Your concerns are quite genuine. But that's also the beauty of reading the old classics. Bronstein didn't annotate the games using a engine, for they didn't even exist then. Firstly, we should go through his annotations, and understand what idea he wants to convey. Then if we think there's room for a slightly better move, we should try to find it ourselves. If we fail, then only should we use the engine.
Secondly, no engine understands the psychological element of certain positions, which is also a plus point in the old classics because the authors have graded moves based on the time remaining and other factors also. Some more additional features in the old classics are the background stories etc.
Still, I would recommend that you don't use an engine and visualise the positions yourself, and always go through the annotations.
Hello everybody. I am one of the people who has started to play chess regularly only in my 30s in about 2016, so I am not hoping for much except to improve my ability to whatever my age allows. I do own many chess books. Mostly the well reviewed ones or the old classics. One question has begun to bother me.
I've been going through Bronstein's Zurich book and through Chernev's Logical Chess. The commentary and the games do not always feel like they provide any benefit, but since these books are popular I am just going through them out of curiosity. Previously I've been moving the chess pieces on the physical board since, as many of you know, its least we can do when we cannot find anybody to play against in the real world. But recently I thought I'd give these games a try by entering the moves, or by finding the games on my Fritz 14 with Stockfish 15, plus the included database. What I found is that a some moves they spend time commenting on and providing alternative variations don't match what the engine says. One move was a deemed a blunder in a game I went over. Other moves that the author says were "best" or "the only" move may be 4th or 5th choice. In these instances I allowed the engine to calculate to 40 moves ahead in case its just engine not seeing something.
I understand that these books still provide benefit where concepts and ideas are provided, but do you think this means that maybe its worth getting only the books written after the engine's have become better than the human masters? Could a reader possibly learn wrong ideas?
I guess I am seeking what your opinions on this are.