Post your top 5 beginner chess books

I learnt chess when I was a youngster, about 10 years old. I played for fun on occasion with friends and family for the next eleven years.

I am 21 now I want to start getting better and better.

What books do you recommend that cater to beginners who want to strengthen their game from novice level to mediocre chess level? I have some amazon gift money and I want to buy some chess ebooks.

I also want a solid chess foundation built up before I decide to join my university chess club. I am playing 5 chess matches a day for practice.

I know this thread has probably been done 1000x, but I want a fresh 2014 persceptive, so w/e

Thanks.

Well, a tactics book is generally good. Polgar's classic springs to mind. I've heard good things about a series of books that lists grandmaster games and gives answer choices for which move the GM played, you answer and then it explains.

The Mammoth Book of Chess is something I've found very helpful. There's stuff in there to help players of all levels.

Then I'd recommend using the internet to decide upon an opening repertoire, and then read some opening books. I play the Veresov myself entirely because of Cyrus Lakdawala's A Ferocious Opening Repertoire. Despite being an opening book, I read it to help with my middlegame planning and attacking. It really helped me, and it really teaches you how to convert an aggressive-looking postion into an advantage. The book also has a GREAT anti-French section--as far as I know, it is the only book that goes at the French with the intention of cracking it.

I'd also recommend an endgame book. Right now I probably play an 800-1200 level endgame (OTB I'm a little over 1500 USCF) and I'm benefitting from the Just the Facts endgame book. It may be too basic for some players.

1. Dan Heisman's Back to Basics - Tactics. In my mind, this one replaces the older John Bain's Chess Tactics for Students as the best first tactics book for a beginner, though Bain would still be a decent choice.

2. Silman's Complete Endgame Course. I agree with the previous poster about having an endgame book in your first 5, but this one's better than Pandolfini, because of how everything's presented. It's divided up based on what order you need to learn things, rather than just grouping all endgames with the same pieces together. So for instance, Silman walks you through the simplest pawn only endgames first, and then gets into more complex pawn endgames in later chapters, whereas Pandolfini throws them all at you at once and just hopes that you'll remember it all. Pandolfini's book was the best available at the time, but Silman has far surpassed it.

3. Chernev's Logical Chess: Move by Move. Probably the single most commonly recommended book for beginners, and with good reason.

Ok, those are the 3 easy ones. Now I need to think a little to come up with 2 more. I think I'll go with more of the same:

4. Bain's Chess Tactics for Students. Tactics puzzles are the best study you can do at low-intermediate levels, and this is probably the 2nd best beginners book of them.

5. Chernev's Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played. After tactics, studying lots of complete master games, well annotated in words, rather than just move variations, is probably the next most important study. This one's a good followup to Logical Chess.

I'll disagree with the previous posters recommending anything to do with openings. Don't study openings. Study how to play middle games and endgames that result from the opening. You'll occasionally use the internet or a games database to look up specific opening moves that come up in your games, but don't sit and read anything about openings. That won't help your overall playing strength. Learn from my mistake in that regard - I wasted way too much time studying openings.

That is a very good list of 5 books.  I would even go further to say that there should be no opening books in the first 10 books you have.  The next 5 books should perhaps be a mix of puzzle books and instructive game collections from classical players, like Capablanca or Morphy (far better for a beginner than any modern games).

Keep in mind that there are two good ways to practice tactics: (1) extremely easy problems with short time controls (to practice recall/recoginition); and (2) problems of higher difficulty requiring accurate calculation of sequences with long time controls (to practice analytics).  You should begin mostly with (1) to start, but as you progress you will need to incorporate (2).

Good comments, dtrossen. I agree that the next 5 should also mostly focus on tactics puzzles and master games, starting with older master game collections, and getting into harder puzzles.

But I'd add middle game strategy to the mix at that point, too. Stuff like Silman's Amateur's Mind and Reassess Your Chess. Maybe even Pawn Structure Chess by Soltis, which I've heard is excellent, but I can't comment on whether it would be too advanced this early, since I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

Dan Heisman has a page dedicated to chess literature for players of various levels. It is more or less a set of evergreen recommendations. Do have a look at that.

Link to Dan Heisman's page

1.Pandolfini's Ultimate Guide to Chess

2.Averbakh's Essential Chess Endgames

3.Nunn's Understanding Chess Endings (okay not strictly a beginner book but has material for that rating range)

4.Heisman's Improving Chess Thinker (like #3 not strictly a beginner book but is good for the level)

5.Logical Chess Move by Move. 

These are the five books I would recommend for you. If you spend lots of time studying them, you will improve.

1. Chess Tactics for Champion by Polgar

2. Winning Chess Endings by Seirawan

3. Logical Chess Move by Move by Chernev

4. Winning Chess Strategy by Seirawan

5. 101 Endgame Tips by Giddins.

1)Chess Fundamentals by Capablanca

2)Laskers Manual of Chess by Lasker 

3)Understanding Chess Middlegames by Nunn

4)Life and Games of Mikhail Tal by Tal  (not a purely instructional book, but possibly the best chess book ever by probably the best natural writer/chess world champion)  

5)Silmans Complete Endgame course and workbook by Silman

Silman has an endgame workbook? I've never heard of that one.

If you have an ipad and decide to get Silman's complete endgame course, it's worth getting it via the eplus books app. The app is free and comes with Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals included.

Tarrasch - Chess (translated from German)

there are countless videos on Youtube. It's easier for me to watch a video than to read a book... 

My bad...I forgot that the workbook wasn't endgame specific.  

tracking. 

For the Opening: F.C.O. Fundamental Chess Openings by Paul Van Der Sterren

For Tactics: Winning chess tactics by Seirawan and Silman 

For the Endgame: Silman's Complete Endgame Course

For Positional Improvement: How to reasses your Chess(3rd or 4th edition) by Silman again!

1. Your First Move - Alexei Sokolsky (this book can stand alone)
2. Winning Chess - Reinfeld & Chernev
3. Chess Fundamentals - Capablanca
4. 1001 Checkmates - Reinfeld
5. Sharpen Your Tactics - Lein & Archangelsky

When I was in high school, I knew of one guy who was an absolute beginner. We taught him the moves and then proceeded to crush him on every turn. You could say he was our whipping boy. Then I think he took a couple of lessons and the teacher set him straight. He was told the Ruy Lopez was a very important opening to study, not just to play it, but the ideas of all facets of the game came out from that one opening. He was taught that the end game was the most important part to learn. We all laughed at him when he told us this. Yeah, we were dickish and had the gall to proclaim "how is your endgame knowledge gonna help you when we beat you in the opening. Yes, we were full to cheap traps - a majority of our team (and school league for that matter) were in the u1400 range at the time. We thought cheap opening traps were enough for an advantage. However, he saw right through the traps and we were somewhat surprised how far he had come in 6 months. A year from the time he just learned the moves he became our team's first board.

He had three books that helped him learn "chess" and none of them were opening books:

• 1001 Sacrifices & Combinations (Reinfeld)
• One Hundred Selected Games (Botvinnik)
• Fine's Basic Chess Endings (Fine)

Also a novice myself, I strongly recommend the following :

1) Capablanca - Chess Fundamentals

2) Reti - Masters of the Chess Board

3) Heisman - Back To Basics: Tactics

4) Euwe - Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur

5) Keres - Practical Chess Endings (to be honest I just started it, but experienced players say it's really a must for a good endgame foundation).

These books helped  me alot these 2 months that I began studying, although much information needs to sink in yet.

I have already read Silman's Complete Endgame Course up to 2000 rating and I don't recommend it. Although it gives some basic information, I feel you have to read 100 pages for 5-10 pages worth material. Too much "sauce".

My impression (maybe I'm wrong) is that Silman tries to write pleasant books, books you just find easy to read through without pushing yourself too much. I now understand why his books are so popular. Sorry to all his fans, no offense meant, but he's definately the McDonalds of Chess literature.

I think you really only need three:

• John Bain's Chess Tactics for Students

• Silman's Complete Endgame Course

• Logical Chess Move By Move Irving Chernev

Another vote for Chernov's Logical Chess- thats a great book.

I downloaded a book on iPad on Gambit Chess - only cost about £6.00 called How to beat your dad at chess. Even though I've been playing a while, I think its helped me. I've been on a winning streak since reading it.... 

It looks at 50 mating patterns you should know. 

Ok thats only two...  but I cant think of any others that dont bore me.