If you want to be a pirate go to the pirate bay and get 500 for free. I'm getting a mini chess board and am gonna start studying within the week. GM by 25 if I read a fraction of them fo sho. I bought all of my books though cause I'm not a pirate ;)
Please help in choosing my first chess book
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Perhaps one of the classic middlegame tomes.
see here:
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/best-book-on-the-middlegame
Silman's "The Amateur's Mind" is an excellent book for someone of your level. It is a little bit difficult for me, but you're about 200 points higher than I am, so it should be just right for you.
It teaches positional play instead of tactics, which is what you want in a book(since tactics is best learned in online, interactive, puzzles)
The one complaint I have about that it's not particularly user-friendly. It often only has one diagram for a position over 15 moves long!! If you're good at blindfold chess, that's not a problem. Me, I have trouble envisioning over five moves in my mind.
draconlord wrote:
Silman's "The Amateur's Mind" is an excellent book for someone of your level. It is a little bit difficult for me, but you're about 200 points higher than I am, so it should be just right for you.
It teaches positional play instead of tactics, which is what you want in a book(since tactics is best learned in online, interactive, puzzles)
The one complaint I have about that it's not particularly user-friendly. It often only has one diagram for a position over 15 moves long!! If you're good at blindfold chess, that's not a problem. Me, I have trouble envisioning over five moves in my mind.
You should be getting out a board and playing along anyway. That's the way to get the most out of a chess book, by far.
1800-turn based (just being lazy and using the mouseover to glance, no idea how representative that is of OP's ability) should be fine to skip Amateur's Mind and go straight into Reassess Your Chess.
Mar 19, 2011
0
#6
Book that helped me the most was Aaron Nimzowitsch 'My system' - check this out. It's good for beginners, intermediate and advanced players alike. In my opinion no other chess book I read come close (I didn't read a lot though - about 20).
Kyle->I don't even own a chessboard(!?)
I mean, I could play along on the analysis board, but I tend to read chess books when I can't get online(on the bus, etc.)
An analysis board is fine. You are free to read them whenever you want, but you'll only be getting a fraction of the skill gains from it if you aren't playing along.
In fact, what you really need to do is play over every example in the book slowly, and then go through the entire book that way several times, not just once. :)
Mar 20, 2011
0
#9
I always recommend well commented game collections. You will learn a lot about every aspect of chess and be entertained at the same time. Studying games is more fun than work. A very good choice could be:
"The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games"
Hello everyone. I want to buy my first chess book, and am stumped as to what constitutes a good first chess book.
I consider myself to be an intermediate player. I do not know any opening in depth, nor any defense, however, I'm familiar with the most played openings and defenses, though I don't know most of the reasons why certain moves are played in certain openings.
In the middlegame, I tend to do well in open games and badly in closed ones. If the game reaches the endgame, I usually lose, as I do not have much theory on the endgame at all.
My 'live' rating is quite bad, but my 'online' rating is considerably better - I tend to do better if I take my time to analyse a position properly. This makes my rating better than I think I am, as, when I play over the board (usually on a 15/0 time), I usually lose due to time or due to a blunder from my part.
Considering my position, what do you think is the best book I should start with to fine-tune my chess skills?
Thanks in advance for your help.