chessmicky wrote:
Of course there were far fewer books to read in the old days, but Morphy's father had a decent chess library, and the young Paul devoured all of it. Capablanca boasted that he had never read an opening book before he became a world champion challenger, but he had read several books on the endgame.
In more modern times, Fischer read essentially everything, even learning enough Russian to take advantage of Sovie chess literature. Fischer, Kasparov, and Kramnik were all extremely interested in chess history.
wow is that true about Fischer? Russian is a tough language
You so often hear of these great chess giants of history having a precocious chess childhood, in which they seemed to just "get it" (at least easier or ealier than others oftentimes) and dominate their opponents.
I'm wondering, however, if they got so good at an early age through reading chess books? Obviously, if all it took to be great was reading a chess book, then anyone could become awesome at the game. And there are so many books too.
Nevertheless, how instrumental was reading chess books to the growth of the giants of chess history?
(Feel free to throw in some "must-reads" as well that you would recommend.)