Please help me to choose a book.

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RussBell
Zigla_Nauthiz wrote:

Thank you everyone! By the end I indeed drop Move by Move since some of you recommended. The main reason by the end was just checking some of the pages before buying it and I found the Ultimate Guide to Chess more appealing to my style. I am also following some other advices like playing "less rapid" games, 15 min is enough for me to think better than in 10. 

I will follow RussBell advice in the order for the first 3:
1) The ultimate guide to chess (I am also complementing this one with Bobby Fischer teaches chess and Chess.com)
2) I will skip Move by Move

3) Play winning chess 

4) If the previous is of my liking, I will follow the series. 

5) For complementing Endgame I think I will go back to Pandolfini with his Endgame book.

But I am still very curious about "The Soviet Chess Primer" and where could I fit it in the short-medium term.

With regard to "The Soviet Chess Primer" by Ilya Maizelis.  It is a very good book.  And one I would recommend for experienced players who have reached an intermediate skill level.  The book starts out rather benignly with elementary concepts in Chapters 1 &2.  But after that the examples and concepts presented soon become, for the beginner-novice, increasingly more challenging and continues to do so as the book progresses.  The point is that although the book is a good one, in my opinion it is not an appropriate choice for beginner-novice players.  This is not to disparage the book, it is simply a fact which the beginner-novice should take into account when selecting their first chess books to study.  That is, how appropriate the material and presentation of any book is for the experience and skill level of the reader.  I submit that this particular book would be more readily (i.e., "easily") absorbed once the reader has reached a minimum rating of about 1400-1500 Elo (and even that level, it will still be challenging, but appropriately so). 

As for "Pandolfini's Endgame Course", in my view it is an excellent first endgame book for the beginner-novice.  It covers all of the essential endgame concepts and techniques in an easily absorbed presentation of one lesson per page.  Once you absorb the lessons in this book you can go on to Silman's or Jesus de la Villa's books (both of which are excellent as well) if you absolutely feel the need to; however, you may decide that you don't need to as Pandolfini's book covers much of the same ground as those other books, in a convenient format accessible to lower rated players.  Be sure to also download the errata for Pandolfini's book, as there are typo's in the book that you will want to be aware of - you can make the corrections in the pages of the book (which is what I have done in my copy)...

 http://www.glennwilson.com/chess/books/pec_errata.html#end37

Finally, you don't need to consider anything by Dvoretsky until you reach Expert level or beyond.  His books are very advanced and intended/written that player level (1800-1900+ Elo).

Bottom Line - be careful when considering books that are targeted to, intended for an advanced audience.  Such books naturally tend to be recommended by advanced players as they are the books they find useful for themselves (i.e, appropriate for their skill level).  While many of those books might be "good", they will generally assume an understanding of concepts and a skill level that the lower rated player has not yet achieved, and thus will typically prove difficult for the lower rated reader to absorb.  As well, some lower rated players will also recommend these advanced books when they are simply regurgitating the recommendations of advanced players, when in most cases they have not actually read (or completed) those books themselves. 

This is the motivation underlying why I created my blog article (which comments on the books discussed in this post, and many more)...

 Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond

All of the books recommended in the article are appropriate for the typical improving chess amateur.  I have also made an effort to identify books that are intended primarily for beginner-novice players vs those intended for more experienced players.  I own every book that I have recommended in the list, and have carefully evaluated each one for its appropriateness versus player skill level.