Opening repertoire books that also teach how to play chess?

Well, to be fair, I think it's asking too much out of a single book

The opening books show you schemes and ideas, maybe opening-specific patterns, but they can't really tell you : "I put the rook on an open file", "I push my pawns in the center" or provide refutations of various ideas at every corner, because then the book would probably be 2000 pages long

I learnt my first openings through game collections like Reti's Masters of the Chessboard. Reti explains a couple of basic ideas and then shows a game where the basic ideas are put into practice. No theory, no analysis tree, but a good starting point. Then you can play, meet new ideas and try to find counter-plans, thus learning the opening one step at a time.

For broader positional ideas, either the same game collections, or books devoted to this topic (strategy) may be the way to go. There's a reason why they say (deep) opening study comes later, when you have a good board vision and grasp of the basics.

Unless you're extremely strong, it's difficult to understand an opening without playing and analyzing it anyway, even if you have the best opening manual in the world.

Perhaps some of the Everyman Chess Move By Move books are somewhat like what you want.

The closest i can think of for what youre looking for would be Understanding Chess Move By Move.

You might check out some of the titles related to openings in this list of good chess books for those who have yet to add "Master" to their chess title...

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

In particular, "Discovering Chess Openings...." by John Emms, though not a repertoire book, would be an excellent place to start, for learning opening fundamental principles....

https://www.amazon.com/Discovering-Chess-Openings-Building-Principles/dp/1857444191/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1478001472&sr=1-1&keywords=discovering+chess+openings

Modern chess databases

Those are very nice opening databases, with a lot of verbal explanations that even I can understand  

 

Try How to Play Against E4 by Neil McDonald. This is a french defense book repertoire. The author explained well the ideas and plans behind the moves in this book.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Play-Against-1-e4/dp/1857445864

 

Understanding Chess Move by Move by Nunn will also improve your opening and overall play as well.

Really, I think the best advice is just to go to your local bookstore and flip through books on openings that interest you, seeing which is the most instructive FOR YOU. Otherwise, I think it's trial and error. I really do.

 

I found Mastering the French with the Read and Play Method by Neil McDonald and Andrew Harley in a Barnes and Noble in 1997 and it changed my career. I also took to Play the Noteboom by Mark Van der Werf and Teun Van der Vorm which my dad got for me the next year.

 

When I was 1900-something (for the second time, in 2008, after dipping below for awhile) The Sharpest Sicilian by Kiril Georgiev and Atanas Kolev was instrumental in helping me reach 2000. I won so many games with the Najdorf it was ridiculous.

 

I'm going to make a surprising recommendation: the series Opening for White According to Anand (there are 14 books in all, I have the first 10). It's a repertoire for White based on 1.e4. The author, Alexander Khalifman (former FIDE World Champion) writes for a professional player, but in the subvariations he gives a lot of terse but really helpful tips for how to play the resulting positions.

 

I would also recommend Opening for Black According to Karpov also by Khalifman IF you want to play one or more of the Caro-Kann vs. 1.e4, the Nimzo-Indian, the Queen's Indian, defend Catalan main lines, and play 1...e5 against the English.

 

You can also trust King's Indian: A Complete Black Repertoire by Victor Bologan (winner of the New York Open, Aeroflot Open, and most famously Dortmund 2003).

 

The books by Georgiev/Kolev, Khalifman, and Bologan are all published by Chess-Stars. Their books are "aimed at ambitious players" and "written by top professionals," but the explanations are really good and to the point. Of the three serious chess book publishers (Quality Chess, New in Chess, and Chess Stars), the latter is often overlooked, but I prefer their work to QC (TOO much material) and NIC (solid work, but I'm not a fan of most of their offerings).

Wow, great advice everyone, thanks!

Follow-up questions and comments...

hicetnunc: Thanks for the first response and sober assessment. I recently read Masters of the Chessboard and enjoyed it very much from both historical and instructional perspectives. I would like more that read like that, of course.

kindaspongey (or anyone who can answer): Is the "Move-by-Move" series in general written for the same level player as the "Starting Out" Series? Any major differences between those series? Any preference?

GodsPawn and jambyvedar: Nunn's books have so much rigorous lengthy analysis that I feel like I have to be several hundred points higher-rated to get anything out of them. This past year, my rating in the USCF climbed to class E, and I have a solid plus against class E players, a slight plus against USCF class D players, and a slight minus against USCF class C players ... Is Nunn's famous book way too advanced for my level? 

RussBell: I have heard some good things about the Emms' Opening book and may check it out. I kind of wanted that idea but with a specific/narrowed repertoire now that I am playing in OTB tournaments occasionally (even though they say openings don't matter at my level), but didn't want to get bogged down too much in theory/analysis when I have tactics and basic endgames & strategy to learn.

wishunknown: Those Modern Chess Databases looks awesome! How advanced? I don't see any database on the basic openings that low-level amateur's tend to play (Open Games and gambits, for instance).

Andre_Harding (and Jambyvedar): Thanks for the lengthy response!  Funny coincidence ... I just ordered that very McDonald French book with the "Read and Play Method" (and now I may order jambyvedar's recommendation for McDonald's newer French book)... I bought a few more titles in that "Read and Play" series, even though they are older books, after reading some of their glowing reviews on Amazon.  The other books you suggested seem advanced, but you seem to like the commentary ... would it be of any use for a player at my lower level? 

Thanks!

Dont worry about all of the analysis, and whether you understand it or not.  That is all part of the learning process.  What i wouls suggest though, is to set up the games on a real board with real pieces, and go over the moves 1 by 1 reading the analysis.  At first just go over the game moves, and try and understand what you can.  You can always go back over the games later more in depth.  

Another good thing to do that will help your learning is to play solitaire chess.  Play the first 6-8 moves and then cover up the rest of the game. Play the side that loses, and try and guess the moves of the winning side.  Dont worry about how rght, or wrong you are.  Its a great way to compare your thought process with the moves in the game.

I would guess that the Everyman Move by Move opening books are generally about twice as long as the Starting Out books. Consequently, I would suspect that the Move by Move books are more likely to take time to explain general chess ideas, but the cost is that more time is going to be required to work through the thing. The Starting Out series seems to have stopped around 2010, so the Move by Move books are closer to being up-to-date. I would guess that the new First Steps series is similar to the old Starting Out series, but, as far as I know, there have only been two of them so far.

Here is a sample from the Nunn book:

http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/Understanding_Chess_Move_by_Move.pdf'

and here is a review:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708092945/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review269.pdf

     I haven't seen opening databases with verbal explanations---can you tell me where to find them?  The databases I see mainly have just ECO symbols that mean "White is better" or "Black is better" or "with counterplay" or something like that.

DannyHume wrote -

" Is Nunn's famous book way too advanced for my level? "

My answer -

Yes....

Here is an excerpted page from "Understanding Chess Move By Move" by John Nunn.....

Not every page is this dense, but many of them are......the book is not written for the beginner-novice audience...

@dannyhume- Nunn's Move by Move book has many good verbal explanations. I believe some of the contents in this book might be daunting for you, but I am sure there also many contents in this book that you can digest easily.

An easier alternative is the famous book Logical Chess Move by Move by Chernev. I am sure that book will not only improve your opening understanding, but your overall play as well. You can also try How To Play Against E4 by Mcdonald. This book has good verbal explanation. It is a french defense book.

 

O how can I forget the classic(love by many players) Zurich International Chess Tournament by Bronstein. This book also contains many verbal explanation.

https://www.amazon.com/Zurich-International-Chess-Tournament-Dover/dp/0486238008

"Chess The Art of Logical Thinking" by Neil McDonald is identical in format to Irving Chernev's "Logical Chess Move by Move".  Both books are written for the beginner-novice chess audience.  Both authors do a good job explaining the moves in a manner appropriate to the intended readership.  The primary difference in the two books is that the games featured in Chernev's book cover the period 1891-1945, while those in McDonald's book are more recent, 1978-2003.

Here is an excerpt from McDonald's book....

  

 

Everyone always says tactics, tactics, tactics. That's important of course, but it seems to me that people are attracted to chess in the first place due to tactical play and those that are naturally good at it keep playing. Then the openings come in. I used to be afraid of playing e4 because I didn't know the Sicilian and figured I would get blown away. So I got a book on the Sicilian and started playing it from the black side. I quickly found that it was difficult to play so I no longer feared playing e4. I think its important to select opening systems that appeal to you and play them from both sides. If they don't work out, try a different opening. You start to see the same principles come in again and again.  The Najdorf is too hard for me to play so I don't play it, but I learned how to play against it by losing lots of games using it. I feel I really improved my play by playing slow games using opening books and when my opponent crossed me up by playing a move not in the book, that was the time to get to work and figure out how to take advantage of their move. Doesn't work for me anymore since my opponents don't play weak openings so I have to try to find some other way to improve but I found opening books very worthwhile.

I wouldn't recommend Nunn's book under class B, as he is overly analytical. Neil Mc Donald's game collections are really good : he has a knack for explaining things despite being a GM. He also wrote the excellent Giants of Chess Strategy, which is a good strategic primer based around full modern games.

I agree with these comments.  "Giants of Chess Strategy" by Neil McDonald is an excellent book.  McDonald is one of the better chess authors for explaining things to the amateur chess player.  But the book is likely too advanced for the novice chess player, as a good understanding of positional chess concepts is required to get the most out of the book.  First learning these concepts as presented in "Weapons of Chess" by Bruce Pandolfini, followed by "Simple Chess" by Michael Stean, would would give him the necessary background.  I would suggest to follow these two books with Jeremy Silman's "The Amateur's Mind...".  Having completed these, the OP should then be ready for Neil McDonald's "Giants of Chess Strategy", or similar"advanced" books featuring heavy doses of positional chess concepts - an understanding of which is necessary in order to play chess at higher levels.

I suggest that the OP focus primarily on studying the FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES of good chess play.  For this purpose, chess books focusing on these basics and written for players of his level should prove helpful.

The following contains suggestions for many such books....

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

Finally, I also agree with the comments advising to play longer time controls as opposed to speed chess.  The reason is obvious to those who play better chess.

There is a fairly recent book: First Steps: The French by IM Cyrus Lakdawala.

https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/7611.pdf

Lots of suggestions for the French Defense which I have never played, but maybe I will... Thanks for the answers, everyone!

I have read most of the McDonald and Chernev books, and the Amateur's Mind. I feel they are more about "content", good explanations of examples of strategic themes, but not so much for teaching an amateur how to look at a position, break it down, figure which strategic theme to try to play for, and then assess candidate moves. The Amateur's Mind is probably the closest, but he only gives 26 positions at end to practice, and his Workbook and How to Reassess Your Chess I hear are too advanced for below 1500 level players. Simple Chess I hear is also too advanced in spite of its name and he has long lines without explanations.

Besides Amateur's Mind, are there books that teach a lower/intermediate club player how to systematically approach/assess/breakdown a position and come up with a plan (in other words, come up with good regular consistent thinking habits)? I believe this is what is lacking in most instructional chess books for lower level players, so these players end up getting blown out early in games, then running to either opening books, tactics tactics tactics, or strategy books that are way too advanced and frustrating.