For a games collection book, I'm surprised nobody mentioned Tal-Botvinnik 1960.  From the excerpts on Amazon it looks like a great book.  It's in my shopping basket.

AquaMan wrote:

For a games collection book, I'm surprised nobody mentioned Tal-Botvinnik 1960.  From the excerpts on Amazon it looks like a great book.  It's in my shopping basket.

 It does doesn't it.  Luckily they have a copy of it at one of the local libraries, I've just not got around to checking it out yet (read a little bit of it while I was there one time).

I bought MCO 15 yesterday.  Very cool.  The better you are at moving, or beter yet picturing, the pieces on the board as you read the PGN, the better this book is.  Very good intros.  Great for getting an overview of a lot of different openings.  I went through a bunch of them last night.  The tables are great for seeing the variations, now that I know how to use them.

I did find one error already.   Albin Counter-Gambit, pg 513, column 16, 7...0-0-0.  Castle isn't legal on either side for black at move 7.  I've read that there's a "lot" of erros.  Still great fun to explore though.  If you're uncomfortable moving the pieces as you read the PGN then skip this book.

Why would I need to have 5 books on myself?

If I really need it I think I would get 1 of endgame.1 of opening.1 of tactics.1 Bobby fisher My sixty memorable games and 1 of kasparov My best games.

Best Games of ka151

Best Endgames of ka151

Modern ka151 Openings...

What?!?!?!?!?!?

five books about you, ka151.

ka151 wrote:

What?!?!?!?!?!?

 Can you give us the references of your books as I am particularly interested in books from your best games!!

ka151 - "My ten most memorable toes"

There are two ways to answer this question, I think:

1) If you were only allowed to read 5 books prior to attaining master, what would they be?

• 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games, Laszlo Polgar (really any good tactics problem book works here)
• Ideas Behind the Chess Openings, Reuben Fine
• My System, Aron Nimzowitsch
• How to Reassess Your Chess, Jeremy Silman
• Practical Chess Endings, Paul Keres

B) If you could only have 5 books based on your current level of knowledge, what would they be?

• Modern Chess Openings, Nick De Firmian
• How to Reassess Your Chess, Jeremy Silman
• Art of Attack in Chess, Vladimir Vukovic
• Practical Chess Endings, Paul Keres
• Zurich International Chess Tournament 1953, David Bronstein

I am surprised not many people mentioned Dvoretsky's series as the 5 books list! If anything they are by far the strongest books I've known recommended to candidate masters etc. I havent yet studied any chess books but if I need 5 of them I would definitely try to buy these:

1. Fundamental Chess Endings - Lamprecht, Muller.
2. Art of Attack in Chess            - Vucovic.
3. Modern Chess Strategy         - Pachman.
4. 100 selected games              - Botvinnik
5. Chess Informants

 The chess opening "Bibles" such as MCO, NCO and BCO are reference books and dont really "teach" you anything about chess. I see many references to MCO and not the other two, mainly because of MCO's popularity among Americans. I notice here in Europe MCO doesnt seem to be as popular as the other two. I have all 3 and prefer NCO of the 3. However, the best opening reference books, imo, is the 5 volume set of ECOs if you can afford them.

There are more books written on chess than all other games combined !  I have read this and do wonder if its true? If it is.... why limit ourselves to only 5 ?!!

My personal 5 favorites :

1 My System    Nimzovich

2 My 60 Memorable Games   Fischer 

3 Art of Attack    Vukovic

4 Zurich 1953   Bronstein

5 Euwe's  two books on  the Middlegame

1. Karpvs best games - one of if not the best books to study

2. Capablancas best games - nothing else needs to be said

3. Chess Tactics For Champions - Susan Polgar

4. Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual - Mark Dvoretsky

5. MCO

which is better,

My System or

How to Reassess Your Chess???

I have a few more than 5 (mostly opening related) but for general study and better insight into the game, if I could only take 5 with me they would be:

1.  Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy (Watson)

2.  Rate your Endgame (Mednis & Crouch)

3.  The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal (Tal)

4.  My Best Games of Chess (Vishy Anand)

5.  Fire on Board (Shirov)

The "go to" books on my shelf:

Chess Openings: Theory And Practice - Horowitz ; it's like an MCO with more explanations

Chess Fundamentals - Capablanca ; nobody does it like Capa

Basic Chess Endings - Fine ; I've always considered this a very dry, labor intensive book but it's an invaluable reference.

My 60 Memorable Games - Fischer ; Great games, great annotations, 'nuff said.

I'm not sure what I'd pick for a fifth book. It should be something that covers middlegame tactics and strategy. I just finished Seirawan's "Winning Chess Strategies" but wasn't completely satisfied. I want to post a review of it here soon so I won't go into details. I've worked some in Silman's "Reassess Your Chess Workbook", "Amateur's Mind", "Complete Book Of Chess Strategy", and "Complete Endgames". My impression is that most of those books overlap or repeat each other in many areas. Right now I'm working from "Complete Book Of Chess Strategy". It should be a fairly good all-around book as it introduces a number of the major openings, demonstrates a number of the major named mates, and explains a bit about pawn structure, strategy, and tactics. Someday I hope to review this book here also.

1) Complete endgame Course by Silman

2) Pawn Structure - Andrew Soltis

3) How to reassess your chess - Silman

4) Winning chess tactics for juniors - Lou Hays - my 2nd tactics book. It helps me gain a few hundred ELO points! Before this book, I was making 1-3 move blunders in almost all my games. **** or any other tactics books like Lev Albert

5) The best games of Tarrasch - Fred Reinfeld. This is my very first chess book. Cover up his move and learn try to guess how Tarrasch would have played. I prefer this than games of modern masters. In the old days there are huge differences between playing strength and one can see how the plan gets carried out till the end.

Then some games on

1. Modern Chess openings (or Nunn)
2. Fundamental Chess Endings (or Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual)
3. My System
4. The Art of Attack in Chess
5. Think Like a Grandmaster

That would be my five. If I could have some more, I'd want:

6. The Inner Game of Chess
7. Chess for Zebras
8. How to Reassess Your Chess

And as many volumes of My Great Predecessors and my bookshelf would take. MGP is just a fantastic series of books.

Chess Opening Essentials, Vol. 1 Complete e4 by Djuric, Komarov, Pantaleoni

Amateur Mind by Silman

ReAccess Your Chess by Silman

Endgame Course by Silman

Logical Chess Move by Move by Chernev