and preference. For example if you are an agressive player dont overlook the sicilian since. Which is why I recommend a general purpose book. As you experiment and realise that a given opening is not for you then just turn the pages to the next one. Only once you have started to form a repertoire do you move to specific books based on your specific repertoire.
Which brings me to another point. I must recommend against starting out. Not that the books are bad. I have a few and they are usefull in their way, but they try to cater to too wide an audience. Let me explain with a practical example. In starting out the caro kahn they give a variation which a beginner would think is bad for black but then they it is good for black because of the light colour square weakness. However very very very few beginners even understand colour square weakness. Let alone knows how to take advantage of it. On the other hand the master who knows how to take advantage would not be caught dead with starting out because it is too limited and simple for him. The problem starts when you realise that there are no alternative variations explaned nor an explanation of how to do anything about the colour square weaknesses. I have four of these books and all four has these little irks in them. Not all are that bad but that is frustating. Again however since millions swear by them it could just be me.
One last thing for opening books. If you do decide to get two and one is a book that focus on explanation get the other one to be a variations book. Something like BCO2. The variations books give no explanations but that is what the other one is for and you use the two of them together. Which would be worth even more if you master your tactics books and have one or two positional chess books.
Which brings me to my last category. One or Two Positional books would be excellent. Here I would recommend Max Euwe. Do a google search on it. You can either buy the two on Dynamic and static positional features or you can download "Judgement and planning in chess" for free. Again do a google search.
The point is plan to get a small set of books that complement one another and together gives a set of skills (for example the complete chess workout along with a king attack book. or an opening explanation, opeing variation and positional factors book) rather than just haphazardly throwing more on the pile.
Two last things. One Download "The art of the middlegame" by paul keres and alexander kotov. It contains an important chapter on pawn structures in the centre. you will never be sorry. Also it contains some info on King attack which could be usefull especially if you cant afford, for the time being, a king attack book. Two. Go to Dan's Heismann's Novice nook. Read all his articles. There is an excellent chance that what you would find there is worth more than all the books you can buy at least to begin with. Even if you are not a novice or a beginner it is a good idea to go read all the material there at least once. he deals specifically with your question of why we buy books but our chess skill dont go up. the answer can be simple but fixing the problem can be a bit hard.
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Buying goes on and on and on... and I'm not improving my chess-IQ at all!
When your chess understanding evolves over time so will your ability to see and learn new things from your old books. Furthermore, while reading again you will begin to recognize certain pattern and so will you when playing the game. Pattern-Recognition is one of the most important key-ability to better chess!
