Five Chess Books you must have on your shelf!

AquaMan wrote:

For a games collection book, I'm surprised nobody mentioned Tal-Botvinnik 1960.  From the excerpts on Amazon it looks like a great book.  It's in my shopping basket.

 It does doesn't it.  Luckily they have a copy of it at one of the local libraries, I've just not got around to checking it out yet (read a little bit of it while I was there one time).

I bought MCO 15 yesterday.  Very cool.  The better you are at moving, or beter yet picturing, the pieces on the board as you read the PGN, the better this book is.  Very good intros.  Great for getting an overview of a lot of different openings.  I went through a bunch of them last night.  The tables are great for seeing the variations, now that I know how to use them.

I did find one error already.   Albin Counter-Gambit, pg 513, column 16, 7...0-0-0.  Castle isn't legal on either side for black at move 7.  I've read that there's a "lot" of erros.  Still great fun to explore though.  If you're uncomfortable moving the pieces as you read the PGN then skip this book.

Why would I need to have 5 books on myself?

If I really need it I think I would get 1 of endgame.1 of opening.1 of tactics.1 Bobby fisher My sixty memorable games and 1 of kasparov My best games.

What?!?!?!?!?!?

ka151 - "My ten most memorable toes"

There are two ways to answer this question, I think:

1) If you were only allowed to read 5 books prior to attaining master, what would they be?

• 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games, Laszlo Polgar (really any good tactics problem book works here)
• Ideas Behind the Chess Openings, Reuben Fine
• My System, Aron Nimzowitsch
• How to Reassess Your Chess, Jeremy Silman
• Practical Chess Endings, Paul Keres

B) If you could only have 5 books based on your current level of knowledge, what would they be?

• Modern Chess Openings, Nick De Firmian
• How to Reassess Your Chess, Jeremy Silman
• Art of Attack in Chess, Vladimir Vukovic
• Practical Chess Endings, Paul Keres
• Zurich International Chess Tournament 1953, David Bronstein

                            Write your own

                                  Chess Book:

                                 Regardless of

                                 Your Strength

                                       PATRICK

                                       WHALEN

Copyright 2003 by Patrick Whalen

ISBN 0-7414-1467-8

I am surprised not many people mentioned Dvoretsky's series as the 5 books list! If anything they are by far the strongest books I've known recommended to candidate masters etc. I havent yet studied any chess books but if I need 5 of them I would definitely try to buy these:

1. Fundamental Chess Endings - Lamprecht, Muller.
2. Art of Attack in Chess            - Vucovic.
3. Modern Chess Strategy         - Pachman.
4. 100 selected games              - Botvinnik
5. Chess Informants

 The chess opening "Bibles" such as MCO, NCO and BCO are reference books and dont really "teach" you anything about chess. I see many references to MCO and not the other two, mainly because of MCO's popularity among Americans. I notice here in Europe MCO doesnt seem to be as popular as the other two. I have all 3 and prefer NCO of the 3. However, the best opening reference books, imo, is the 5 volume set of ECOs if you can afford them.

There are more books written on chess than all other games combined !  I have read this and do wonder if its true? If it is.... why limit ourselves to only 5 ?!!

My personal 5 favorites :

1 My System    Nimzovich

2 My 60 Memorable Games   Fischer 

3 Art of Attack    Vukovic

4 Zurich 1953   Bronstein

5 Euwe's  two books on  the Middlegame

1. Karpvs best games - one of if not the best books to study

2. Capablancas best games - nothing else needs to be said

3. Chess Tactics For Champions - Susan Polgar

4. Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual - Mark Dvoretsky

5. MCO

 LOL, I am interested by your opening books. We share the samw repetoire! O and my books...

How to Reassess Your Chess-Silman

Siman's Complete Endgame Course-Silman

The Scandinavian (1st Edition...)-Emms

Starting Out: Slav and Semi-Slav-Flear

Art of the Middle Game-Keres/Kotov

which is better,

My System or

How to Reassess Your Chess???

The "go to" books on my shelf:

Chess Openings: Theory And Practice - Horowitz ; it's like an MCO with more explanations

Chess Fundamentals - Capablanca ; nobody does it like Capa

Basic Chess Endings - Fine ; I've always considered this a very dry, labor intensive book but it's an invaluable reference.

My 60 Memorable Games - Fischer ; Great games, great annotations, 'nuff said.

I'm not sure what I'd pick for a fifth book. It should be something that covers middlegame tactics and strategy. I just finished Seirawan's "Winning Chess Strategies" but wasn't completely satisfied. I want to post a review of it here soon so I won't go into details. I've worked some in Silman's "Reassess Your Chess Workbook", "Amateur's Mind", "Complete Book Of Chess Strategy", and "Complete Endgames". My impression is that most of those books overlap or repeat each other in many areas. Right now I'm working from "Complete Book Of Chess Strategy". It should be a fairly good all-around book as it introduces a number of the major openings, demonstrates a number of the major named mates, and explains a bit about pawn structure, strategy, and tactics. Someday I hope to review this book here also.

1) Complete endgame Course by Silman

2) Pawn Structure - Andrew Soltis

3) How to reassess your chess - Silman

4) Winning chess tactics for juniors - Lou Hays - my 2nd tactics book. It helps me gain a few hundred ELO points! Before this book, I was making 1-3 move blunders in almost all my games. **** or any other tactics books like Lev Albert

5) The best games of Tarrasch - Fred Reinfeld. This is my very first chess book. Cover up his move and learn try to guess how Tarrasch would have played. I prefer this than games of modern masters. In the old days there are huge differences between playing strength and one can see how the plan gets carried out till the end.

Then some games on

1. Modern Chess openings (or Nunn)
2. Fundamental Chess Endings (or Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual)
3. My System
4. The Art of Attack in Chess
5. Think Like a Grandmaster

That would be my five. If I could have some more, I'd want:

6. The Inner Game of Chess
7. Chess for Zebras
8. How to Reassess Your Chess

And as many volumes of My Great Predecessors and my bookshelf would take. MGP is just a fantastic series of books.

In no particular order:

1/ My 60 Memorable Games - Fischer

2/ My System - Nimzowitsch

3/ Chess Praxis - Nimzowitsch

4/ Simple Chess -Stean

5/ Attacking The Queenside - Shashin

This last book helped me a great deal because I realised after many years playing that I had alternative plan to just attacking the enemy king.Previous to this I would attack the enemy castled king no matter what the demands of the position were, often compromising my own castled king's position. This middlegame theme of attacking the queenside is , I think, quite neglected. Ideas include rook entrance and the minority attack. Something I learnt, and I invite contradiction on this, is that when the kingside and centre are 50/50 for bothsides, whether you have three to two on the queenside, or two to three, a general pawn advance is the way to go.

1.Averbachs Essential Chess Endings by Yuri Averbach 

2.Modern Chess Strategy Ludek Pachman

3.Laskers Chess Manual (New Edition) by Emmanuel Lasker

4.Tarasch's the Game of Chess by Siegbert Tarrasch

5.Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual Second Edition 

5 must have chess books (Beginner-Intermediate level) So we need a balanced representation for chess improvement in each major category. 1.General chess understanding, 2.Tactics, 3.Strategy, 4.Games collection, 5.Calculation accuracy training.

1. Chess Fundamentals (Capablanca). Fischer said this was the best chess book ever written. Why ? Because Capa teaches and encourages the student to think and understand for him/herself. In chess it is vital to do work on your own. This is the best way. (no spoonfeeding).

2. Polgar's 5334. Developing your pattern recognition and solving lot's of chess problems on your own will most surely sharpen your tactical eye. O.K., here I have to make an exception and add another for Historical info as well as tactical do it yourself (problem solving):  Chess Gems (Sukhin).

3. Reasses your chess workbook (Silman). So many positive reviews can't be wrong.

4. Zurich International Chess Tournament,1953(Bronstein). For variety & brilliant annotation of some of the greatest players ever.

5. Master the grand art of Chess Calculation (Friend). For developing the student's visualisation accuracy in an interesting,efficient and methodical way. Also for it's creative approach and bringing about an awareness of ethics Beyond the chess board.(Beginner-Advanced).

BEGINNERS:  Common Sense In Chess by Dr Lasker                                                       Chess Fundamentals and/or My Chess Career by Capablanca                     

Logical Chess Move by Move by Irving Chernev

Pandolfini's Endgame Course by IM Pandolfini

1000 Checkmates and/or 1000 Winning Combinations by Fred Reinfeld

INTERMEDIATE:  My System by Nimzovitch                                  

Fundamental Chess Openings by GM van der Sterren  

Practical Chess Endings by GM Keres or A Guide to Chess Endings by GM Euwe    

The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by Irving Chernev

 Pawn Structure Chess by GM Soltis or Pawn Power In Chess by IM Kmoch

ADVANCED: Play Like A GM - Think Like A GM - Train Like A GM (at least one of these, all by GM Kotov) 

Dvoretssky's Endgame Manual  by IM Dvoretsky and/or Understanding Chess Endgames by GM Nunn

Understanding Chess Move by Move and/or Understanding Chess Middlegames by GM Nunn

Complete Chess Strategy vol 1-3 or Modern Chess Strategy (vol 1-3 abridged into one book) both by GM Pachmann

More suggestions here, from chess.com member Dan Heisman: http://danheisman.home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Events_Books/General_Book_Guide.htm