Bruce pandolfini-bad
Jeremy Silman- brilliant
Chess books to avoid
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I don't have it, and never did, but I read comments here that the book is all elementary mates, and all/mostly bank rank ones.
Sounds like a mud puddle.
May 30, 2009
0
#25
Never buy Kalinichenko's books - the analysises in them are always crappy, with lots of gaps and not to-the point.
The worse book I've got , I bought recently knowing it was bad. It's called "How To Think Ahead In Chess" by Horowitz and Reinfeld.
Here is part of a review from Amazon that made me chuckle:
"Reinfeld has a talent for filling pages with useless annotation and diagrams and Horowitz is a master at coming up with eye catching titles that don't reflect what is inside the book. Together they have managed to publish yet another second rate chess book"
The book recommends the Stonewall Attack for white. The Sicilian Dragon for black against 1e4 and Lasker's defence against 1d4.
The book has a certain charm about it and is very cheap. The games feature many queen sacrifices which don't reflect of normal chess. The annotations are very long and laboured and every time black's dark squared bishop is mentioned it is called the "dragon" bishop in an annoyingly frequent fashion. The book also has photos of the postions on the board as well as normal diagrams.
If you own this, you own the worst chess book there is :-)
May 31, 2009
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#27
Well as for bad chess books, here's a list.
Starting Out: 1e4!
Almost anything Schiller writes, it's easier for me to write down the exceptions, World Champion Openings, and Hypermodern Opening System for White. The Openings book is a good primer and the Hypermodern Opening book was actually written with some care.
Combination Challenge! Errors in the solutions and bunched together by theme but not by difficulty. I prefer all themes mixed in but in order from easiest to hardest.
wango wrote:
Well as for bad chess books, here's a list.
Starting Out: 1e4!
Almost anything Schiller writes, it's easier for me to write down the exceptions, World Champion Openings, and Hypermodern Opening System for White. The Openings book is a good primer and the Hypermodern Opening book was actually written with some care.
Combination Challenge! Errors in the solutions and bunched together by theme but not by difficulty. I prefer all themes mixed in but in order from easiest to hardest.
Starting Out: 1e4! was written by Neil McDonald. His "French Winawer" is in my library, and I find it a bit disorganized. There is less useful information there than, say, in Psakhis' "French Defence 3.Nc3 Bb4" or the more general "Main Line French" by Pedersen, not to mention a number of Watson's books on the opening. Then again, there are many favorable reviews of McDonald's works on the Amazon.
May 31, 2009
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#29
Alphastar18 wrote:
Rapid Chess Improvement by de la Maza is rubbish too. His idea is good, but he spends 80 pages talking nonsense around it. It could've done with about 4 pages.
I agree. If you want to know what de la Maza is all about, you can read this pdf for free:
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles148.pdf
Amy
stwils wrote:
I have read a lot of criticism of Pandolfini's books.
Are any of his books good? Which ones and why?
stwils
His endgame book is pretty good. Not as good pedagogically as Silman's, but when used in conjuction with Silman's book, Pandolfini's endgame book is good to have. Although there are an insane number of errors. Why doesn't Pandolfini or Fireside Publishing fix those errors??
anonym wrote:
Snarky reviewers like to take cheapshots at Pandolfini and Alburt because they write books for beginners that teach chess to "the masses".
I don't think you can compare Alburt to Pandolfini. Alburt's endgame book is great! And his Pocket Training book is excellent for practicing analysis! I don't own any of his other books. Alburt's book also do NOT have the many typos and errors that Pandolfini's books do.
Pandolfini's pedgagogical methods are somewhat askew in his books. Alburt has a plan. If one doesn't like Alburt's style that is a whole different ballgame but Alburt is much more pedagogically sound then Pandolfini. (I make that statement based on my experience as a teacher of music NOT from my chess strength.)
qixel wrote:
Alphastar18 wrote:
Rapid Chess Improvement by de la Maza is rubbish too. His idea is good, but he spends 80 pages talking nonsense around it. It could've done with about 4 pages.
I agree. If you want to know what de la Maza is all about, you can read this pdf for free:
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles148.pdf
Amy
Thanks, I just skimmed through it. A lot of reviewers see his book as a bit of a joke but I can see the merit to what he's saying having just read that..
May 31, 2009
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#33
Anything by Raymond Keene. Every one of his books is a waste of money. Also, the silly fat twat hasn't played for 20 years what the f**k does he know!
May 31, 2009
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#34
...also while i'm on a rant (and I know this is not going go down well with some higher rated players) : Mark Dvoretsky's books suck!
May 31, 2009
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#35
I'm with folks about Schiller -- pretty terrible. Pandolfini's book are generally sub-par (at least for me) except the endgame book which actually was a treat if only finding the errors when I was starting out! Keene has a bad reputation, and has been called the world's "weakest grandmaster" -- I dunno, but someone gave me a copy of a very elemental/elementary chess book written by him -- it went to the used bookstore about 10 minutes later.
I've got three questionable ones: 1) Craig Pritchett wrote a book on the English that gets panned (I kinda liked it for what it was and not what it was advertised to be...see Amazon's reviews). 2) David Levy wrote a book on the Combinations and Sacrifices that is pretty weak on analysis and heavy on details (that don't always matter). 3) Prichett wrote a "Starting out: Attacking Play" book that catches a lot of grief, but given that the online price is <$5, and they are all some pretty nasty attacking games, IMO, it's worth the price -- don't expect Tal, Aagaard, Averbakh, Gligoric, Palliser or Muller here....ya got me?
Now, I've got scads of good authors/books I could list (see above for a short list)....but I guess that's another thread. :)
Best,
ZV
Jun 1, 2009
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#37
kco. Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess has to be one of the most awesome books a complete beginner to medium beginner could dream of reading.
Right now I'm reading John Emms' Guide to the Ruy Lopez and I find it has no meat in it...just lines which don't even have the theory explained. He's like "1. xx xx 2 xx xx 3. xx xx and White is better." Um...ok. thanks.
kco wrote:
somebody said that 'Fischer teaches chess' was no good, is that true ?
Fischer didn't write it... It's a knock off that goes over a bunch of back rank mates
tonydal wrote:
Worst chess book of all time: Nice 1974 by Raymond Keene & David Levy (Keene is so obnoxious that he'll have you wishing the book was a TV set just so you could put your foot through the screen). Indeed, anything by the tag team of Keene & Levy (whether in tandem or separate) ought to be regarded as suspect.
Also I would add to the "suspect" list anything by Samuel Reshevsky; he was the worst annotator of any of the all-time great players.
I must say though that my experience has been markedly different than some others; I have found most chess books to be worth the price of admission.
No no no brother... I have one that is the worst of the worst... IM Grefe: The Offbeat Ways to Beat the Sicilian. This book is old, but I actually was pretty upset after reading this. The analysis is poor... it's pretty much just a bunch of variation with no text. One GM in a camp once stated "Avoid titles with "winning" or "beat"... if it was that easy... everyone would do it."
I think the universally, most folks like Silman's Books... People praise Dvorts... books, but I think they are really for FM or higher so that's out of my league.
Rapid Chess Improvement by de la Maza is rubbish too. His idea is good, but he spends 80 pages talking nonsense around it. It could've done with about 4 pages.