Chess.com graciously extended trial free memberships many years ago, and I took the opportunity at that time to create this group. It was unclear to me at the time for what purpose this little haven on the web might serve, only that it was nice to have access to a space to cultivate ideas pertaining to chess--hence the ambiguous name of this group.
In short: before your eyes is the stash of acorns that I stowed away for many years. I'm digging it up now to share with you!
'Tis I, Prehistoric Hoarder
Is this guy nuts?
Have you ever opened up a chess book (or any book, for that matter), glanced at it, and slowly closed it and backed away out of fright? Oh I certainly have. But it's important to learn from books, I say! Those hardcover tomes saved my life in engineering, and are about to send me off (fingers crossed!) to medical school. Professors forget, lecture slides may lie, but books have passed through the scrutiny of editors, colleagues, and peers because they are a testament to the world as if to say, "Hey, let me show you something neat that I figured out. Come look!" It takes quite a bit more gumption to thrust one's thoughts onto permanent pages that one presents as something worthy of another's dinero; such works tend to be of higher quality than most.
My personal library looks something like this.
Comprehensiveness and quality tend to go hand in hand, at the expense of the reader. Books generally have a beginning section that nobody reads (yoohoo, nothing like breaking the fourth wall and pointing at this post!) available so that in the case that someone random passes by and picks them up, everyone can quite literally begin on the same page.
So what's THIS group really for?
Through my years of study, I have found that the best way to digest piles of word junk (with all due respect, O Honorable Book Deities) is to break them down and chew them piece by piece. A pleasant way to do so is to share the pain with others! Misery loves company, after all. So that's what brings me here--to share my journey through some fundamental chess books with fellow enthusiasts. I'm here to learn with you!
The Forecast
As an amateur chess player (OTB ~1300 last time I checked in high school), I will be focusing on studying the middlegame, endgame, and opening in that order. Pedagogy may vary (some say to study the game backwards, from endgame to opening), but I prefer this order because frankly, it's more fun to learn how to wipe the floor via early checkmate than to build an advantage, simplify, and clean up the endgame. (And learning is faster when it's fun!) Tactics take precidence before all of these, but there exist plenty of free resources for drilling those on this website and others.
Without further ado, here's the list of books I hope to go through:
Complete Chess Strategy Vol 1 [CCS1] - First Principles of the Middlegame by Ludek Pachman
Complete Chess Strategy Vol 2 [CCS2] - Principles of Pawn Play and the Centre by Pachman
Complete Chess Strategy Vol 3 [CCS3] - First Principles of the Middlegame by Pachman
Endgame book, to be decided
A King's Pawn game (e4 e5) book by Nunn (not entirely certain about the author, have to dig it up sometime)
Hello! :D
Chess.com graciously extended trial free memberships many years ago, and I took the opportunity at that time to create this group. It was unclear to me at the time for what purpose this little haven on the web might serve, only that it was nice to have access to a space to cultivate ideas pertaining to chess--hence the ambiguous name of this group.
In short: before your eyes is the stash of acorns that I stowed away for many years. I'm digging it up now to share with you!
Is this guy nuts?
Have you ever opened up a chess book (or any book, for that matter), glanced at it, and slowly closed it and backed away out of fright? Oh I certainly have. But it's important to learn from books, I say! Those hardcover tomes saved my life in engineering, and are about to send me off (fingers crossed!) to medical school. Professors forget, lecture slides may lie, but books have passed through the scrutiny of editors, colleagues, and peers because they are a testament to the world as if to say, "Hey, let me show you something neat that I figured out. Come look!" It takes quite a bit more gumption to thrust one's thoughts onto permanent pages that one presents as something worthy of another's dinero; such works tend to be of higher quality than most.
Comprehensiveness and quality tend to go hand in hand, at the expense of the reader. Books generally have a beginning section that nobody reads (yoohoo, nothing like breaking the fourth wall and pointing at this post!) available so that in the case that someone random passes by and picks them up, everyone can quite literally begin on the same page.
So what's THIS group really for?
Through my years of study, I have found that the best way to digest piles of word junk (with all due respect, O Honorable Book Deities) is to break them down and chew them piece by piece. A pleasant way to do so is to share the pain with others! Misery loves company, after all.
So that's what brings me here--to share my journey through some fundamental chess books with fellow enthusiasts. I'm here to learn with you!
The Forecast
As an amateur chess player (OTB ~1300 last time I checked in high school), I will be focusing on studying the middlegame, endgame, and opening in that order. Pedagogy may vary (some say to study the game backwards, from endgame to opening), but I prefer this order because frankly, it's more fun to learn how to wipe the floor via early checkmate than to build an advantage, simplify, and clean up the endgame. (And learning is faster when it's fun!) Tactics take precidence before all of these, but there exist plenty of free resources for drilling those on this website and others.
Without further ado, here's the list of books I hope to go through: