How do I use chess books?
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I would recommend "The Complete Chess Course" by Fred Reinfeld. This book contains 8 books in one. It is full of exercises and complete games.
Logical Chess by Irving Chernev. It teaches beginners the basics chess strategy by explaining every move of 33 games.
When confronted to a chess book, unless you are very good at playing blindfolded, take a chess board and move each piece according to what the book tells you, after each move, look at the new positions and analyse it, try to think like the player who played the moves, try to be better than him, find better combinations for example, point out flaws in his play.
Chess books can only teach you so much, you need to put in some effort yourself because the better you get, the less people will hold your hands.
Unfortunately, I cannot tell you of books that will correspond to your needs but I am sure plenty players from here know a handful of great books that you could use to practise.
However I have one book you might like, but it is in french, "Les échecs" from Camil Seneca. The first part is about the game, the rules, the tournament play, etc. The second part covers the basics of openings and middle games with annotated games from master and grandmasters, the last part is about the endgame, featuring how to win an endgame and showing you the mates for B and N, two B, Q and K, R and K, the theoritical mate with two knights, etc. It also has annotated eng games to help you understand them better. But unless you know french or are motivated enough to learn it, it might not be the book for you.
I agree with Manipulated. Get out a chess board and go through each move as it says. Most books are in Algebraic Notation, and most beginner books will have a short guide on this.
In summarization:
0-0 Kingside Castle
0-0-0 Queenside Castle
Kn- Knight
B-Bishop
Q- Queen
K- King
R- Rook
The board is divided into columns a-h and rows 1-8.
So, 1. e4 Would be the classic center opening.
And Qe4xd5 Would be the Queen taking the d5 square.
Don't know if I missed anything, but that should be a basic overview.
Hmm... As a Correction, Knight= N.
Manipulated wrote:
When confronted to a chess book, unless you are very good at playing blindfolded, take a chess board and move each piece according to what the book tells you ...
Or you can use Fritz instead of a physical chessboard. Which is interesting because Fritz will sometimes have a different "opinion" of a move or position than the book you're reading.
Thanks all thats been helpful.
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I was looking for a way to improve my game so I recently took the oxford companion to chess out of the library, but its just a series of moves (1.e4 e5 2. Nc3 and so on) and I can't make heads or tails of it. I was really hoping for some exercises or end game examples so i could practice mating. Can someone advise me on how to best use this sort of guide? What books or exercises have you found helpful?