Chess Literature

Hello Everyone,

Since I finished my Education, now I have free time during weekends and after work and I would like to start reading some books of chess to improve since almost 100% of the posts in the forum claim that reading and/or studying and doing tactics is a nice way to improve.

Following RussBell's guide he presents a series of books for beginners which I intend to start working with. However, it is of my interest and attention that reading chess books might not work as reading a novel. 

So, I would like to ask if someone can give me some advices on how to read a chess book; should I make annotations on a notebook? Should I move on a physical board pieces as the reading goes? Should I make the moves in the computer?

Any advice and/or information is greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Arturo

Books and other printed matter used to be the main method.  Setting up a position on a physical board was helpful if you couldn't follow the moves without seeing them. The problem is that following variations requires you to have a good memory for the position at the start of the variation.  Many times I made a slight error and found myself trying to make moves that made no sense. Occasionally, authors make mistakes too.  Therefore, books with good diagrams every so often were very nice.

Nowadays, you can find the classic games from classic books online.  I was rereading "The Amateurs Mind" last week. The games were all available online. It was much easier .

Thanks for your reply, when you mention the games are available online with the books, which platform you use? Thank you!

"Books should be used as one uses reading glasses, although some think that books infer sight itself"

Capablanca

"Setting up a position on a physical board was helpful if you couldn't follow the moves without seeing them. "
You should study a chess book with two chess sets: one for the main line, one for variations.

If anyone owns an android tablet or ipad there is a very clever app called 'PDF chessbook study' or something like that...

Basically if you own PDF chess books you install them to your tablet and the app has the PDF one side and an examination board the other...it makes reading through games in the book effortless as you can play out variations then return to the main position...highly recommended!

Unlike novels most chess books cannot simply be read, at least not if the intention is to improve.  They have to be studied.  It can easily take months to study a chess book thoroughly, whether it is a game collection, an opening treatise, or an endgame manual.  You can easily spend days just to properly digest a single page.

I know, I know, it is so unfair.  You spent all that money on a book  and the content does not automatically transfer to your brain.  You still have to work for it (and damned hard too).

It depends on the book. "Talky" books are usually a lot easier to digest.

When it comes to game anthologies, for most people it is best to play them out either on a real board or an electronic one. The approach I usually take is:

1. Look up the game at https://www.chess.com/games

2. If not there look up the game on chessgames.com

3. If not there either, create a new analysis on this site and input the moves into there. Go through the annotations and compare/contrast with what stockfish says.

4. If there is a disagreement between the author and stockfish, very loosely speaking, if the book is written by a strong Grandmaster and is reasonably up to date you should value his opinion higher than what Stockfish says. This is because there is a difference between the top engine moves and the best practical moves. On the other hand if the book is a 100 years old, it is still probably valuable but you would want to pay more attention to what Stockfish says.

5. Look at different variations. What if black had played a different move? What if white had played a different move?

Remember: ALL sources of chess knowledge are biased to some extent in some way or another. On average Grandmasters are less biased than IMs and FMs etc because those biases occasionally manifest themselves in errors and Grandmasters would never have become Grandmasters if they were very biased.

Even the top engines have some biases. However, books aimed at players around 1000 level are typically very sound advice and not too hard to absorb.

Thank you very much for your Help! I started reading an endgame book, and what I'm currently doing is using a digital board since using my board was quite complex; setting the pieces sometimes took more than analyzing the tactic itself (since its a beginners book).

Just to keep the conversation going, I was looking at some instructive youtube videos regarding chess studying, and most of them recommend to use a digital board since it is easier to go back to original positions while trying with variants. 

Nice one. Where is that quote from?

From one of his books...and its confer not infer lol

Always use a physical board, not a computer monitor.  The physical act of having to move the pieces yourself, and analyzing on a 3-D board, actually makes a huge difference.

Also, analyze the position after each move.  Do not just whip the moves on the board without actually analyzing them.

For example, if you are studying an opening, let's say the French, and you are asked what Black should play after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5, and you gave the answer 3...c5, if you cannot explain in words why 3...c5 is better than say, 3...Nh6 or 3...a6 or 3...f6, then you haven't actually learned anything!

@Arturo2891: I am usually lazy and just read in bed or on the subway. But if I study, I set up a physical board, try to guess the moves and mark interesting ideas. And try not to read too fast...

Thank you guys! I guess I will start using the physical boards.

Yes

This books is that you are need

Heisman discuss the methods in order to you build your own trainning plan. Inclusive books recommendations and trainning contents and sessions 

https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Chess-Improvement-Best-Novice/dp/1857446496

Hi guys

Thank you! Going to check some reviews about the book.

All the Novice Nook articles are available on-line at chesscafe.com.  I used to visit the site years ago, when everything was free, but on checking just now I see that you need to subscribe to read (and download) most of the articles.

Still, at $25 for a year it is good value.  Not only do you get all of Novice Nook but also hundreds of other instructive articles 

Just to throw in my 2 cents here: I have a Kindle Fire with a couple of free chess apps on it. When I want to study a game and variations, I play it through the app. When I get to the variations, I just play them through (THINKING about them carefully) and then just hit the back button to go back to the original position. I used to try to study with a physical board (or two) and found it just too maddeningly confusing. And, of course, with the explosion of chess on the internet, books are by no means the only route to strong improvement these days.