If there were only 1 chess book you could reccomend what would it be ?

I have hit a wall in both my "live play"(1400) and "Turn based"(sub 1700) chess progression. So my purchase of a chess book is undoubtedly needed. So this brings me to my question, if there were only 1 chess book you could recommend what would it be ?

Thanks in  advance,

Sal

***Just realized I spelled recommend wrong in my thread title, my apologies

Forgiven :-)

What have you read so far (if anything)?

I'll tell you in advance several people will come and recommend something by Jeremy Silman :)

Sir,

I have just purchased "Chess Master vs. "Chess Amateur" by Max Euwe and Walter Meiden...

I'm a few chapters in.....

Pawn Power in Chess by Kmoch. Pawn Structure Chess (by Soltis?) is pretty good, too.

Thanks to all in advance....definitely annotating all posts!!!!

I've read the Reti book and the Kmoch book - really enjoyed both

Chernev's Logical Chess Move by Move. This has been one of the best chess books I have read so far, very useful.

The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Games by Burgess, Nunn and Emms. It contains 112 of the greatest games with excellent annotations.

If I were to cheat, I'd say Kasparov On My Great Predecessors.Those five volumes contain just about every great game played from 1880-1980.

Thanks IM pfren from myself and all those who will see you post

How to Beat Your Dad at Chess by Murray Chandler. If you've watched IM Daniel Rensch's videos on mating nets, this book is what his chess.com video is based on.

Yasser Seirawan's Winning Chess Tactics is the best book I've read for someone who knows the rules and basic concepts but wants to understand more. Second best would be his Winning Chess Strategy.

You rating is high enough that you probably know most of that stuff, but its worth looking at anyways.

As the first response pointed out, yes, silman. Although the others are great (never look at retis though). Silman realizes his readers aren't masters (yet) and explains very important planning techniques in plain, simple language. Players at every level can grasp what he's trying to convey. He's not just giving variations to impress his fellow masters, h seems to really care about making all his readers stronger, strategically competent players.

Any of his in particular...????

Oh, of course. How to reassess your chess and the amatuers mind. They go together but you could read reassess by itself and come out of it much stronger strategically. I'm going to get one from him that's called grandmaster strategy or something. I've heard his endgame book is superb as well, I'm getting it at the same time.

Chess books can be a marvel sometimes or just a collection of nothing...

it depends how the authors care about sharing their experience in a specific way to readers that must need the same information as well...

So would you publish something if you have doubts about the ways you

should share with the public when your rating has never been over 2500

per example...

Ok folks !! your opinion matters too! Enjoy your chess experiences fully on this website!

                       HypnoDisk   Dec 2012

At this point in your chess game, the perfect book for you is "How To Reassess Your Chess" - Jeremy Silman!

I just started two Silman books: "Amateur's Mind" and "Silman's Complete Endgame Course".  Both seem outstanding to me.  I'm about 100 pages into AM and seeing some improvements in my positional thinking.  I haven't devoted as much time to the endgame book yet, but probably 20 pages in and so far its been helpful.  Silman's writing is very easy to read and easy to remember since he uses expressions and repeats himself (just the important stuff).  He also makes good use of the page - some text, some diagrams, some floating boxes with important points, and a recap at the end of each chapter highlighting the main concepts.  I've read probably ten or eleven chess books (several mentioned in this thread) and Silman's are my favorite thus far.  I also liked Chernev's "Logical Chess" if you're looking for a book of master games, but would choose Silman first for positional education or endgame strategy.

MCO now belongs firmly in the past and is a total waste of time nowadays in my opinion. Too detailed to be helpful to an inexperienced player and lacking sufficient detail to be of any use to a serious player. The Pachman books are good though.

Sharpen Your Tactics! by Anatoly Lein and Boris Archangelsky

My System by Aron Nimzovich

I dunno, it's not a criticism of the actual book per se, which in it's time was an absolute milestone - I just think it's a sign of the times. Fischer's suggestion "play through every line and footnote in MCO" seems totally laughable and dated in 2012. There may be a very small window of players that may actually benefit from an MCO style tome but I would have thought that nowadays it's either too advanced for a beginner/inexperienced player whereas someone that is seriously preparing openings would more likely use a specailsed opening book for that line/variation, or even a DVD or such like, and at a slightly higher level, Chessbase.