Worst Chess Books!
Sort:
Seirawan books are the worst ever written.
"... Winning Chess Tactics and Winning Chess Strategies ... Chess is a big game, and Seirawan covers a lot of ideas, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Readers will not come away from reading these books and realize an immediate 400-point jump in their rating. However, this accessible and entertaining series of books is an easy way for beginning players to broaden the foundation of their chess knowledge."
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090229/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review492.pdf
Worst book is 1001 chess tactics.
Majority are banal <1000 puzzles the rest are either stupid ( one side is already clearly winning or else there’s multiple solutions) - or just plain wrong.
Majority are banal <1000 puzzles the rest are either stupid ( one side is already clearly winning or else there’s multiple solutions) - or just plain wrong.
That one looks good.
It was the Tim Brennan one I was on about.
TakeThisPawn wrote (reacting, I think, to a post that I deleted):
That one looks good. ...
I think he is saying that 1001 Chess Exercises for Club Players by Frank Erwich looks good.
@kindaspongey chesscafe links no longer work. It appears they've hidden all their articles behind a pay wall now. Which is a shame because Dan heisman ones were great.
The above link worked for me just now. Could it be that it takes a computer to access the thing?
Possibly, I'm on mobile.
Anthea and Tim are both friends of mine. I’m so proud of them for the work they put into their books!
From "The even more complete chess addict":
The worst chess book ever written? The entries are too numerous and the laws of libel to inhibiting for us to declare an outright winner. Among the contenders, two of the most unintelligible writers on the game: the impenetrable Franklin K. Young, and the downright loopy Cho-Yo. For a flavour of Young's style, here he is describing checkmate: "Given a Geometric Symbol Positive or a combination of Geometric Symbols Positive which is coincident with the Objective Plane; then if the Prime Tactical Factor can be posted at the Point of Command, the adverse King may be checkmated" (The Grand Tactics of Chess, 1896). Got it?
Cho-Yo wrote a book called "Japanese Chess" (press Club of Chicago, 1905) but in it he had much to say about chess in general. Like: "Queening a pawn would be a ridiculous performance if we do not understand it chessonymously by esoteric connotations of the meaning on trans-modifications of force or vitality. There is in exotery literally no Queening a pawn in the Science and art of War – nay! – all kinds of struggles."
Been expecting more ancient Books on opening theory to be mentioned in this post. Or are people afraid to reveal their opening prep, traps and tricks?
I was a strong player in the 1970s, then moved on to other things in life. My favorite books in the old days were game collections and tournament books annotated by grandmasters. With the advent of super strong chess programs I wondered what their analysis would look like when checked by computers. The answer, in a word: garbage. Someone named Taylor Kingston has done a great job of tracking all the errors in some classic books. Here for example is his catalog of errors in Alekhine's notes to the New York 1924 tournament, which used to be my favorite chess book. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5856bd64ff7c50433c3803db/t/58960482e58c623d5fd49274/1486226562933/NY_1924_Computer_Supplement.pdf
Bottom line: stick to books published in the last few years that presumably have been computer-checked before going to press.