Being up to date on chess

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feynarun

Many of the books on chess are quite old. How can one be up to date on new lines in the opening and such?Magazines on chess would probably help. Please give your suggestions.

patzermike

Up to date is a concern for very strong players. If your rating is less than 1900 you can learn from Lasker and Capablanca as much as modern GMs.

TeraHammer
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brownpaste

I agree with Patzermike.    I'd even say if your rating is less than 2000 you can learn from Lasker, Capablanca, etc.

Pikelemi
you can read the New In Chess yearbook which come out 4 times at year
krikorian12

Mate with them

Darkness_Prevails
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LM_player
Look through the most Recent high-level games you could find. It's the best way to see what openings/strategies are trending at the time.
BetweenTheWheels

I'm wondering how someone goes about finding a thread that's 3 years old to comment on.

brownpaste

I feel strongly that over emphasis on staying "current" is pointless for anyone under 2000 rating.  If the person is "stuck with" the best books from the 70s, they will still profit immensely if they but read it....

gambitattax

You need to be up to date on chess only if you are a professional chess player who regularly plays FIDE rated tournaments. Otherwise being updated on chess is not at all required.

wayne_thomas

The magazines New in Chess, New in Chess Yearbook, Chessbase Magazine, and Sahovski Chess Informant all have GM annotations of recent games.  The Grandmaster Repertoire series from Quality Chess is a recent series of opening monographs.

kindaspongey

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708112658/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review315.pdf
About half a century ago, I think the Fine book was considered to be nearly essential reading, but now, I fear that its information is seriously out-of-date. Lasker and Capablanca did not live to see any of the last seven decades. On the other hand, I suspect that, for many players and openings, it would be sufficient to read stuff from the last ten years.

kindaspongey
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brownpaste

Kindaspongey - your point is well taken, but think of it this way.   You can have loads of 1600-1700 club players in America looking at New in Chess, scrambling to update their Chessbase database, and thinking they are wonderfully "current".   Now lets say Lasker or Capablanca comes out of a time machine and plays one of them.   Who do you think would win... the 1600 player who's amped up on New in Chess?   Or Lasker?      I think we know the 1600 guy's newfangled knowledge would be rendered useless by about move 15.

LM_player
Heck, by the time I answered this. He probably isn't searching for an answer anymore.
Primal_Reaper

ironically this thread is about staying up to date, and it's 3 years old.

president_max
LM_player wrote:
Heck, by the time I answered this. He probably isn't searching for an answer anymore.

like the last guy who asked me about the meaning of life ...

kindaspongey
brownpaste wrote:

Kindaspongey ... You can have loads of 1600-1700 club players in America looking at New in Chess, scrambling to update their Chessbase database, and thinking they are wonderfully "current".   Now lets say Lasker or Capablanca comes out of a time machine and plays one of them.   Who do you think would win... the 1600 player who's amped up on New in Chess?   Or Lasker?      I think we know the 1600 guy's newfangled knowledge would be rendered useless by about move 15.

First of all, I am not advocating "1600-1700 club players in America looking at New in Chess" and "scrambling to update their Chessbase database". It seems to me that there are a lot of possibilities that are intermediate between that and learning from players who were dead more than seven decades ago. I do not see anything useful to be gained from the time machine fantasy. The modern player does not have the option to be Lasker.

kindaspongey
ghost_of_pushwood wrote:

But chessplayers are always gonna be chessplayers.  Clammering to play the latest opening wrinkles (without having a clue what any of it is about).

"... almost all opening books and DVD's give ample attention to general plans and developing schemes, typical tactics, whole games, and so on. ..." - IM Willy Hendriks (2012)