How Many of Your Chess Books Have You Studied?

The point is not how many books you have. You can have 100s of books but never really study them thoroughly. And you can have a few books, study them thoroughly, absorb the information, and move to a higher rating. Presently I have only 3(!) books - all of them by Jeremy Silman: 1) Amateur's Mind,

2) Complete Book of Chess Strategy, and 3) Silman's Complete Endgame Course. How much do I read them? Not much since chess books are generally hard to read. I was in Barns & Noble's recently, and they had some interesting books there. However, I decided not to buy any more chess books until I'm done reading what I have. As a premium member, I also have access to Chess Mentor and Video lessons which, I believe, are a better alternative to books nowadays. In any case, Chess seems to be a rather hard subject to learn - even with the best tools and coaches available.

My favorite player's books (Jaques Millenium 4 in K set on Redwood and Bird's eye maple 21/2 in squares board)

i jus read the chessbase annotated gammes.. more uptodate... books are played out.. if its not cbv or pgn.. i dont / and too lazy to read it

Studied?  Very few.  However I'd say I used them for their intended purpose for about 50-60% of the books I have.  

I'm playing through "logical chess, move by move. every move explained" It's made me want to familiarize myself with chess greats through the ages. I can't wrap my mind around how blackburne could play games while blindfolded. Most of my books are geared for beginners. I am starting on another one called "the most instructive games of chess ever played." I like playing each move and trying to figure out why it was made. I like it even better when the game is picked apart by an expert.

An interesting comment. What is "the intended purpose" of chess books? What word would you use to denote how one uses chess books "for their intended purpose." As a matter of word choice, I didn't say reading because reading is what you do to a novel or a newspaper, and what you do with a chess book is quite a different process and takes far more time, if you do it properly in my view. You read text in a novel from beginning to end without having to perform any other operations to comprehend its meaning, other than some thought and reflection. With a chess book you have to pull out a chess set or a chess program, set up positions, run back and forth through variations. I might be able to read a 300 page novel in a week, but it would take me months to plow through a 300 page chess book. I think that "studying" is an apt description of what one does to properly use a chess book. I'm curious to understand the point you're trying to make.

I don't think all chess books should be intensively "studied".  Some are best read like a novel to extract maximum benefit.

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OK, SK, thanks. But which ones are best read like a novel? Would you please give some examples to help me understand what you're saying?  Thanks!

On the one end you'd have tactics/combinations/endgame manuals which are meant for someone to put in a lot of work to extract a lot of benefit.

On the other end you have a lot of game collection/tournament books which can be read like a novel.  The benefit is derived from playing through the games, reading the notes and putting a small amount of effort into understanding the moves that are played.  Sure you could spend hours going over each game,  but there are other books with model/sample games chosen exactly for that purpose.

Somewhere in the middle might be an opening encyclopedia, which you're going to ignore large parts of it because it has nothing to do with your repertoire.  But you'll spend more time on certain parts that apply to you.  In fact, even in opening repertoire books I may not follow the entire repertoire, just the parts I'm interested in.

I've put a lot of effort into my tactics books, and a much smaller effort into other books.  But I used them for my intended purpose when I first purchased the book.  I'd say I also finish the books I purchase at a much higher rate than the average chess player with over 20 books.

"Studied"?  As in really deep indepth read every word, study every position, setting them up on a real board, moving the pieces around, analyzing, writing notes, etc.?  That kind of studying?

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Thanks for your thoughts.

It's fascinating how some have turned my question into a semantic one. Would you have understood what I was asking if I had used the word read to describe what one does to put chess books to their intended use? I explained above why I didn't use read as the descriptive verb. I think that to properly use a chess book, you have to do more than just read the text. As you suggest, my use of studying includes playing out the games and the variations. Can you do that without a board, or a chess program? I can't. Props to you if you can.

Dan Heisman once told me not to spend more than twenty minutes going over a game in a book. That's great. If a 200 page book contains 100 games, and I take 20 minutes to go over each game, than it will take me 2000 minutes--33.33 hours--to complete the book. That's a rate of 10 minutes per page. I can read a novel at 1-2 minutes/page, 5-10 times faster. So I don't say you "read" a chess book. I look at a chess book more like a text book, especially the ones I used in law school. You don't just read them. You have to work your way through them, make sure you understand the concepts presented, take some notes, the things you suggest. If that's not what you do with chess books, when you use them for chess, how do you use them? I confess the only use too many of mine have is to take us space on my shelves in the hope that one day I will have the will to study them.

We are lazy People. :) :)

People! We are lazy! :) :)

A sign of a great chess book is one that excites you to play through all the text.  A misspent youth with nose in chess book can also keep you out of trouble