Susan Polgar books or Winning Chess series?

Hi,

I'm a beginner and I want to buy Polgar's books or Yasser Seirawan's Winning Chess series?

What do you recommend?

The Polgar's first  book is not in stock on amazon and to buy it new from the sellers is quite expensive. The Seirawan's books are in stock, so that is an advantage I think.

The Winning Chess series is better.

I second the winning chess series.  Susan's books are good, but in my opinion the Winning chess series is the best introductory series on the market.

Go for Winning Chess series by Seirawan, it's great, you will learn a lot from it..

Thanks for the tips.

Unfortunaley I've already ordered the Polgar's books since I've found a good deal for them on http://www.betterworldbooks.com with free shipping.

(I'm so hasty sometimes...) 

You will learn good tactical pattern with Polgar's book, but you will learn it also from the Winning Chess Series by Seirawan, what more you will also learn endings, strategy, opening ideas, chess history from the winning chess series of Seirawan. Out there,it's the best chess series in my opinion

I second the Winning Chess Series recommendation by Seirawan also.  There's actually a seventh in the series out now, called winning combinations or something.

If I decide to read Winning Chess Series after reading Polgar's books, do I need all of them or I could start from a more intermediate book?

What is the books order of the Winning Chess Series from basic to advanced? Play Winning Chess I think is the most basic one. 

I've just received the "Chess Tactics for Champions: A step-by-step guide to using tactics and combinations the Polgar way" book and I'm so excited  . Unfortunatlley until I receive vol 1 I think I will just admire it. 

Go for Winning Chess Series

So Chirieac, what did you think of Susan's books?  Did you ever read Seirawan? 

I really liked the Chess Tactics for Champions book. 

Comparing these books is like comparing apples and oranges. The Susan Polgar books are more of tactics/mate-in-x type books. While she has a brief explanation of the rules and shows some basic endgame and opening stuff, 98% of the books are puzzles and tests.

The Seirawan books each cover a different aspect of the game, with the first book showing how to play, the elements of the game etc. The other books cover Tactics, Strategy, Endgames, Openings, and there is a Logical Chess type book in the series called Winning Chess Brilliancies. I really liked these books when I read them years ago. The only one similar to the Polgar series is the Winning Chess Tactics book which explains each tactic and gives you tests. The Seirawan Tactics book is harder than the two Polgar books. Some of the tests are really tough.

The Polgar books are good if you are looking for something to practice tactics puzzles with. The Seirawan books cover every aspect of the game and are verbose. Polgar is basically just chess diagrams like her pop's 5334 book but with a few words of explanation. You can get the Seirawan books cheap if you go for a used set as they must've printed a million of them over the past 15 to 20 years. I'd get the Seirawan books and definitely get either the Polgar or some other basic puzzle books to have something to practice from. The Polgar 5334 book is a great value but the problems get really hard once you get past the 300 mate-in-one's.

yeah definetly go with winning chess, Polgars tactics you can find practically all over the net for free.

I have both and I prefer Polgar's chess tactics for champions. Seirawan's winning chess tactics has great explanations... Polgar's is just exercise after exercise (I keep in in my car for when I have to wait for somebody)

Hasty moves die hard ... and I am talking about chess by the way.

Oddly, or perhaps ironically, Jeremy Silman claims to have written the bulk of the Seirawan series, while Susan Polgar claims to have written/compiled the "5334 Chess Problems" published under Lazlo's name.  At an rate, the problem book is straight-forward and well edited.  I don't know anything about Susan Polgars other book(s).  The "Winning Chess" series is glossy and pretty but very, very basic.  If you're a novice, the series books are ok (though I think other books are better) but if you're even between a novice and intermediate, I can't believe they'd be of much use.  
disclosure: I own "5334 Chess Problems,"  "Winning Chess Tactics,"  Winning Chess Strategy,"  "Play Winning Chess,"  "Winning Chess Openings," and  "Winning Chess Combinations."

But they all should be happy that they are only hasty, even if im not hasty im overlooking everything.

I have to give up chess i overlook like everything the entire game. I knew for 7 minutes he would play rook to e8 and that i probably would have to play f3 but i still totally missed that i would lose the a pawn... 7 minutes and i couldnt see a one mover.

Man i really like chess and when i lose i usually want to play more. Well i actually now really want to study, usually i was to lazy for opening. But i think its totally useless if i cant even see 1 movers.

I'm with you on this one Retrodanny.  In fairness, I read (and greatly enjoyed) the first three books of Seirawan's set, but they aren't the type of book you can easily pick up when you have a few spare minutes.  They really need to be studied in larger blocks of time.  I like books like Polgar's since I can do a few puzzles in the minutes in between my hectic schedule.  I just ordered Susan's first book "A World Champions Guide...".  I'm guessing it will be a little basic, but a good tactical review never hurt.  I found her later book at the library and the puzzles seemed quite challenging, so who knows.

I tried to revive this particular post because I found it interesting that someone else was looking for advice on what to buy: Yassir vs. Susan.  When I first started to study chess I asked my local chess club president what books to consider and he suggested the SAME two authors!  What are the odds?  With the thousands of books available on chess, why these two???

same here, the polgar book is (to me) like chess tempo away from a computer, although you are drilling on a specific tactic at a time