If I could only read one book...

If I could only read one book on chess in my entire lifetime. Which one should it be and why? Im a beginner by the way if that makes any difference in your answer.

I guess I would start by printing out the answers from all the other times this question has been asked. 

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/one-chess-book-that-covers-everything

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/if-i-had-to-buy-one-book

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/just-one-book

And if that wasn't enough, then I would learn how to do a forum search myself, so that I could tap the already created wisdom of the ages:

http://www.chess.com/forum/search?keyword=one+book

and I might vary the query a bit, so that I pull up different answers:

http://www.chess.com/forum/search?keyword=best+beginner+book

And then I would go to the Google and see what it came up with:

http://www.chess.com/article/view/5-great-chess-books-for-beginners

http://www.chess.com/blog/kurtgodden/top-14-chess-books-for-beginnersnovices

http://www.chess.com/blog/NimzoRoy/beginner-chess-book-recommendations

And by the time I got through with all that, I would know, without a doubt, which one book would best distill the wisdom of the sages and put it in a nice little package, with lots of colorful diagrams, just for me.

"My 60 Memorable Games" by  R J Fischer

My System.  

The Master and Margarita, by Bulkagov. Oh, wait a moment, it is not a chess book? What does it matter? Besides Satan plays chess against another devil

My instinct is to avoid getting a book that tries to do many different sorts of things, but, if you are determined to do what you say, perhaps The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess by Patrick Wolff would be a reasonable choice.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708110052/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review587.pdf

That's about a page every three months...It should be doable.

The Fischer worship here at chess.com is out of control.  How about Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games, it has twice as many games, all the classics.

Haven't you guys seen that his rating is 1177 so this player cannot just jump into

"my system" or other book beyond his knowledge.

He should try "Bobby Fischer teaches Chess"

Keep it simple.

How to Reasess your Chess, by IM Jeremy Silman, it covers everything, including chess psychology, and its fun and easy to read, unlike other chess books, which rely on countless chess notations which are hard to comprehend for an amateur.

stuzzicadenti wrote:

"I enjoyed both 'Bobby Fischer profile of a prodigy' and ..."

Brady wrote a more recent book about Fischer, called Endgame.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708103430/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review811.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708234047/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review684.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708105648/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review600.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708233403/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review782.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708095832/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review769.pdf

So, you're really planning to only read one chess book in your entire lifetime?

The irony is that this aggregation is actually super useful as it's now a top google search result. Thanks!

"Dvoretzky's Endgame Manual" - Dvoretzky
It contains exact knowledge and all other knowledge can be derived from it.

how to reassess your chess  ~silman

For someone starting in serious chess I'd recommend as a first '1 book' something like 'The Complete Chess Course' by Reinfeld. There are modern authors who notice Reinfeld's success and have written books that are basically updated version of books like this. So a 'not bad' way to go would be to choose one of these. [It is so easy to copy => paste computer analysis that a current trend is to have a lot of variations but many fewer words of explanation. I'd avoid books with more variations  than explanations.] After that you'd want to look for your next '1 book'. -Bill

Your opponents opening Book  my bruu

✌️

🤣

# totally serious