Pros and Cons of reading chess books

I've only been playing chess for less than a year and a half, but i have a natural talent for it, seeing as i became the best in my district in this short amount of time. My USCF rating is 1362 with only 5 games being played. Many people have told me that i should read chess books and study openings. Even my opponents suggest this; opponents who, armed with this knowledge, still lost to me. My mindset has been that if i memorize openings and study books, that my creative play will be inhibited, that my style will in a sense be more "robotic" because i'd be playing from memory and not on the spot. I could use some different points of view on this matter

Pros: You get better

Cons: You lose precious time that you will never get back in your life

Pros: Peel me a grape, Beula.

Cons: What have the Romans ever done for us?

If you really do have a "natural talent" for chess, then understanding chess books should come just as easy for you, I imagine. So it should be no problem for you to get more out of chess books than I, for instance.

I love books in general and chess books in particular but I do think times are a changing. Times, they are a changing when you can buy a kindle and carry a whole library around in your pocket. Whats that going to do to the book industry---its going to save a lot of trees.

Chess Life interview with Hikaru Nakamura---

CL---Who are your favorite players?

HN---Kasparov and Fischer.

CL---Which chess book has helped you the most?

HN---I dont look at books too often. I usually study a couple of hours a day on the computer.

CL---You dont go over the classic games?

HN--- Not really, I think that's a waste of time.

Chess Life---Jan 2008 p13

That's only because Nakamura is insane(ly talented).

Hilarious coming from an 1800 player.

(But seriously, I do agree with your post.)

You don't read to memorize.  You read to learn ideas that you can use for decades:

Lucena + Philidor drawing motifs, Bxh7+ attacks (frequently occur in the French/Colle/QG), when to counter with d5 as black in e4/e5 games, how to carry out a KID/KIA attack on the king-side, etc.

Also, don't pay attention to your rating with only 5 games played.  I got to 1900 in 5 games.  It all depends on your competition, and you may be a big-fish-little-pond scenario or even just got lucky in some games.

Spaghettio---you seem to be wise beyond your years---Do you think going over the classics is a waste of time ?

Another major advantage is time and energy. Maybe you are "talented" enough to calculate the Najdorf poisoned pawn variation out for yourself, but it would take you considerably more time to do it than if you memorized it. This applies to endgames as well, where time is often critical.

I also think that it uses up mental energy, of which you have a finite amount (why I always lose to children in round 5 of an otb tourney... I am fried, they are not.)

Hmmmm, prior to spending any time reading books you might want to get some sort of reality check while eating a piece of humble pie. I mean, if your rating is 1362 and you are constantly beating your opponents my question is: whats the rating of your opponents? Are you playing lower rated opponents all the time? Why aren't you playing higher rated players?  To improve your chess, you will need to combine multiple learning techniques such as: play constantly, use chess engines for practice, read the latest opening trends (magazines, websites, your pick), etc. When it comes to books...there are GM's who have claimed that they don't read books (e.g. Nakamura) because they consider it boring. I'm not sure if that is real...but that's his claim and I'm just quoting him. At 1362....you have a loooong way to go in Chess....to be an expert or achieve any master level.   

1362. A total of 5 games played. i only recently signed up with uscf

Just out of curiosity, how did you get to be best in your district on only five games?

ok. my school district recently decided that our tournaments would be rated. prior to that, i had always gotten 1st place. we only got to play one rated tournament

and thanks all for the advice. my conclusion: " dont reinvent the wheel". so what some of y'all are saying is draw from what already has been figured out, and move on from there?

Pro: in these times it's good to read from paper instead of from computer screens.

Con: it's chess-related instead of something relevant/worthwhile.

If you just play chess for fun, then there's really no reason to read books, unless you think that's fun too. If you really want to play at a serious level, then it'd probably be a good idea to stay competitive by learning new things. As for your concerns about inhibiting your creativity or whatever, don't worry about it; Books do help; think of it as having more ideas and tools to be creative with.

Yes, that's true; "We all stand on the shoulders of giants."

gotcha. thanks