Difficulty of Reading Chess Books

As a beginner in chess who doesn't want to remain so, I usually pick up books to help with my Chess study. From books by John Nunn to those of Todd Bardwick.

However, what I've noticed is that while these books are from respectable authors, the notations seem to be a big challenge for me. Of course, I can visualize the board at around 4 moves of notations, if it's the opening. For instance, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 - I can easily visualize this without a board as the Ruy Lopez: Morphy's Defence.

However, when authors give a specific position, typically somewhere around the middlegame, and start throwing like 6 lines straight of algebraic notation, I find it incredibly difficult to visualize at this point, one would suggest, "Well just use a physical board", true, but I can't always move about with a board.

At first, I thought it was the books I was studying, but I later found out, most books are written like this. I'm writing this post in case anyone who's overcome this stage of reading chess books can kindly help out with their strategy.

Many book games can easily be found on the internet. Having found the game, it is fairly quick to find the position. You can play around from there.

This is quite true, I actually do have a collection of games from some of the greatest players, e.g I have a collection of Tal's games, but then the authors do not really follow the exact game, sometimes, they throw in their own variations. Probably because they're trying to teach a lesson/principle from such positions, at which point we go back to my original dilemma.

Internet has vast book collection for games, but its quite tricky for the way they explain to understand i have also the book collection must <a href="https://shrutipatel.me/"a>visit</a> it.

Tal's games are very difficult for new players to fully understand. Most John Nunn books are usually for 1500+ level.

I still find a lot of chess notation very difficult to visualize, so if I don't feel like using a real board, or don't have it with me, or if I want to preserve the idea for later, I use the insert chess game feature here to put the pieces on a virtual board. For example:

Why not? Use your smartphone. Or use a tiny magnetic chessboard that does not require much space and good on a moving train or something like that.

I am not a beginner, but I'd never read a chessbook without a board. It's not fun. If that happens, just read some other book.

I don't really think too many people are able to read chess books without a chess board. At least not so that they could really visualize everything that is happening.

The diagrams in the books are there to help set the game back to that position after going through a variation. At least that's what I think.

Some people say they can read the books without a chess set, but unless they are a GM or something, I don't really believe it.

Wow, it's been 2 years since I made this post, and I sincerely appreciate all those who took out time to engage. A lot has happened since this post was made, I made this post when I was roughly 100 Bullet, 600 Blitz and 700 Rapid. Currently I've peaked at 1973 Rapid, 1720 Blitz, 1500 Bullet

As pertaining to the post, safe to say I still struggle reading serious chess books without a form of chess board (physical or Chessbase). Overall I've come a long way as a chess player and I sincerely hope so has everyone that engaged this post.

Thing is, I was reading the chess books on my phone, so constantly switching tabs made the whole process a lot inconvenient. I have since switched to reading on a laptop, where I can use Chessbase on a different display.

Apologies for the almost 2 year delay in response

Safe to say I am not as crafty or as inspired as you are/were

As a high school student, I bought a small magnetic set. The board is about 5 inches square with pieces that stand from a half-inch to an inch high. I have used this as my analysis set when reading chess books for 55 years. 

it is useful to play out the variations in books. But using a full-size set is awkward and slow to reset. A small magnetic set is ideal.

in your original post, you said you got lost in long variations. This likely means that the books were aimed at more experienced and stronger players. There are plenty of instructional books for beginners that do not overwhelm the reader.

I've had the same problem when I was young.

Here is the solution:

You know even Fishcher used to carry around a pocket chess set with him. Despite how he could sound very impressive rattling off lines to other GMs, he still believed in actually being at the board for the best analysis. Having said that, he would also sometimes read full printed games in one go and entirely understand the game from it, much like a normal person would read a newspaper article, but I guess that was just seeing what they were up to and not serious analysis.

On the other hand, maybe there could be some argument that trying to read books trains you for calculating at the board. Nobody really likes calculating and visualize several moves into the future but books might help train it a bit. But I'm not sure if that would help or maybe it would help prepare you for playing but wear off after a while. I really don't know.

I have to wonder, how many of these habits and differences we engage with chess material makes a difference - everything or nothing.

thanks for showing this feature, very interesting.

I always thought those magnetic sets were only available in large formats, usually hung on some stand. This is my first time seeing one that portable

On this I thin I'd just stick to my gym subscription

Guys, I've hit 2000 Elo Rapid

When authors give 5–6 move lines from a middlegame position, they’re not expecting beginners to visualize everything perfectly — they expect you to work through it with a board. That’s not weakness. That’s normal. Train visualization separately.