You got yourself a great book! Break out your chessboard and play on through! I have that book on my shelf. I shall have to play through it someday. I've been bookworming my way through a number of my books over the past few years: Fischer, Larsen, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Morphy, Alekhine most recently.
"Art of the Middle Game," by Keres and Kotov?
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I've got one called "The Slav for the Tournament Player" and it's great. It goes through master games that match the themes discussed and shows not only why they made certain moves, but also why they didn't make certain moves. My only complaint is that the senarios in the book are rarely reached in my actual games. But it has shown me the best way to play as both sides and Capablanca used the opening from both sides of the board, so I know it is a sound opening.
Jul 7, 2012
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#4
I like Art of the Middle Game, but a lot of people complain about the notation. All I know is that it's dirt cheap and I use things I learned from it quite a bit, particularly the pawn structure chapter. I've also loved opposite castled positions after the Kotov attacking chapter. I doubt it's the be all, end all on the subject of middle games, but I think it's a good value.
At my level I was able to learn themes, like the importance of e6 for b;ack and what e4 for white can do by preventing blacks bishop passage there. Outdated, im sure, but great for someone thats never even heard of the slav
i will certainly check them out, and thank you for the good advice. 
Jul 8, 2012
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#7
nimzovich wrote:
Has this ever been reprinted in algebraic?
It's still in descriptive according to recent reviews I've read.
Jul 8, 2012
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#8
it is a good book, my copy is a penguin copy bought in 1974. I got on ok with it as at the time I was still using descriptive .
johnmusacha schreef:
Right now I'm casually reading the Dover edition of the chess classic "The Art of the Middle Game," by Paul Keres and Alexander Kotov (Golombek, transl.), 1964. I've read the introduction and first chapter and read through some of the games in Kotov's attacking section.
While I find this to be a rather enjoyable read, I have heard that this book has a reputation for being arcane and impenetrable. I'm interested in your opinions of this book.
While i'm on the subject, is it worth reading through descriptions of master games in chess books such as those without playing them out physically on the board? (And no, I can't keep the position visualized in my head for more than a couple moves out)
So what's the deal with this book?
Hi John,
Have you finished this book? If so, how did you like it? Was it useful?
Max_1977 wrote:
johnmusacha schreef:
Right now I'm casually reading the Dover edition of the chess classic "The Art of the Middle Game," by Paul Keres and Alexander Kotov (Golombek, transl.), 1964. I've read the introduction and first chapter and read through some of the games in Kotov's attacking section.
While I find this to be a rather enjoyable read, I have heard that this book has a reputation for being arcane and impenetrable. I'm interested in your opinions of this book.
While i'm on the subject, is it worth reading through descriptions of master games in chess books such as those without playing them out physically on the board? (And no, I can't keep the position visualized in my head for more than a couple moves out)
So what's the deal with this book?
Hi John,
Have you finished this book? If so, how did you like it? Was it useful?
Well, that was over six years ago now, and to be frank, at this point I don't even remember having ever even heard of this book.
Dec 24, 2023
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#14
I stumbled on this old thread and the topic is one that pains me to this day. The book is published by Dover Publications and was originally published in 1964. Dover has a lot of great classic chess books in their library, but sadly the majority of them are still in descriptive notation, NOT the algebraic notation anyone born from the 80's on will be more familiar with. FIDE officially switched to algebraic notation in 1980, and most authors have used algebraic notation ever since. There are some of their books I have looked at since the 90's in my favorite bookstore (Powell's New and Used Book's), but I just don't want to slog through the descriptive notation in them. Not that learning to use descriptive is all that hard but most people just don't want to bother. It is not impossible to learn to read in old English either, but if you want to read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales there are modern English editions readily available, so why bother?
A very few of the great chess books have had algebraic editions released for the Kindle, but not most of them. Great books like Bronstein's Zurich 1953, Keres and Kotov's Art of the Middlegame, Znosko-Borovsky's Art of Chess Combination, Tartakower and du Mont's 500 Master Games of Chess, and on and on. Considering the chess boom of the last couple of years, it makes me think that Dover just doesn't care about chess anymore and will let these books languish until 100 years after their original publication dates, when they become public domain, and anyone can publish new editions of them. In the case of The Art of the Middlegame, that will be in 2064. As I am not a young man, that will be out of my reach. It makes me sad.
Whether these classics ever see publication in algebraic notation depends upon a few things. Firstly whether Dover still own the rights to the book and if they do are they interested in rejuvenating their chess catalogue. If they don't,.then is another publisher in taking the project on. I agree, there are a few it would be great to see modern versions of these classics.
Right now I'm casually reading the Dover edition of the chess classic "The Art of the Middle Game," by Paul Keres and Alexander Kotov (Golombek, transl.), 1964. I've read the introduction and first chapter and read through some of the games in Kotov's attacking section.
While I find this to be a rather enjoyable read, I have heard that this book has a reputation for being arcane and impenetrable. I'm interested in your opinions of this book.
While i'm on the subject, is it worth reading through descriptions of master games in chess books such as those without playing them out physically on the board? (And no, I can't keep the position visualized in my head for more than a couple moves out)
So what's the deal with this book?