Got a lot of stuff off Amazon, just curious to see your opinions on what is good and bad.

Lessons in Chess Strategy - Valeri Beim
Winning Chess Tactics - Yasser Seirawan
The Classical Sicilian - Alex Yermolinsky
Pawn Power in Chess - Hans Kmoch
Learn from Bobby Fischers Greatest Games - Eric Schiller
Silmans Endgame Course - Jeremy Silman
Batsfords Modern Chess Openings 14 - Nick De Firmian
How Life Imitates Chess - Garry kasparov
English Opening - Maurizio Tirabassi
Winning with the French - Wolfgang Ulfmann
Winning with the Kalashnikov - Neil McDonald
Analyse to win - Byron Jacobs
How to use computers to improve your chess - Christian Kongstad
The Art of the Middle game - Paul Keres
An Opening Repetoire for Black - Drazen Morovic
Black to play and win with 1...g6 - Andrew Soltis

Saitek Competition pro game clock

Kasparov Simultano chess computer (from a friend)
Mephisto Expert Travel Chess computer

Any thoughts?

Read chapter 1 of pawn power in chess, and it is so hard to digest it's unbelievable. Silmas endgame course is great and Batsfords MCO is good for reference, just havent looked at the others in any detail yet.

curious why a Chess.com membership or Chess Mentor are not on that list ;)

for the same money you would get 500 times the tactics, all interactive and rated, as you will with "Winning Chess Tactics". plus you get the opening explorer to supplement your opening books. also, for less money than a book you can cover several interactive courses from Jeremy Silman ;)

no pressure, just throwing it out there :D

I agree with Erik - I find online so much easier than books - wish I could afford all the goodies . For the time being only free stuffs for me

Pawn Power in Chess - Hans Kmoch

That's a tough book to read. It's all R2D2-to CP30. I can't remember the name of that type of notation.

Also, he loves to give things name - lee - luff - rams - a faker, the list goes on. Howevr, once you get your head around that style it's a good enough read.

*edit* just noticed what you have said about it :)

Sliman's endgame course is awesome. If you start with that it'll get you're confidence up, get you into the frame of mind of study.

 This one one of my favorite chess reads. It is a classic that everyone should invest a lot of time in.

I'm gong to jump in here and defend Pawn Power in Chess, since I believe it's a powerful book--my own copy is 20 years old and I've taped and retaped the spine. But the descriptive notation is no problem for me, since that was my first "chess language" (though I'm now a believer in algebraic). I do think Kmoch's vocabulary is a bit much--he makes the very reasonable point that there does not exist a shared vocabulary for pawn studies, but then proceeds to name every possible thing, occasionally with weird names he never uses again.

That said, the book has revolutionized (in a positive way) how I deal with pawns. I think about how best to create duos and how my liberation levers are going to come into play. Frenchie, I highly recommend that you plow through it, and try not to get discouraged...the first couple of chapters are light on strategic stuff but long on vocabulary. Skim them and move on.

I see a lot of redundancy:

The Classical Sicilian, Winning with the French, Winning with the Kaleshnikov, An Opening repertoire for black, Black to play and win with 1. ... g6.

How many openings do you need as black?

Wow! You got a lot of books, I guess the rest of your life is pretty much planned out.

16 books! Wow. The shipping costs alone must have been insane!

I'm using the Chess Mentor. It currently has 2868 lessons divided into 42 courses (yes, I counted). New courses are added regularly. It costs me less than $80 per year and it takes up no space at all. And Lord knows I could use more space on this desk of mine...

The more I study chess, the fewer books I think are essential.

• English Opening - Maurizio Tirabassi
• An Opening Repetoire for Black - Drazen Morovic
• Black to play and win with 1...g6 - Andrew Soltis
• Winning with the French - Wolfgang Ulfmann
• Winning with the Kalashnikov - Neil McDonald
• The Classical Sicilian - Alex Yermolinsky
• Batsfords Modern Chess Openings 14 - Nick De Firmian

1. At the 1123 "Long" live chess level opening study is not so important.
2. If you do want to focus on openings, a book on principles like "Ideas Behind the Chess Openings" or "Improve your Opening Play Now" is better.
3. These books do not form a cohesive repertoire (French AND Sicilian)??
4. "The English Opening - A21" is your only opening book for White... and it's 12 years old, hardly mentioned, and focuses on only the A21 variation.

• Winning Chess Tactics - Yasser Seirawan

Good selection. There are other options, but this is a fine choice.

• Silmans Endgame Course - Jeremy Silman

Good selection.

• Art of the Middlegame - Paul Keres

Good selection. Again, there are other options, but this is a fine choice.

• How Life Imitates Chess - Garry kasparov

This is not a chess book. Of course, you're free to own non-chess books. :)

Correct me if I am mistaken but I believe if you get them all shipped at once you only pay the shipping fee once.

I agree and I purchased Silman's book : "Complete end game course" as it came out on the market last October 2007, it it worth a lot more than the $20 CAN I paid for it.

Now if you really want an advanced book on game ending the book from Karpov: End game Virtuoso Anatoly Karpov, is a jewel, I do not pretend to undersatnd it all, but it does have new insights in the finals of a game. depending on your rating level, I might venture a rating of 1800 or less on chess.com you might be disapointed, but again who knows?

A very interesting book for exploring new outcomes.

Thanks for all the comments so far. If anyone else can add any mini reviews of the books then please do so.

A few of the books I got only cost £2 or £3 on Amazon so I bought a few of them just incase. MCO/Silmans End game/Winning Chess tactics/Pawn Power are all brand new, the others are a lot older. I wouldnt buy them all new that would be pointless, but someone said if I see stuff going cheap then buy it for the future.

For likesforests, my grade on the other sites I play at, with samples of a few hundred games is around the 1450 mark. Does this change the point of opening study at all? I'm always looking to play stronger players who know some opening theory, because I hate feeling like a woodpusher.

At the moment, I am only looking at Ruy Lopez for White, but its black defences for against d4 that I'm uncertain of, hence why I've purchased different books. It is also that if somebody plays difference defences against me when I play e4 as white, I'll know how to handle them a little better. I do like the sicilian as Black, and am playing the Najdorf 5...a6 variation at the moment against my regular playing partner (his grade is around 1700 on another site). Get some good advantages with that. Against d4 I'm playing the Kings Indian, but my partner said i shouldn't play it because it is far too complex for a beginner. Aren't most Black defences? lol

What I like about the "winning" book by Yasser, is that he explains things a lot better than other authors. I had a skim through of Valeri Beims "Lessons in chess strategy" book when it came through, and I dont know if it is because of the stiffness in the translation, but I tend to absorb what Yasser says a lot better than Valeri, if that makes any sense whatsoever. (I do realise that Strategy and Tactics are totally different, just saying the writing style of Beim doesn't suit someone below at least Intermediate level (I'd say Intermediate in my mind is 1800+ ELO)