Beginner Chess Books, {0-1200}
I was bitten by the Chess Bug last summer. Since then, I've been steadily trying to improve. Here's a list of beginner books I'm working through, in this order:
- Giannatos - Everyone's First Chess Workbook
- Coakley - Winning Chess Puzzles For Kids, Vol. 1-2
- Brunia - Chess-Steps, Step 1
- Polgar, S. - Learn Chess the Right Way, Book 1, 2, 4, 5, 3
- Chandler - How to Beat Your Dad at Chess, Chess Tactics for Kids, and Chess Puzzles for Kids
- Polgár, L. - Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games, Ch. 1 & 2.1 (1-450)
- Del Rosario - A First Book of Morphy
- Seirawan - Play Winning Chess (Available on Chessable here)
Books 1-5 cover the basics with plenty of tactical work. When I refer to a step of the Chess-Steps method, I'm referring to every book at that level, not just the manual and basic workbook. As an older learner, I think repetition is even more important. Rather than go through the same book three or four times, I plan to go through several books once or twice each.
After learning the basics, I'll start working my way through the first 450 puzzles from the classic puzzle book Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games. These cover mate-in-1's and basic mate-in-2's.
The seventh book, A First Book of Morphy, is a bit different. It's an annotated game collection. The author has explained all the important moves of each game to demonstrate strategic principles. There are ten opening, middlegame, and endgame principles, 30 in all. Each principle is illustrated with two games played by the legendary Paul Morphy. The principles are actually from an old book by Reuben Fine that was very popular in its day, circa 1941, called Chess the Easy Way. I plan on playing through game collections on a physical chessboard rather than a computer. Who knows, maybe I'll even throw on a wig and cosplay it !!
The eighth book, Play Winning Chess, is also a bit different. Unlike the first five, which focus mostly on tactics, this book also covers some history, philosophy, and, more importantly, strategy. As beginners, we can think of strategy as longer-term planning while tactics are short sequences that gain us an immediate and obvious advantage, e.g., checkmate or taking pieces. It's also written by Yasser Seirawan, who has an excellent reputation as a storyteller, making this a Chessable course whose video I think might be worth paying for. For these reasons, this is the beginner book I'm most interested in going through.
The goal is to hit 1200!
I have an idea of which books to go through after these, but that list will have to wait until I actually hit 1200.
What are your favorite beginner chess books? Leave your list in the comments.
