As a 1500 now, I'd love if you can tell me what books to buy to reach 1800 quickly, as in 4 months or so, or even Faster. I could study the book you name for as much as 8 hours a day if it will make me improve, thank you.
Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking by Neil Macdonald
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There is no one magic book that is guaranteed to get you to 1800. However, two highly regarded general chess instruction books that could certainly help in that regard and which I would recommend for the purpose...
The Amateur's Mind by Jeremy Silman
The Soviet Chess Primer by Ilya Maizelis
As both books cover similar chess topics I believe that either of them would be an appropriate choice for pursuing your goal. However the books do differ in style. For example, Amateur's Mind is written in a narrative, conversational style, while Soviet Chess Primer is more 'academic' in style. Neither style is necessarily better than the other. For those reasons and the fact that no two books are identical in their treatment of the same topic, I would suggest to consider acquiring both books, when the presentation and/or explication of specific passages or topics may prove to be of more interest in one book versus the other at any given point during your studies.
However, if I were forced to choose one book over the other (which I would only do begrudgingly, since there is much to appreciate about both books!), I would have to pick "The Soviet Chess Primer", not only because of its outstanding chess instruction, but it comes highly praised by former World Champions Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov, both of whom learned chess from Maizelis' work.
Once you have absorbed the lessons in the book(s) above, you may or may not choose to follow with....
How to Reassess Your Chess: Chess Mastery Through Chess Imbalances by Jeremy Silman
I suggest to check out my comments on all three books in the following article...
Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond...
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond
As for "Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking" by Neil MacDonald, it is a good, instructive annotated games collection targeted to the improving chess amateur and, in terms of style and format, essentially a carbon copy of the chess classic "Logical Chess Move By Move" by Irving Chernev. Both books are also commented on in my article (above).
Wow, thanks a lot!
Thechessplayer202020 wrote:
As a 1500 now, I'd love if you can tell me what books to buy to reach 1800 quickly, as in 4 months or so, or even Faster. I could study the book you name for as much as 8 hours a day if it will make me improve, thank you.
Based on your favored learning style, Coach and IM Andras Toth recommends:
Understanding chess move by move by nunn
Modern chess masterpieces by stohl (after understand chess move by move)
What do you think of this book, I remember it was the first chess book I got so I set up my board and played the moves while reading.I then joined chess.com and instantly reached a 1000 rating.