How to Study with Chess Books

My biggest problem with reading chess books is thinking through the various positions in my head. Yes, I know that this is good training to think abstractly of the positions without using a chess board, but it makes going through the books very long and tedious.  I even tend to bypass explanations since going through alternatives, and finding my way back to the original position is more difficult.  Most all chess books show the chess board at various positions, but skip along dozens of moves before showing another position.

So my question is, how do you go through chess books?  Do you go through the positions in your mind, follow along on the chess board, or use a chess program?  I'd like to read a chess book in one month -- is that reasonable?  Any recommendations?

As background, I am not a beginner but not advanced either.  I am probably in the 1400 rating, although I have not been officially rated in quite some time (decades).

A good idea is to use a chess program. Then you can take back moves, create variations, etc.

Personally, I use Chessmaster on the DS, because it's handy. If the author mentions a variation, I try to visualise it in my head (for convenience), but if it's too long I'll play it out on Chessmaster.

On the other hand, occasionally I'll look through a game book and try to visualise as much as possible, but only for visualisation practice: I never do this when I'm actually reading a book, as this would be an obstacle in my learning.

This is a good topic.

I'm just starting to study hard with books and I'm finding an approach that works for me.

Depending on the circumstance I'll use a real board or I'll use Fritz in mini-board layout. In both cases I have a wire book holder so that my hands are free.

If it's a game annotated from the beginning and there isn't a ton of variations I'll use the real board and try and calculate what litle variations there are in my mind's eye. I like the real board for the tactile sense of moving the pieces around and getting in some visualization practice is going to obviously pay off when I start playing more over the board.

If there's a bunch of variations al-la Dvortsky or Nunn I'm compelled to use Fritz because I need to understand the concrete analysis being presented. At the same time I will try and visualize a long variation as far as I can and then recreate it on the Fritz board before I look back at the book and input the moves. That way I'm still getting to flex my chess vision muscles, but I don't worry about being good at that right now at this point in my learning process. I feel it's more important to understand what the author is trying to communicate.

The good thing about using Fritz is that you can store and play back the variations any time you wish. It's far more of a pain to manipulate pieces on a real board then set it back up to how it was before the variation. 

The Fritz board is also great for annotated games that start with a middlegame or endgame position. It's a snap to use the position setup feature of the program. It's a lot quicker than pulling out the real board and setting up the pieces you need one by one.

Also the Fritz mini-board is perfect if you are going thru a PDF file because it's all right there on your computer screen. You just drag the little board out of the way as you read the text of the PDF article. It's like having a little analysis board pasted on the document itself.

Anyways that's just what I find is pretty effective for me, because I'm obsessed about trying to maximize my precious time in the most efficient manner possible. But I'm realizing it's probably more important to go over some material slowly and absorb rather then trying to cram as fast as you can. It's a journey not a race. The process is a reward unto itself.

Thanks an_arbitrary_name and odinspirit.  I'll try using a program while reading.

One thing I tried last night is bringing up the exact game that the author was commenting on.  I found a chess site with both the game and playable board.  What was surrprising (to me) and enjoyable was that I could create variations while the author was making a point, and then hit the refresh icon to go back to the original game moves.  I thought that was easier than trying to drag out pieces and move around.

Also while flipping through Reassess Your Chess, I came across another recommendation by Silman, quite coincidentally.  He said to play through the opening moves then cover up the moves and figure out what is going on.  Then move by move, write down each move, variation, and analysis I see before revealing the next move and comparing.  Silman states that it is real work, but that's the way to get better.  I may gave that a try every once in a while, as that is more time than I have available for my learning right now.

First read the entire book, skipping detailed sequences of variations, but working through a few in your head.

Second, play through the games on a real board (or on your computer screen--whether 2D is effective varies from individual to individual; most need to handle pieces to remember).

Third, study the variations.

 

I play guess the move (Silman's recommendation as reported by sangahm) with unannotated games, and have done this since Silman was a child.

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 Oh yeah what site is that?

I'd be interested in checking that out.

I found the game on http://www.chessgames.com/ which allows you to search through games then bring them up to follow along.  I'm not sure if there are better sites, but this one is very functional.

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 Oh okay.

I was aware of chessgames.com but I had no idea you could actually input variations at any point in the position and then go back.

That's awesome!

Yeah that would be an excellent way to go through an analyzed game in a book.

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I agree with this. But I think I have terrible short term memory, which probably means I shouldn't even try playing chess! It's a main reason why I play correspondence chess. I find going trough games very hard work and if I want to follow through any kind of alternative line I have to play it through on a chess board. No way can I follow it in my head. I'm hoping I might get better at it, but think maybe I'm just deficient. Maybe playing chess can exercise that part of my brain that just shuts down when I try to think things through in the abstract. At 44 maybe it's too late for me though!

Get two chess boards out. Use one to hold the position and the other to go through the variations on. Or use computer software. You can always take back moves on there and explore variations easily.

I use Chessbase Light when going through games and variations in a book.  Very handy.  I don't like having to bust out a physical board.

I've found using Fritz 12 and getting the games from Chessgames.com works pretty well. I create a database from the book title say "Pawn Structure Chess," locate each game as it comes up at Chessgames.com, select PGN: view. Then I copy & paste the game into Fritz and save it to the database. I follow the game in the book, adding variations and then overwriting the database copy.

I'll probably go back through the main parts of the book on a tournament set. I've found returning to tournament play after a long time staring at a 2D screen can make it hard to visualize with real pieces.

chess mentors just as good :)

This is a great topic and helpful. I liked the advice to go through the book at least three times. (1st time read, 2nd play through games, 3rd play variations. One thing that has helped me, and I am just getting back to chess after 25 years, is the tchess pro app I downloaded to my iPhone for under 5 bucks. I can set up positions or play through from the beginning, but what I really like is that it displays the notation at the top so when I play out a variation to move ....say 22 and then the book takes me to a second and maybe a third starting again back at move number 5, I just tap the move 5 in the notation and the board is brought right back to this position. I don't need to back move to get there. I can keep a chess book with me on the go and study anywhere.

I will first of all read the analysis of a given position without looking at the moves made. Then I'll try to play out the variations in my head while looking at the diagram. This way is easier for me to rationalize the idea behind each move.

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+1

Easily the most bang for your buck when going over any game in general, as you are forcing yourself to think and question if/why the played move was better, and not lazily getting spoonfed information in one direction.

I found it easier to read PDF files using Chess Opening wizard professional (mini board ) accomodates both the pdf as well as the board on the same screen without having to toggle... it includes an engine too...just in case..

ive got chess king this is a great help when going over books and so easy to use.

Do you mean pgn files?  I don't want to just nit-pick or point out typos, I sincerely want to understand more about the Chess Opening Wizard software.