Which of these 4 annotated books helped you the most?

I now have 4 books that are annotated with comments on each move. They are:

(1) Best Lessons of a Chess Coach - Weeramantry

(2) Logical Chess Move by Move - Chernev

(3) Chess:the Art of Logical Thinking - Neil Mcdonald

(4) Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur - Max Euwe

I am needing to go through these books for strategy and tactic help - and just on playing well.

Just doing tactics has not done it for me. It's helped, but I need more. And just doing puzzles don't seem to really help. I need guidance with what makes a move good or bad. My rating now is around 1340 or so (sliding around a bit.)

So I have 2 questions:

(1) Which of these books have you found the most helpful?

(2) How would you get the most out working with these books? Do one book at a time? Or do a chapter from each one first, then go on to the next chapter from each book - thus doing a bit of all 4 books at once. (I have 4 little magnetic chessboards so I could manage that.)

Or do you have any other suggestions how to study these 4 wonderful books?

Would like to hear from you.

stwils

I also have all four of those books, but am so far only part way through Chernev.

Recommend you read them all; all are considered must-reads/classics (well, perhaps not McDonald so much).

I would start with Chernev, then go on to Euwe.

i have the euwe book! the right way to read this book is to guess the next move made by the master after the amateur make his move.

Reading any of these books properly will help--but that involves really working through them--I think Chernev is the easiest, probably then Euwe, McDonald and the Sunil's book. You need to cover the moves, and guess the player's next move. You should understand the concept of a plan, transition and other tools that these teach you. Reading a chess book properly is a lot of work!

For me, Best Lessons.

I always enjoy playing over the Smyslov game--first in the book I think--where he plays so simply and wins. Why can't I do that, I ask myself.

WOW!  All four of these selections are great books.  I have played through them all.  Definitely play through them with a board.  Mull over the position after reading the notes and try to let it sink in.  Once you start to see feel understanding, you could do the cover the move and guess the next move thing.  That has been really helpful for me as well.  I am a patzer so I hesitate to say in what order to read them but I think Chernev's book would be a good first bet.  Plus Chernev's passion for the game is 2nd to none.  I love all of these books for different reasons and learned a lot from each one.

Euwe's book is probably the most dry and least entertaining of the 4 but it is still a great book!

Thanks to all you guys for your recommendations on the 4 books. I want to do them ALL!  But that would be insane.

I know I should start with Chernev. But something about Weeramantry's Best Lessons of a Chess Coach seems to call out to me. Maybe because in the first game (lesson) he starts out with outposts. And I like his question and answer way of writing.

Anyway, I will start with the Chess Coach and then I will go to Chernev.  I hope to see my understanding of the game improve as well as my enjoyment of playing online here.

Thanks again.

stwils

He was indeed the greatest!

On the subject of chess books, please see my biographical novel about Morphy's life at http://www.mattfullerty.com and http://theprideandthesorrow.blogspot.com

The Pride and the Sorrow: Press Release

Paul Morphy's story is a rites of passage tale about a boy who becomes famous by playing chess. It is also a cautionary tale about New Orleans, family pride and a mind who cannot cope with the real world...The Pride and the Sorrow is a cross between Josh Waitzkin's Searching for Bobby Fischer (about a chess prodigy) and Vladimir Nabokov's The Luzhin Defense (about chess causing madness). Paul resists gambling and dueling and despite Morphy family rivalries he takes on the Europeans at their own game. But the red-light district and temptations on the other side of New Orleans are never far away...

The Pride and the Sorrow: Book Review, June 2008

New Zealand novelist Geoff Cush, a member of the Bookhabit judging panel, had the following to say about the Bookhabit Award 2008: "What made Matt Fullerty's writing stand out, from the very first sentence, was an unusually strong and individual way with words. Taking us into the vanished world of old America and Europe he uses a highly textured language to give an almost physical experience of being in that place and time. Drawing subtle lines between a society top-heavy with leisure and the profligate genius it produced in Morphy, he holds back the historical and personal reckoning while letting it gather and brood like the storm that finally washes away New Orleans. In my view this makes The Pride and the Sorrow a stand-out all rounder in the craft of literary fiction."

Thank you for reading!

http://www.mattfullerty.com

My page specifically about Paul Morphy and Bobby Fischer is here http://mattfullerty.com/chess_paulmorphy_neworleans_bobbyfischer.aspx

Also, you can read more about Paul Morphy at http://www.paulmorphychess.com

Thanks, Matt, for telling us about your book. It really sounds like something I'd  like to read. I don't know much about Paul Morphy so this would be informative.

stwils

 And that is what I'm going to do. I tried the Chess Coach yesterday. It was a bit harder than I had expected. So now I am going to do what everyone told me to do in the first place: start with Chernev and go through the whole book with my chessboard. And then Euwe - though I am thinking I may take the first two games of Euwe just to get familiar with descriptive notation and see what he is all about.

Thanks to all.

stwils

Here is Dan Heisman's recommendation:

Wow! He puts McDonald ahead of Euwe, and does not even mention Weeramantry!  Chernev is first.

Thanks for sending Heisman's recommendation.

stwils

Heisman's recommendations are often good but they are also often subject to odd whims that I don't understand.  The Giants of Strategy isn't really even a game collection.  Heisman's recommendations about tactics books are usually spot on.  I think his game collections recommondations are a little iffy to be honest.  I read the Morphy book he recommends right after Chernev's Logical Chess and the Morphy book wasn't even close.  NOT because of Morphy's games but because the annotations are fairly weak and VERY uninstructive.  Euwe's book is MUCH better then the Morphy book by Rosario.  I have also perused Nunn's book and it isn't as difficult as people make it out to be.  Nunn does a GREAT job of explaining what is going on.

I spent half the morning with Euwe. I find I am working harder at learning descriptive notation than I am at what Euwe is saying. I can't visualize the board with descriptive notation. It just gets in the way.

So I hate to admit defeat with starting out with Euwe's book, but I must admit it is not helpful to have all the instructions/comments between moves in discriptive notation. Rats! I had hoped it would work for me...

So now I am going full force with Chernev, and then, McDonald. (Forget the Chess Coach for now) I am playing in too many tourneys, and my rating is going down. I need to study.

Anyone else experience that problem?

I like most of Heisman's suggestions, but the guide to how to read Silman goes back to a letter from Silman  written in 2001, I think. This is 2009. Also, I like his Chess Cafe articles, but do not really like his Tactics book.

Discouraged.

stwils

Descriptive notation takes a bit to get used to but after awhile it sinks in.  It is worth it to eventually get comfortable with it.   I think you are making a good choice by beginning with Chernev.  It really is a great book!!

By playing in too many tournaments, I am assuming that you mean here on Chess.com?  I was doing that for awhile and have sharply curtailed the amount that I play on Chess.com.  I like to focus on a few games at a time at the most.  I am just a patzer myself but I highly recommend the Chess Mentor course here at Chess.com.  The are awesome.  I upgraded to diamond just for them and I am unbelievable happy that I did!  Silman's Chess Mentor pawn endgame course is worth the price of the upgrade alone!

Yes. The tourneys are here on chess.com. I think Chernev and I will get along just fine. I look forward to getting into his book.

I really tried with Euwe. You will  laugh, but on my little magnetic chess board, I used masking tape, and put little bits of them on the squares and wrote in the descriptive notation for each side. It was visually very confusing. Did not work at all for me. I just decided that with all the other good things in life - and in chess, I did not need to kill myself with learning descriptive notation!

stwils

I learned descriptive first, so I might not be the best guy to help with that but here is something I thought about.  Make a little chess board, white and grey.  In each square have 3 text lines: qr1 on top qr8 (or ... qr8) in the middle and a1 on bottom, and then inthe next square nave qn1 on top, qn8 (or ...qn8) in the middle, and b1.  Boom, you got a descriptive to algebraic translator. 

In some things it is easier.  When Nimzowitch writes about invading the 7th rank we don't have to get all P.C. and say or the 2nd rank if you're playing the black pieces.  7th and 8th rank is the other guy's territory always in descriptive.  Rook files are always the place where weird things with passed pawns happen, they're always the exceptions, not the a and h files but the r files.  What the weakest square in the opening, kb2, not f2 or f7 depending on what pieces you got, just simply kb2.

You are fortunate to be able to read descriptive notation so naturally. Now you have the best of both worlds.

I know I am missing a lot by not really being able to read DN without a struggle, but right now I have about all I can do trying to learn from chess books that have Algebraic Notation!

(I'm glad someone else besides me put little stickers on the chessboard! )

stwils

Thank you so much for your suggestions and help. You say Euwe's book "Judgment and Planning in Chess"  IS in AN. Maybe I can find it on Amazon. I respect Euwe and regret very much that I was not able to really absorb what he says in the book of his that I have (in DN .)

I will take a look at McDonald's "Art of LT" along side Chernev's.

I'm going to look for Euwe's book in AN. Hope I can find it. The title says it all, Judgment and Planning in Chess, and that is exactly what I need.

Thanks for your thoughts.

stwils

If you can read German or Dutch, get Euwe's books in those languages. They will be in Algebraic. I just got Euwe's book on the 1938 AVRO tournament in Dutch. I grew up with Descriptive, but now find Algebraic easier to read.