Reccomend CHess Books to Use! - Chess Forums

GajarKaHakwa

Mar 6, 2018

0

#1

Hi guys,

I'm currently have a rating of 1112. So, I want to study some chess books to help prepare our team state finals here in Indiana. Can you guys recommend some books for me to study?

Thanks!

-SuniForce

IMKeto

Mar 6, 2018

0

#2

The first question is, when is the state finals? Chess books take a LONG Time to read, study, and absorb.

Opening Principles:

1. Control the center squares – d4-e4-d5-e5

2. Develop your minor pieces toward the center – piece activity is the key

3. Castle

4. Connect your rooks

Tactics...tactics...tactics...

Pre Move Checklist

1. Make sure all your pieces are safe.

2. Look for forcing move: Checks, captures, threats. You want to look at ALL forcing moves (even the bad ones) this will force you look at, and see the entire board.

3. If there are no forcing moves, you then want to remove any of your opponent’s pieces from your side of the board.

4. If your opponent doesn’t have any of his pieces on your side of the board, then you want to improve the position of your least active piece.

5. After each move by your opponent, ask yourself: "What is my opponnet trying to do?"

Middlegame Planning

1. Expand your position:

a. Gain more space.

b. Improve the position of your pieces.

2. Decide on what side of the board to play.

a. Queenside: a-c files.

b. Center: d-e files.

c. Kingside: f-h files.

Compare, space, material, and weakness(es)

Play where you have the advantage.

3. DO NOT HURRY. Regroup your pieces, and be patient.

MathWizKidA

Mar 6, 2018

0

#3

Books from Philip Ochman.

kindaspongey

Mar 6, 2018

0

#4

Possibly of interest:

RussBell

Mar 6, 2018

0

#5

check it out...

Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond....

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell

Homsar

Mar 6, 2018

0

#6

Anything by Silman is good!

RussBell

Mar 6, 2018

0

#7

@SuniForce_YT -

Assuming that there is a limited amount of time before your state finals, I recommend the following endgame book would give you the biggest edge over most of your opponents for the shortest amount of study time....

Pandolfini's Endgame Course by Bruce Pandolfini.....

Try to do at least 5-10 pages per day.....you should be able to do it easily....don't worry about memorizing anything.....just try to get the gist of the lesson and move on....trust me, if you can just understand the point of a lesson, it will be there in your subconscious, even if you haven't "memorized" it.....if you complete the book, which I believe you can easily do, you will have lots of confidence to get to and win in the endgame (which most of your opponents will not)...

There are some typos in Pandolfini's endgame course book, so be sure to download and copy-paste the following errata sheet for the book....it's easy enough to pencil in the corrections into the book....

http://www.glennwilson.com/chess/books/pec_errata.html

If you finish the Pandolfini endgame book with time to spare, I recommend to begin reading through the lessons in "Weapons of Chess" also by Bruce Pandolfini. There is lots of essential information in this great book. You should also be able to get through the book reasonably quickly, as the lessons are not difficult.

I should also mention that "Pandolfini's Ultimate Guide to Chess" is a very instructive introductory overview chess course which teaches how to correctly think when playing chess.

Note that used copies of these books are inexpensive.

kindaspongey

Mar 6, 2018

0

#8

"How to Reassess Your Chess, 4th Edition was designed for players in the 1400 to 2100 range." - IM Jeremy Silman (2010)

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

kindaspongey

Mar 6, 2018

0

#9

Silman's Complete Endgame Course
http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/theres-an-end-to-it-all
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708103149/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review594.pdf
Amateur's Mind by Jeremy Silman
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708094419/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/ammind.pdf

RussBell

Mar 6, 2018

0

#10

kindaspongey wrote:

"How to Reassess Your Chess, 4th Edition was designed for players in the 1400 to 2100 range." - IM Jeremy Silman (2010)

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

IMO, the book is much too advanced for anyone rated below about 1600...

"The Amateur's Mind" by Jeremy Silman would be a more appropriate choice...

kindaspongey

Mar 6, 2018

0

#11

RussBell wrote:

kindaspongey wrote:

"How to Reassess Your Chess, 4th Edition was designed for players in the 1400 to 2100 range." - IM Jeremy Silman (2010) ...

IMO, this book is much too advanced for anyone rated below about 1600...

"The Amateur's Mind" by Jeremy Silman would be a more appropriate choice...

Having actually read about fifty of the HTRYC4 pages, I have a lot of sympathy for your comment. I would not rule out the possibility of a 1400-1600 player getting something useful out of it, but I would guess that it would be better to start with Amateur's Mind. Maybe one should think of 1400-2100 as 1750 plus or minus 350, with 1400 rather far below 1750.

jambyvedar

Mar 6, 2018

0

#12

I recommend these

Strategy

Chess Training For Post Beginners: A Basic Course in Positional Understanding

https://www.amazon.com/Chess-Training-Post-beginners-Positional-Understanding/dp/9056914723

Winning Chess Strategy by Seirawan

https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Chess-Strategies-Everyman/dp/1857443853

Tactics Book

Chess Tactics for Champion by Polgar

https://www.amazon.com/Chess-Tactics-Champions-step-step/dp/081293671X

Chess:5334 Problems by Laszlo Polgar

https://www.amazon.com/Chess-5334-Problems-Combinations-Games/dp/1579125549

With tactics you need to solve not only mate combinations, but tactics that wins material as well. That is why i listed two tactics book.

maathheus

Mar 6, 2018

0

#13

FishEyedFools wrote:

The first question is, when is the state finals? Chess books take a LONG Time to read, study, and absorb.

Opening Principles:

1. Control the center squares – d4-e4-d5-e5

2. Develop your minor pieces toward the center – piece activity is the key

3. Castle

4. Connect your rooks

Tactics...tactics...tactics...

Pre Move Checklist

1. Make sure all your pieces are safe.

2. Look for forcing move: Checks, captures, threats. You want to look at ALL forcing moves (even the bad ones) this will force you look at, and see the entire board.

3. If there are no forcing moves, you then want to remove any of your opponent’s pieces from your side of the board.

4. If your opponent doesn’t have any of his pieces on your side of the board, then you want to improve the position of your least active piece.

5. After each move by your opponent, ask yourself: "What is my opponnet trying to do?"

Middlegame Planning

1. Expand your position:

a. Gain more space.

b. Improve the position of your pieces.

2. Decide on what side of the board to play.

a. Queenside: a-c files.

b. Center: d-e files.

c. Kingside: f-h files.

Compare, space, material, and weakness(es)

Play where you have the advantage.

3. DO NOT HURRY. Regroup your pieces, and be patient.

great advices!

kindaspongey

Mar 6, 2018

0

#14

jambyvedar wrote:

... Chess Training For Post Beginners ...

https://web.archive.org/web/20140712013538/http://www.chesscafe.com:80/text/review945.pdf

RussBell

Mar 6, 2018

0

#15

kindaspongey wrote:

RussBell wrote:

kindaspongey wrote:

"How to Reassess Your Chess, 4th Edition was designed for players in the 1400 to 2100 range." - IM Jeremy Silman (2010) ...

IMO, this book is much too advanced for anyone rated below about 1600...

"The Amateur's Mind" by Jeremy Silman would be a more appropriate choice...

Having actually read about fifty of the HTRYC4 pages, I have a lot of sympathy for your comment. Still, I would not rule out the possibility of a 1400-1600 player getting something useful out of it. Still, I would guess that it would be better to start with Amateur's Mind. Maybe one should think of 1400-2100 as 1750 plus or minus 350, with 1400 rather far below 1750.

It's tempting to assert that anyone can get something useful out of any decent chess book - with enough determination and effort. The point is not that there is nothing instructive to be gleaned from a particular book, but rather how much prerequisite understanding and experience is required to be able to successfully absorb and retain the information, and lacking that, how much effort would need to be expended in order to glean the knowledge. For example, how appropriate would it be to recommend to someone wanting to learning mathematics that (s)he study calculus as a first course, when they haven't first mastered arithmetic and algebra. On a personal note, I am rated well above 1400 and I find "...Reassess..." rather daunting - not impossible, just dense and daunting. There are many more appropriate, and accessible chess books for the OP to learn from, than How to Reassess Your Chess, particularly at this point in his chess development.

kindaspongey

Mar 6, 2018

0

#16

jambyvedar wrote:

... Chess Tactics for Champion by Polgar ...

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708234237/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review548.pdf

kindaspongey

Mar 6, 2018

0

#17

RussBell wrote:

... On a personal note, I am rated well above 1400 and I find "...Reassess..." rather daunting - not impossible, just dense and daunting. ...

Not too long ago, I temporarily participated in a HTRYC4 reading group. Left to myself, I might have just read along, but that skeleton guy pushed us to take a lot of the diagrams as tests to see how we would do, trying to understand the positions before reading the book explanations. It was a pretty humbling experience to see how far off I often was in my thinking.

RussBell

Mar 6, 2018

0

#18

Also appropriate and very instructive for the beginner-novice...

"Back to Basics: Tactics" by Dan Heisman

followed by...

"Chess Training Pocket Book - 300 Most Important Positions and Ideas" by Lev Alburt...

RussBell

Mar 6, 2018

0

#19

ghost_of_pushwood wrote:

"the 1400 to 2100 range"? Hm. Maybe this guy has been a 2500 for too long...

I believe there is some truth in your statement. In fact I think there is a typo in Silman's stated rating recommendation....i.e., the "4" should have been a "6" (or greater)...

RussBell

Mar 6, 2018

0

#20

kindaspongey wrote:

Possibly of interest:

From this list I can also enthusiatically recommend for the OP, the books by...

Dan Heisman - pretty much anything by him, but especially Back to Basics: Tactics

Irving Chernev - Winning Chess & Logical Chess Move By Move

Yasser Seirawan - his entire Winning Chess series

Fred Wilson - Simple Attacking Plans

John Emms - Discovering Chess Openings

Jeremy Silman (only - The Amateur's Mind & Silman's Complete Endgame Course)

Along with Bruce Pandolfini (primarily for Pandolfini's Ultimate Guide to Chess, Weapons of Chess and his two endgame books - Pandolfini's Endgame Course & Endgame Workshop), these are all excellent chess authors, who write good books, particularly appropriate for the beginner-novice...