Most Instructive Chess Books

Hey everyone, i want to know what your favorite/most instructive chess book is.  Thanks if you post!

Kstorn

does no one read chess books?

Actually I much perfer video instruction that plays on my chess application (fritz). But, in any case, the answer to your question depends quite significantly on where you are in your understanding of chess and to a much smaller extent what you are interested in learning.

All of that said I can at least recommend books on 1. Strategy / Planning and 2. Endgame. I believe (and have had chess experts tell me) these are weak subjects for almost all amiture players.

In addition, I would have you do the chess puzzles and tactical training available right here on chess.com. do that for 15 - 20 min. 3 - 5 days a week and I promis you your elo rating will slowly begin to rise.

I hope this helps a little.

Bill

Thank you Knightburgler my otb rating is 1600 so do you know any books for that level or should i just do mentor and tactics training?

Kstorn

Lots of great books out there.  Here are Coach Heisman's recommendations:

http://danheisman.home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Events_Books/General_Book_Guide.htm

Hi Kstorn,

I do think it would help to do the mentor and tactics training. You have that diamond next to your name that gives you unlimitated use of that stuff on chess.com so, why not? I do.

I'm not saying you should not read books, just sayn that there are great resources right here that you pay to use every month ;)

Good Luck my friend, and challenge me to another game some day!

I would recommend The Immortal Game by David Shenk. It is very informative and has a lot of chess trivia and history as well as chess instruction.

Your First Move: Chess For Beginners (Sokolski)

It's almost 300 pages and broken down like this:

I. Rules Of The Game (pp 7 - 40) - after this chapter the book assumes you know how the pieces already move.

II. The Simplest Endings (pp 42 - 60)

III. Some Basic Concepts (pp 62 - 70)

IV. How To Start A Game (pp 73 - 83) - it contains my favorite section "Fast Development of Pieces"

V. The Opening (pp 88 - 154) - gives the basic ideas of major openings with a couple of sidelines

VI. Short Games & Traps (pp 158 - 172)

VII. Middle Game (pp 175 - 228) - tactics and positional play

VIII. Endgame (pp 230 - 263)

IX. Chess Composition (pp 265 - 270)

X. Chess Past and Present (pp 276)

XI. Solutions to Exercises (pp 293)

I consider this my chess bible.

Thank You !

I can't really advise you on the best.  I can tell you books that opened my eyes but that's largely due to serendipity.  The right book came along at the right moment.

1. Andy Soltis Pawn Structure Chess. I struggled trying to figure out why one chose various moves in positions that didn't have more obvious attacking or defensive motifs. 

2. John Nunn's Learn Chess Tactics.  It is a brilliant resource for honing your tactics and getting to understand how one looks for various pins, skewers, forks, X-Rays, etc.

John Watson has written a large number of exceptional books and to pick just one is impossible but I'll go this far. A Strategic Opening for White. For his Mastering Chess Openings Volume 1 and 2.  These books are written for the layman to help deepen understanding of the ideas and some theory of the various openings. Of necessity he can only go so deep in books like that since many of these openings could have books that thick on their ideas and theory alone.

It is going to be a very difficult question for anyone to answer because it is largely going to be which book resonates with your current weaknesses and strengths at any given time.  When one helps you fix a weakness you'll be less prone to err.  When one helps you sharpen and focus your strengths it will give you a sense of purpose and direction in the game so that you don't lose the thread as often.

One of my favorite authors is IM Jeremy Silman and he actually blogs on this site, too. He has a style of writing that is very easy to grasp - and very entertaining, always a plus, IMHO. You won't go wrong with any of his works but I highly recommend 2 of his books in particular:

1) How to Reassess Your Chess - Get the latest edition but even the older ones are good. You don't necessarily have to follow his "thinking technique" rather at least read it to get a good foundation on important strategic concepts such as minor piece differences (Knight vs. Bishop, etc.), static vs. dynamic imbalances, weak or strong squares and so on.

2) Silman's Complete Endgame Course - He does a great job of breaking down the important endgame concepts one needs to know at the particular level he, or she, is playing.

After going thru those 2 books, you could then choose to try other books but I think these 2 give you a solid foundation for further study. Good luck!

Two great books for inexpeirienced players are logical chess move by move and the most instructive games of chess ever played,both by Irving Chernev.