Hi, 

I've just started to get into chess books ever since my ratings have plateaued. I have been reading Back to Basics: Tactics by Dan Heisman, and it's been very helpful. I'm open to any chess-related books you can offer or that has helped you and can share with the Chess.com community. Thank you for reading!

Logical next book might be Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner To Master. They say you only learn chess when you learn "Endgame".

After that check out

That endgame book is the one I want to get myself.  The only endgame situation I know down cold (besides how not to competely mess up a QK vs K or RK vs K finish) is the basic principle of opposition in queening a sole pawn against an enemy king.  I know what the "won if it's your opponent's move" and "won no matter whose move it is" positions and how to get the queen from there.  After that .... eh.  So anyway, seconded on that one, from a position of what I think I need to learn, myself.

More to the point: Heismann's advice in general really resonates with me and has helped considerably.  (I don't have that book -- Christmas list! -- but have read a bunch of his Novice Nook columns.)  As such, I think his suggested tactics books are probably generally helpful.  I started Al Woolum's [u]Chess Tactics Workbook[/u] a few months ago; 106 pages in I'm vastly more confident in my ability to create threats without leaving myself open to tactics in return -- if I still blunder from time to time it's because of psychological factors and not lack of basic skills.  (The book Heismann really flogs is called something like Winning Chess Exercises for Kids, which I don't have, but both share the trait that most of the exercises are relatively straightforward -- there's just a LOT of them.  And I think that's really useful.)

The Amateur's Mind is very good and exactly written for the range of 1200-1800

I'm reading this book. It started off easy but now it's getting difficult. Each set of 9 exercises (there's 100 sets of 9 exercises in this book) is now taking me over an hour to complete, and I'm only about 75% of the way through. Anyone else read this?

Apart for doing an awful lot of tactics(which is really the foundation of chess improvement at our level), you might find that Silman's "How to reasses your chess" is both very pleasant to read and very instructive as an intruduction to chess strategy. I definitely recommend it.

I also suggest you to totally avoid "rapid chess improvement", by far the worst chess book i ever read. Basically the author says "tactics are going to improve your rating a lot" again and again for the whole book withour adding anything or remotely useful (and he pretends that he is not repeating an universally accepted truth, but instead that everyone apart himself wants you to do nothing else but strategy). 

The Amateurs Mind by Jeremy Silman, and 303 tricky chess tactics by Fred Wilson and Bruce Albertson.

I hear over and over that studying tactics is the way to improve relatively low ratings. I believe what is being said, but why? I currently lose more games because I end up with a bad position after my openings than I lose due to tactics in the middle game. I currently am working on all three major phases of the game and can't see how concentrating on tactics is to any advantage without sound opening and endgame knowledge.

Would you mind showing one of these games that you lost because of a bad position out of the opening ?

You don't have a rating in the range that people are mostly talking about, though.  I know when I was struggling to beat computer programs set at 1200-1300 a few months ago I mostly got into trouble due to missing tactical opportunities (offense and defense).  I think it's nigh on pointless to worry about whether you want to play Bc4 or Bb5 on move 4 of a game if you're still dropping your rook to a knight fork two games in three and missing an easy checkmate the third time.  General opening principles will do fine.  (I'm still mostly relying on them myself despite that I play correspondance.  It's coming, but I need to get some endgame training in first.)

I am slightly higher rated than you but i honestly have trouble remembering a single game i lost because of the opening ( i have indeed lost games during the opening, due to missed tactical shots or (rarely) really huge positional mistakes). Of course i'm often in a so-so position out of the opening, but middlegame/endgame mistakes at my level are so common that a slight opening disadvantage is never really significant. I would also be interested in seeing some examples.

In my experience what usually happens is that one loses in the middlegame or endgame, 80% of the time to a tactical shot, and then blames the opening because it hurts less to say "my opponent outbooked me, he won because he learned lines by heart" rather than "my opponent played better, he won because he is the better player". However the second sentence is almost invariably the right one.

For tactics I would recommend the CT-ART program (I know, it's not a book but it's great!), and reviewing questions 1-450 in Polgar's "brick"...I do CT-ART daily, and review the 450 brick questions monthly.

For endgames I'd read Silman's endgame course start to finish, and then go one level weedier with Mueller's 'Fundamental Chess Endings', de la Villa's '100 endgames you must know', and Mueller's 'secrets of pawn endings'.  Then go even weedier with Nunn's 'rook endings' and 'minor pieces endings'.  My approach is to read them all once cover to cover, and then read them again very slowly and carefully until you digest everything, although you can't really read through the Nunn books quickly.

I've read through all of them once, and am now working my way through the Nunn series and I alternate between the other books (by Silman, de la Villa, and Mueller) since they offer slightly different perspectives/explanations of the same material.  I have noticed a definite impact on my middlegame play, becuase I can see won endgame options more moves away now. 

For strategy I am following Heisman's (you should see his website) recommendations which is to read the Silman series (Amature's Mind first, then 'How to Reassess your chess', followed by the 'reassess your chess workbook').  I'm still in the opening section of the Silman workbook, but after that I'll follow Heisman's advice and read all of the Aagaard series in his recommended order:

1) Excelling at Chess
2) Excelling at Chess Calculation
3) Excelling at Technical Chess
4) Excelling at Combinational Play
5) Excelling at Positional Chess
6) Practical Chess Defence

I'm also reading Soltis'  book on pawns, and there are three other pawn books I don't have yet but are supposed to be pretty good (Baburin's 'Winning Pawn Structures', Marovic's 'Understanding Pawn Play in Chess', and Michalechishin/Braslawski 'Hanging Pawns'). 

Another book I'm reading just for fun is Chess for Zebras.

I personally have not invested any serious time on openings, but I am reading a whole series of opening trap books (Pandolfini has three good ones, traps and zaps 1 and 2, and winning way).

bresando & hicetnunc;

I don't know how to post a game so I will make the first ten move from a recent game:

6. Nf3, 8. Bf4 and 10. Ne5 were all flagged as mistakes by Computer Analysis. I ended up getting trounced. True, my opponent used some good tactics on me but I feel if I hadn't made the opening mistakes, my position would have been sounder and it would not have been as easy for my opponent to out/tactic me.

bresando, I agree with what you are saying, and I do always give credit to my opponent when I lose. All I am saying is that with a sounder opening, my middlegames would not be such struggles.

PS If someone would tell me what a fen string is and how to find it, I will know how to post a game in  the future. Sorry for the two boards above. This is the first time I have tried to enter game move but hopefully you get the idea.

Thanks.

You can go to your game, copy the moves, paste into the appropriate window in the "insert game" menu.

No doubt emerging with a sound position out of the opening helps you later in the game, but isn't common sense enough for reaching this goal? Do you really need to study openings in depth?

The position you post is absolutely playable for both sides. Both players have played some very unusual moves, but it's clear that the game outcome has not been decided by the opening. 6.Nf3 was hardly a mistake whatever the computer says, Qg4 was more aggressive (and to understand the idea behind this move opening study is hardly required) but your move is also ok. I can't see anything terribly wrong with Bf4. Bd3 was certainly more natural than Ne5, but again it's not like white is going to fall for this. At move 10 the game is far from decided. If anything i would say that with a bit more accuracy you would have entered the middlegame with a good advantage.

Hi JFK,

I agree that your opening may be improved in that variation, but still the position is completely playable after 10 moves.

When analyzing games with my students, I try to answer two questions :

- what was (were) the losing move(s) ?

- why were these (losing) moves played ?

Here, obviously, your opening play didn't cause your loss.

However, I understand you don't feel comfortable with your opening, which is a cause of concern. This is often more a psychological problem than a technical problem. Many people think : "I don't know the opening well enough, so my position out of the opening must have some defect, so when my opponent plays some annoying move, I can't find a proper reply because my pieces are in poor positions anyway, etc."

Learning openings is a way to build confidence, so you can do it if it helps you. Problem is : opening study is a never-ending story. At some time, you have to stop and tell yourself : "ok now, I understand enough to have confidence in my ability to reach a playable middlegame. Maybe my opening play won't be perfect, but it will still be good enough to have my shots later in the game."

Thing is I'm not sure you need an extreme level of opening knowledge at all to identify those as mistakes.  Even from my totally ignorant (and lower-rated than you >_>) perspective it's possible to see those weren't optimal moves.  For instance on move 6, the suggested Qg4 threatens the unprotected g pawn and by extension the rook.  Advance the g pawn and you get to threaten the queen with your bishop -- I'm tired but it looks like a serious attack.  That's pure tactics.

8.Bf3 leaves your d pawn surprisingly vulnerable.  If the black bishop had taken it, either way you recapture leads to a pawn fork defended by the black knight.  Too tired to follow it past there, but that's probably not good.  Again, just tactics.  (Edit: Actually I'm not sure the pawn fork is that bad.  Too dopey to think.  Bah!)  And 10. Ne5 is just premature since the outpost knight can be captured.

bresando & hicetnunc;

Thank you so much for your replies. They make a lot of sense. Maybe I am giving  openings too much importance. I remember a while back when I was trying to put together my opening repertoire and I was really struggling to find openings and defenses that would consistently give me an advantage. I got over that but appear to still have a hangover. Maybe I need to look at the whole game and realize that the opening is just part of it (and continue to work on my tactics as well as ALL parts of the game). 

Thanks again.

 Start with the endgame first!  Then the middlegame.  The opening comes last, of course!

Zurich 1953 - you'll get all knowledge about all parts of the game, and transitions between them.

You may get any tactical problems books. Though you should analyze games played by Alekhine or Morphy too.