How many books to read before you're a master?

De La Mesa would be a good example of maximising your ability without any new knowledge.  In that extreme I think it's more harmful to a player than good... But I think most amateurs know more about chess than their ability is able to show due to tactical blunders, errors in calculating, and the like.

So here's a silly question but I'm curious about your opinions.  How many books worth of knowledge would a player have to read before they know enough to make master?  Lets say 1 for middle game strategy, 1 for endgame, 1 for an opening repertoire (it may mean you're a system player).  Then add 1 or 2 more for specifics like Kotov for attack or an analyzed game collection. 

That's just 5 books.  The rest could be maximising your tactical and analytical ability.

It'd be nice to hear from strong players too.  How many books did you read and how much did the material overlap?  How much of your strength came from the discipline and practice of finding the best move you could?

You could probably count on 1 hand the number of books targeted for the 2200+ player.  It just makes me wonder how much the theory vs practice scale leans toward practice when it comes to chess skill.

100

The title was meant to be provocative, not turn people away.  It's purposefully foolish.

Thanks for the bump, the OP content is better than the title, and I was hoping to get some serious responses.

Thanks borgqueen :)

Although I think the most bang for my buck in terms of rating gains would be reading material (I didn't even think of including video lessons) sometimes I wonder if all I did were play a bunch of OTB tournaments (not really practical for me, so maybe join a 45/45 league online), analyse after, and do tactics, if I could gain a few hundred rating points that way as well.  What I mean is focusing purely on refining my ability to play what I already know.

Or maybe the flip side... how effective do you think a player would be if all they did was bury themselves in chess books for 3 years and not play a single game against another person (or computer) ?  It seems like their understanding and judgement would be extremely sharp, but their technique and practical decisions would be poor.

Obviously in real life theory and practice are never separate, but I'm curious about the nature of the game.

Oops... originally posted in wrong topic... moved here.

I suppose the answer is heavy on the practice for players on one side of the rating scale (beginners) and heavy on the study for the players on the other (world class players).

A simple enough answer.  I'm also just curious how much disparity there is though for the average class player between the knowledge they already have and their ability to display it.  For example a 1600 rated player who knows basic endgames, tactics, and openings, but drops a knight to a 2-3 move sequence.  Could it be said they should drop all study and focus on their tactics?  Or if they needlessly create a leaver which their opponent uses to open lines and gain a crushing initiative... could it be said they should drop the middle game study and focus on fixing the sloppiness in OTB analysis that lead to such a gross blunder?

I know we all have the Homer Simpson "doh" moments pop up from time to time even in our OTB tournament games.  I'm wondering if the average class play experiences this so much so that serious book study is somewhat ineffective for them.  OTOH, some of my best improvement has come from books, and I'm certainly no master so my prediction and experience are in a bit of conflict here.

Good point.  Maybe part of it is I want a shortcut to success haha :)  Why does hard work have to be so effective   I'm sure I'd like an answer along the lines of "read these books and you'll be great" or "play x number of tourney and you'll be great"

Oh well

It's important to keep in mind that simply reading books doesn't make one a master. I've known top GMs who have read just a few chess books in their life and bookwormish A-class players who claim having read over 100 books. A lot depends on how the quality of the books, how deeply you understand the material, and how you put it into practice.

over 9000

I don't see why one couldn't achieve master without having read even one chess book, providing there is that needed modicum of chess talent and an atmosphere of superior players mentoring with sound advice.

Fine is said to have made master without benefit of chess books. Yes, he had some talent, apparently, that almost all of us don't have, but lesser players' stories don't get told much, so maybe it's possible for us mortals as well.

If I wanted to up my chances while using as few books as possible I'd pick a good endgame book, perhaps Pachman's multi-volume middlegame book, and the best, nicely annotated games collection of size that I could find.

I guess magazines are the same things as books, if you have enough good ones.

Limiting books while using big databases may be a bit of a cheat on the proposition; One can get by with scrutinizing games ordered by opening, certainly, and at some point as one approaches master the careful study of (mostly) bare game scores out of DBs ought to be a very effective way to study and grow stronger.

If you had a strong master coach at your elbow for a few years then I suppose you could do without books at all, but that's something I associate with what Fine did: Play and study hard in the company of strong players.

# of books to GM = sqrt.(Fide rating)/talent variable + 1/2e(average Amazon book rating) + weight(in kilos)/tournements competed in per month - number of books read already/time(in years) since you read them + Nielsen Constant(~51.88) - amount of money you're willing to shell out for my revolutionary new chess learning product(USD)/100

Trust me, I'm a doctor, not a mathematician.

Hmm, why do you have weight / tournaments per month?  It seems like it would be the other way around.

Also why is the amount of money willing to shell out a negative value?

Otherwise the formula is PERFECT 

I know players who got to master level without books, simply by studying and learning from mistakes and analyses of systems from people or by databases and computers.  I have read many books although hardly any to do with chess as a player whose USCF tops 2100.  Playing players who are rated similarly or slightly higher than myself I think would be of greatest benefit to me as their knowledge is more on my level.  There's simply some positions that are practical to understand and better players know what they play with specificity and can better predict how the positions will evolve on the basis of knowledge of the motifs that apply to a position.  There's a large basis of knowledge to be known concretely, the basis of how and why some positions are played, and then there are new positions, which are understood by comparison to similar known positions, the motifs and calculations that will appply.

That's certainly true.  I suppose it would only take a very few number of books provided the person absorbs them fully and completely.  Taking it to the extreme, imagine a player after learning about the dangers of losing the initiative, never let his opponent have a lasting initiative in all his future games.

But this is at the root of what I mean.  How much information is necessary?  As you pointed out some players continue to read books despite the fact they're not absorbing the material.  In this case I would say they should practice more (OTB tournaments) until they're able to put into practice what they've supposedly learned.

No fair finding loopholes.

I know it's an unanswerable question, but I appreciate the input.  I agree it's useful to be in a strong chess environment that pushes you to keep improving.  Probably completely necessary for those trying to make it at the professional level.

I personally believe that it depends more than anything else on how you're actually reading the books.

I know that when I was younger I'd "read" books where I just kind of played through a handful of moves.   I never went into the variations or *gasp* sub-variations of analysis.  That seemed like too much work!

As a result I got nothing out of all of the books I "read" back then.

Nowadays when I read a book I read it.  I play through every variation and sub-variation and I try really hard to remember the starting position of the variations so that I can reconstruct the position from memory and keep playing the actual line after looking through the analysis.

It's not easy, but I feel that I get a lot out of it.

I'm a little over 1500 USCF, but I quit playing 20 years ago at that rating and in only four months of playing again I feel I'm back to that same strength. I believe that comes from reading quality books.

So how many chess books, LOL let me have some fun... firstly i have not played in over 20 years and played heavily with friends back then. Firstly with chess engines and the internet masters will become far more common, distance, expenses and time are much easier to manage today than decades ago. So today everyone has availability to a much wider range of information and game sources. Also never buy a chess book until you find 3 reviewers you know and trust who say it is worth having, a bad or poor book (in my ametuer neive opion) is far worse than no book...

So my plan; (these books are in order) get :

- one introduction book to chess,

- one GENERAL book on chess,

- 2 books on tactics,

- a book on strategy,

- 2 puzzle books with solutions,

- 2 books on mistakes players make,

- 2 books on game systems,

Now re-read those books over and over and over till your score goes up at least 400 points; then get :

- 2 books on openings,

- 1 book on openings for black,

- 3 more puzzle books,

- a chess psychology,

- 2 books on how to analyse and improve your play,

- 2 middle game books,

- 2 end game books,

so you get to read and consider the works of many authors and find your best 5 authors whom you like and trust, then find 3 reviewers you trust who tells you get books that are well prepared.

So later i'll actually post my list and why, but generally my opinion is to avoid specialist books and only learn openings or end game positions till you understand development, tactics and traps etc fairly well.

Play online and try and find a chess club locally, but whatever do not play a fast game; but play a timed game (i like 15 min) this gives you time to consider but forces you to make decisions. After every 5 or 10 games, review the saved game and rip it apart to see what you did wrong. remember those issues for your next battles. Every game you play you need to repeatedly analyse at least 3 times at different times, then re-read those great books you bought; rinse an repeat the process.

BTW = (by the way) Chess as modern military = Queen = Tank (fast major hard hits), Rook = Artillery (you know they are around major hits long range), King = Lord [= read 'Politician'], (often only has only local major effect, expects others to care for him; very allergic to 'work', dislikes danger...), Bishop = Snipers (long range from the often unseen comoflaged diagonals) Pawns = Grunts = (infantry; will advance to fight, hope to have another grunt nearby to exact revenge), Knights = Assassins (sneaky short range hits often at multiple unexpected targets)...

I'll stop writting now, my list of books i will post in a week :) Happy games out there; stay safe and use protection...

10,000

You can read books until you're a hundred years old and not become a master, you either have it or you don't.

It's like going to college, no matter how many years you study, you can't fix stupid.

READING ANY BOOK DOESN'T NECESSARILY MAKE YOU BETTER.

READING COOK BOOK AND EATING YOUR FOOD MAKES YOU A CHESS MASTER!