Can you figure chess out or must you read boring books?

I'm about 1950 USCF and I find his books intimidating. I do not, however, find them boring. I suspect that if I labored my way through those that I have, I might rise to 2120!

You must be multilingual.  If an English speaker finds Nunn's books "literally" unreadable, the only logical conclusion is that they are not written in English.

Nonsense! They could also be written in invisible ink. 

ThrillerFan, when you say you read so many of these books cover to cover, do you mean you play through all the examples as well?

It's my opinion that, if you are smart and resourceful, you could reach 2000 without reading a chess book. I guess I'll find out at some point, because that's my goal. Although, I have read fragments of books.

Personally I prefer videos, tactics training, and just playing over games. As someone recently stated, the message is in the moves. People have different ways of learning, some peoples' learning styles are much better suited to books, and some people would learn better through other methods. This is pretty much an accepted, scientific "fact" these days.

Mojo

I just look at the amount of games you have. Over 4000+ and you are at 1100. You must be figuring chess out still without a book.

Good job!

It's also possible that the English speaker is illiterate.

Ummmmm.  Fug hed hurrt wiv oll dis hybraw tok.

Literally unreadable from the tolerance perspective.  Meaning, in other words, even your most devout chess player could not read that book and complete it.  It's like belonging to a book club that has members that are retired and do nothing but read all day, and have a wide range of genres they read, but come upon a real stinker that nobody in their right mind would be able to finish.  It's like a devout gambler going to Las Vegas and playing Blackjack with the rule that you must beat the dealer by at least 3 without going over or you lose, so 21 vs 18, 20 or 21 vs 17, and Dealer busts are the only ways to win and there are no ties except when both player and dealer get Blackjack.  Sure destroys the concept of a Casino Game like Nunn's endgame books destroy the concept of a chess book.  That's how I describe John Nunn's 3 books on Endings.  They are basically a database dump (literally) of the 5-piece ending.  Think of tablebases written out on paper!

As for the Beethoven fan, I can't speak for which was his best or worst.  However, the 9th must be popular and well known for a reason (his 5th probably being the next most popular to the "general public" - those that don't listen to classical music on a regular basis).  It's just like anything else that becomes extremely popular. 

You know, literal in the figurative sense.

Aww right.  Literal is coming from where it seems.  Lateral is blind-siding you.  Maybe there are other dimensions of perception!  Leteral is coming in the post?  Luteral is something you...er...hear played on a small harp?  Well, maybe not, but Loteral is definitely big.

Btw nice one, Grobe.  As always, you are a delight.

Incidentally to answer the OP's thread, I believe I am onto something.  It's early days yet but I might be able to solve chess.  Chess opening is C.  He is a man.  SS is common notation for a sailing ship.  Therefore, drumroll.... Chess = Seamanship!  There, you can all stop wondering now.

MJ, why don't you have a go at online chess?

There's more time to think and if you are that way inclined.....learn!!

Thanks guys - I guess I am more of a visual/auditory learner so yes videos would work! I asked the question because I was wondering about the role of natural ability (pattern recognition) - it helps to know that most of you are up for formal learning to compensate for any issues with natural ability. So that's pretty cool.

To the two geniuses who point out my rating and manage to make this unnecessarily personal - I started playing just in March this year - so it's been less than 6 mos. i still yo yo between 1350 and 1150 (after a bad streak).

Lol ...

Here_Is_Plenty wrote:

Aww right.  Literal is coming from where it seems.  Lateral is blind-siding you.  Maybe there are other dimensions of perception!  Leteral is coming in the post?  Luteral is something you...er...hear played on a small harp?  Well, maybe not, but Loteral is definitely big.

Btw nice one, Grobe.  As always, you are a delight.

Incidentally to answer the OP's thread, I believe I am onto something.  It's early days yet but I might be able to solve chess.  Chess opening is C.  He is a man.  SS is common notation for a sailing ship.  Therefore, drumroll.... Chess = Seamanship!  There, you can all stop wondering now.

If you never have play chess and want to be good in chess, you should play a lot of games and learn from yours mistakes, you need to analyze your games and see when you went wrong, and also you really need solving lot of combinations, then you learn to calculate. If you do this every week, I think you can have a rating on 1700-2000 whitout problems.

Btw I have not read all yours comments, so maybe you allready have mentioned what I said. If thats the truth I'm sorry! d(^^)b

In answer to the OP:

Why would anything that fails to necessitate reading books be of any interest? 

Because educational/teaching books have a tendency to be extremely dry and boring. Pages of notation can easily put someone to sleep.

I'm not against instructional chess, it just seems that so many people relying on books (and creating new books) at this point in technology is silly. Interactive methods would be more entertaining and more effective.

OP's inner thoughts : 

Why would anything that necessitate reading books be of any interest ?

Books don't need electricity to be read and you can also use them to kill an annoying insect

Surely if video killed the radio star it can handle a simple insect.

Not to be a shill for this site, but if chess books bore you, the videos on this site (and unlimited tactical problems) may be what you are looking for.