Hello there

I'm wondering if anyone can help me - I have been  playing chess 8 months now. All ratings on live and turn based are 1400-1500 most of the time. However its time I invest in a book methinks. Im looking for a nicely layed out books with clear diagrams for openings and how to react to them as well as put them into practice.

Any Suggestions would be much appreciated (Please inculde price and book shop where I can buy it - Thanks)  

Try 'The Oxford Companion to Chess' by David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, published 1984 by Oxford university Press. ISBN 0-19-281986-0

This will help.

Im a fan of Jeremy Silman's "How to Reassess Your Chess". I don't know what it would cost over there, but to give you a frame of reference, amazon.com has it for USD 12.21. The link to the book on amazon.com is

http://www.amazon.com/How-Reassess-Your-Chess-Chess-Mastery/dp/1890085006/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215272716&sr=8-1

The Game of Chess by Siegbert Tarrasch.  It's been in paperback since 1976.  Check used book stores.  There are tons of used copies out there.

Some books with more didgrams are Edward Lasker's Modern Chess Strategy.  And Emmanual Lasker's Lasker's Manual of Chess.  Those are also readily available used and very low prices.

As a 1400-1500 player you will most want to focus on tactics rather than on openings.  On Amazon.com you can find good books on tactics by Seirawan and Alburt and also check out chesstactics.org  where you can read about Ward Farnsworth's book or go through his diagrams on line.

i wouldnt say there is any one book to buy first but among your early buys you should include Ruben Fine's 'ideas behind the chess openings'

a very old book but still relevant today.  when your opponent strays out of book moves knowing the guiding ideas will help you find the right move

Cant beleive that nobody has suggested 'my system' by nimzovich, its the book that EVERY chess player should read....its focus is general principles rather than specifics and the motifs learnt can be applied to every single game you ever play, essential reading!

My System by Aron Nimzovich...

then get Modern Chess Openings, now on its 15th edition... and focus on a White Opening, and a Black defence each for the usually played e4, d4, and c4.

My best.

 

 

 

i can't believe no one has mentioned the 2 classics 'Underhanded Chess' and the follow up 'Devious Chess'.

a must for all coffeehouse  players :)

If the original poster's rating is 1400-1500 online, then his otb would be about 1200--meaning that many of the books recommended here are not suitable for a serious beginner, especially as he is asking for a first book.

No My System, no Reassessing your Chess, no MCO. Too advanced or just not useful for a 1200. Truly.

 The recommendation of a tactics book was good as it is not advanced. While the openings are fairly unimportant at 1200 level, an opening book that focuses on the ideas of the openings rather than columns of moves isn't too bad.

Logical Chess Move by Move (Chernev) gets recommended a lot by various professional 

teachers. That book will actually make a 1200 player stronger and give him lessons

he would be using hundreds of rating points later.

Or try "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess"... purely basic and deeply instructive

Buy a expensive one with a nice title ..

most of the times they're the best ..

goldendog wrote:

If the original poster's rating is 1400-1500 online, then his otb would be about 1200--meaning that many of the books recommended here are not suitable for a serious beginner, especially as he is asking for a first book.

No My System, no Reassessing your Chess, no MCO. Too advanced or just not useful for a 1200. Truly.

 The recommendation of a tactics book was good as it is not advanced. While the openings are fairly unimportant at 1200 level, an opening book that focuses on the ideas of the openings rather than columns of moves isn't too bad.

Logical Chess Move by Move (Chernev) gets recommended a lot by various professional 

teachers. That book will actually make a 1200 player stronger and give him lessons

he would be using hundreds of rating points later.

---

 I agree. Logical Chess is a fantastic book that really deepens your understanding of chess, from tactics, to strategy, to positional play. It's a very easy book to read and understand. It explains every single move of games between grandmasters (although not every game is is between two grandmasters). It'll also teach you how to look for patterns in chess so you can easily recognize them in your own games. 

Chess For Dummies by James Eade. Ther can be no doubt. Or may be yo want to read the complete manuel for the chessgame by Dr. Max Euwe. If it exists in English...

A good bit of advice i was given was to buy a chess book with all the past great games in them Karpov v kasparov.... and so on. I bought The mammoth book of great chess games". it has 112 of the greatest games ever played with diagrams, annotations and loads of possible continuations and so forth. it's the only chess book i own and it deffinately improved my game. ;)

For a collection of games nothing beats Tartakower and duMont's 500 Master Games of Chess.  Dover's paperback reprint contains all three books.  The games are sorted by openings.

I concur with everyone who mentioned Logical Chess:Move by Move.  If there is one book that everybody should have that one is it.  To have an explaination after every move is very helpfull.  Im terrible at Chess but I was ever worse before I picked that book up. 

I also think you should get Chess:5,334 Problems, combinations, and games by Polgar.  It will train you in tactics.  I finished all the mates in one, now Im trudging through the mates in two.  Very big book that will take years to finish. 

I wouldnt worry too much about opening theory.  It changes a lot, and computers have changed opening theory a lot, so I would go the software route on openings, instead of books.   You could actually go the software route on tactics and strategy too.  Computer will eventually make books on Chess obsolete.  Sad but true.  Instead of buying game collections, you could get Chessmaster and listen to Waitzkin and Christiansen annotate games, or just go to Chessgames.com and go through their database and read all the games that are annotated sometimes they are annotated by the player.  Just keep you library small, learn from my mistakes.  I have about 30 chess books, and have read one of them :) 

 

An opening encyclopedia. There are too many to list them all, but you have to learn openings or you'll never make it to the middle and end games before you lose.

I second what others say, start with either the endgame or tactics, so you learn the power of your pieces. Don't jump into extensive study of the opening, just know the basic principles of it like "control the center", and "develop your pieces". I've never read it myself but probably a book like Logical Chess would explain that stuff to you and that's all you need to worry about the opening right now. While it's tempting to start with the opening, because more pieces feels more exciting, you won't learn nearly as fast and it's a poor way to begin your studies (that's what I did and now I realize why I wasn't improving for so long).

Go to the library and check out what they have on offer. You can look on the library catalogue and see all the books that your local library and surrounding libraries has. If you can't get to other libraries, then they will send it to your local one if you ask them.

 I did this before buying any books. It gave me an idea as to what style I liked and what level I was at. Also, studying a book will be something new to you and you may not actually enjoy it. No point on wasting money on something if you ain't gonna use it.

First books I went through was

#1.Idiots guide to chess (didn't buy it). It was good though but didn't see myself needing it for further reference - a sort of one read job.

#2.Jeremy Silman's An Amatuer's Mind (good purchase).

#3.The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal. This one allowed me to go study games, see how someone thought.

 Your beyond the first one I mentioned. But the 2nd is a good begining to intermediate book. What I liked about it is that it is not intimidateing, with long complex variations, it is very user friendly. Reading a chess book is not like other books and this one helped me through the transition of being a chess book virgin - to dare I say it - stud?

Like I say, test the waters before commiting to anything :)