EwingKlipspringer wrote:
come on man, you haven't even played a game here in a month
play a few blitz games daily, it's that simple
Chess Summer Of Blitz
Goal: 500 Blitz Games This Summer
Go Brother Go
my God School slows ya down to not doing anything at all
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Thank you so much for the comment! I'm not sure what the relevance is of my not having played anything in a while; I'm busy. And just because I haven't played does not mean that I'm not gearing up to try to get into it and learn more!
Hi! I currently have around a little over 30 chess books. That's more than what most people have these days. I didn't use online sites like chessable to improve.
I'll get straight to the point. You're getting too many books. Let me explain why. It's a lot of words but since you're a teacher I'm sure you'd be okay.
I divide chess books into a few categories:
- Opening books
- Endgame books
- Principles books
- Fun books
Opening books are books about openings, and endgame books involve the endgame. They could be manuals, like dvoretsky or beginner-friendly, like Silman's endgames. Most of your book collection is probably going to come in the form of opening books, if you enjoy openings (which I did - perhaps 10-15 of all my books are opening-related).
Principles books are books that are clearly meant to be educational, but don't provide a clear area of focus, and may instead focus on a certain rating range (How to become a candidate master), be a collection of educational games (Logical chess, move by move), or a few specific chess patterns (Chess structures - a grandmaster guide). Middlegame books do not exist since it is the most complex part of the game, and too many middlegames exist. These types of books should be seen as a way to improve your middlegame.
Fun books: books about chess, and you may learn things, but would not recommend for learning. They may be a collection of games, which you can learn from, but aren't specifically written with learning in mind, but rather to show some interesting games. For example: Bobby Fischer and his world by John Donaldson (it's a great book! but not for educational purposes.)
I would like to add that out of my 30+ books I have only read a few of them from cover to cover. Those being an alekhine's defense book, Chess structures, logical chess, How to become a Candidate master, and my two books on the bird's opening. For most opening books, you will read important variations first and you won't need to dive into deeper variations. With this being said, there's another reason why you don't need that many books.
They are redundant. I have traps and zaps. It's closer to a tactics book, where you get a bunch of puzzles and then you do them. It's not a bad book, but I don't think anyone needs that type of book anymore. I worked through about half of it before I realized I was just better off working on puzzles online (more on that later).
The rest of your opening books are very similar; they are all general opening books (meaning they cover opening concepts and not any specific opening). And since opening principles have been pretty set in stone for the last hundred years, you'll find out you're getting diminishing returns from reading that many. And it's not like people process information as soon as they read them, and if you can't implement what you learn in game then have you really learned anything? I would cut down on the beginner books to one, maybe two at most for each topic.
And tactics. I don't think anyone needs tactics books in this day and age, you can do as many tactics as you want on lichess, or on chess.com if you pay like 25 US dollars a year. I see you have the diamond flair. You should use it! Do the tactics here. The only thing a tactics book can offer you that online puzzles can't is an explanation of why the tactic works, and how to solve them in the first place.
But tactics (puzzles) are just very simple. They are a series of forced moves that give you an advantage, or in rare cases, keep the game even in face of seemingly overwhelming odds (but those tend to be very advanced ones so we won't worry about those). If you get a tactic wrong, you don't "need" two paragraphs explaining of why this move is forced;
Just remember this importance ladder: mating > losing pieces > other. Usually losing pieces is bad, so an opponent will try to not lose their pieces. But if the computer says taking a free piece is wrong, there's always two reasons: you missed a better move (bigger piece or mate threat), or you lose material after this move. And to find out the mistake in your calculations all you need to do is press the big fat magnifying glass at the bottom right of your screen and you will see engine recommended moves, and they will tell you how the opponent can punish your bad move.
Of course the engine doesn't tell you "why" you missed his bishop from across the board (for example), but the book won't tell you either, and at least with online puzzles you'll never run out of them, and you're also already paying for them, so why not use them for now?
I am getting a bit tired so I'll end this soon. But basically your list of books have a whole bunch of redundant stuff in them, and unless you're reading for fun and not strictly improvement I wouldn't recommend getting all that. Like, Right under logical chess you have another logical thinking chess book... Seriously! People don't go through chess books like regular books, trust me... I read in the bathroom!
Anyways. If I had to say just one thing to you, it wouldn't be to cut down on the books, but rather after reading a concept, you should stop, and try to replicate it in a game. Could be a game against yourself. Or a game against someone online. Doesn't need to be a 30 minute game or whatever people are saying. Just try to get games in, try to focus on making that concept or opening repeatedly show itself, and repeatedly nail it. If it's an opening, try to play the opening. What goes wrong? what did you like or dislike? If it's a concept, like the tactic forks. Try to look for them in your games. Maybe you'll see a fork of two pawns. Sadly, they are defended. Maybe next time! But you're out here looking for them, building that habit and it'll become an unconscious skill.
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Thank you so much for the detailed feedback! I agree; I have too many books. And it appears as though my plan is to read through all of them. But I'm not committed to that. I just like to get as many resources on a topic possible before diving in (I own them all already). I'm happy to cut books, read fewer, have some simple as resources (e.g., Modern Chess Openings). But, given what I accumulated, I figured that I could make a reading schedule and remove where necessary.
Thank you so much for your further recommendations as well!
I'm also aware that people don't read chess books like regular books. Yet I have no coach. Hence, going through books by myself was recommended to me as the best way to proceed.