Chess books

Instead of your favorite chess book--Which book actually did you learn the most from?  For me it was Lasker's "Manual of Chess".  I learned his approach and that you can defend bad positions.

For me it was the Winning Chess series by Yasser Seirawan. It brought me from 2-3 move tactical attacks with hardly any consideration for anything else, to grasping fundamental ideas of the game. I would guess my "rating" jumped from around 400 to say 1200, so literally I improved most from this series than any other book(s).

Is this a good book for a lower-level player?  How about Lasker's Common Sense in Chess?  

Is it too dated?  

How does it compare to newer books like the Seirawan or Alburt series?  

Or is it more advanced than those and should be tackled later?  

Appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.

I am learning very much right now with "My system" by nimzoswithc", very nice book for positional play.

What Lasker's Manual did for me was show me his approach to chess.  To Lasker chess was a fight.  I learned that you could defend most positions.  Common Sense in Chess was a series of lectures Lasker had given around 1895.  Worth reading, yes, but not as complete as the Manual.  Now, for a lower rated player, I believe the best single book is Alexander and Beach's "Learn Chess--A Complete Course."  At a slightly higher level there is Fine's "Chess The Easy Way" or Tarrasch's "The Game Of Chess".  Go to Amazon.com and read the reviews of these three books.

I actually bought "The Game of Chess", more because I heard it was a classic than for instructional value.   I'll definitely put it on my "to read" list now.  Thanks!  

For me, it was Reti's Modern Ideas in Chess. It really helped me get started.

Why do most players today ignore all of the classics?  Writers like Reti, Nimzowitsch, Alekhine, Capablanca, Tarrasch, Kmoch & Znosko-Borovsky are all worth reading.  Maybe because they have not been up-dated to modern notation.

The Amateur's Mind by Silman. It gave me a good idea of what my thought process should be more like and good info on knight v bishop.

He also has players of different ratings (from 900 to 1700 so in most peoples range) play through master games and think aloud. It's very descriptive and useful to compare with your own ideas for the game.

It's not that players ignore the classics. I think a lot of them, like myself, are waiting before getting these books by these advanced GMs.

A lot of the older books are written in descriptive notation (and I'd prefer not to  struggle with that atm). They may also be written for master players. People like Alekhine etc, were world champions, of course they will write stuff to impress other GMs and master players, not for beginners. Not only that, but they are at such an advanced level that they may not even be able to relate to lower rated players like myself (it's really not their fault).

This is why I look for chess books that explain more simple concepts, with a more relational discussion, TARGETTED for my level of play.

I was reading a game, in the new book I just bought Zurich 1953 by David Bronstein. The game was explained in a straightforward fashion, but it was more like a commentary than something instructive. I didn't know what lesson to take from round one, Szabo vs Geller. I didn't see a general principle or strategy that I could apply to my own games, except maybe to play it safe and draw when you can?

I learned huge amounts of material by working through Silmans Endgame Course all the way.

Also, perhaps deep down in my beginner-head, I fear that I will spend a lot of time reading something only to find that much of what I have learned and incorporated into my play has been rejected and I have to re-learn chess strategy from scratch after reading several thousand pages of "classic" books.  

In addition, there are so many new modern books that to me it is unclear whether these old books are recommended because they are truly timeless and excellent or because it was good a generation ago, when many modern-day masters were developing, yet they simply haven't kept up with "introductory" level books over the years since they have advanced to more difficult modern books, thus they may have no idea what book is best for a developing player and simply keep recommending books that were good for them "back in the day".

That's always a problem danny.

It's the same with theater, why are really old movies regarded as classics/legendary, is it because that generation loved it so much? Or is it because new movies are always inferior?

You are a strong player, AtahanT...did you work through Silman's Course disregarding your rating (esp for the later chapters), or did you do it by each section as your rating matched the appropriate chapter's level?

Dan Heisman's Novice Nooks bundled together in a few gigantic ring binders.  

'Nuff said :)

I'm a class C club player and you probably do not need to go farther then class C section in that book if you are my strength but I think you can manage to go through it all if it intrests you. The stuff covered in later chapters isn't much more difficult to understand really. Endgames intrested me so I simply began from page one (class E section?) and did everything up to master level. It's true though what he says in the book. I don't think I'll ever need to put much more effort into the endgame ever again except keeping what I know somewhat fresh. It's quite nice to have endgame selfesteem so you can go into a suitable endgame without hesitation even when facing a player a few classes above you.

But since most games end in midgame, I think for anyone below 1800, studying endgame might not be the best thing at the moment.

Somewhat true. Think of it this way. Endgame and openings are a bit similar in this matter imo. Once you've simply learned the endgame techniques and developed your opening repetoire you will never really have to revisit those ever again until you maybe come up to master levels. So once you got those two down cold you can then concentrate on the rest of the game in peace by improving tactics, positional play, calculation, etc.

So you may say "why not a little endgame and a little opening and a little tactics" at the same time? Because simply sitting down and learning , let's say Silmans Endgame Course up to A class section, will only take you two weekends if you dedicate yourself to it. Same goes to building a reasonable opening repetoire. Once that is done in like a month you can go nuts on everything else and never look back. I found this approach more suiting for me.

So you're saying, learning most of the common endgame problems and theory is easy enough so that I should just get it out of the way?

Yes, that is how I felt and how I did. You have to think if that is a good way for you or not.