I think new in chess just launched an application in which you can buy chess books. This seems to be an iOS exclusive, I didn't find it in google play.

Once I tried to do that for Hübner's "25 annotated games". During the second game, somewhere in variation 3bc4fg17 (iii) of white's 13th move, my computer crashed and my head exploded.

I'm not going to deny that it's a pain, but I think setting up a real board and putting the positions out there yourself helps you absorb the information better.

Or even the very old recommendation of having 2 boards (one a pocket) so that you can play out variations on one before going back to the main line on the other.

Hey guys,

I use to be a good player when I was younger, I started with 14 and when I was 16 I was already beating some tough guys in classical (including a former state champion). But I figured out that chess was too much time consuming and I never would be world champion or anything close. Than I quit.

Last year I played a tournament in a small club in my town just for old time's sake and it was fun. I beat two 2000 guys very easily and lost to a 2150 in a very equal game. The fun I had in this tournament made think about studying chess again but now just as pure hobby.

I read many books in my two years run when I was a teenager, the most significants were Reti's Modern Ideas and Pachman's Strategies books, these two really influenced my game. Now I want to buy some new books looking to improve from my actual level until Fide Master. I know it will take many years (I'm 27) and that it's a very hard task, but I will have pleasure trying.

What books do you recommend to get to that level? I prefer books with more ideas than the ones with infinite sidelines.

After reading this thread:

I will get How to Reassess your Chess, looks what I am looking for.

Fundamental Chess Endings is too fundamental? Should I go straight to Silman's?

Art of Attack looks great, I have a natural inclination to attack and I really like to play sharp double-edged positions, I hope it's not to dense and it's sidelines are fun like KyleJRM82 said.

Any recommendations on Pirc/Modern/Robatsch books? What about KID?

I am not much into game anthologies, I don't learn as much with them as with theory books. So I will pass Zurich 1953. Although I already read Fisher's 60, it inspired me to start playing KID.

All recommendations are welcome!

IMO the Sliman books would be too basic for someone at around 2000 strength looking to reach FM level.

The Dvoretsky books would be a good bet. And any high-quality annotated games collections. I think these are actually some of the best books to learn from. Theory-style books like Pachman tend to give very stilted examples where there's only one important strategic concept, open file, bad bishop, isolated pawn, etc. - but in reality there is always more going on. Game collections show how great players actually apply the strategic concepts. It's kind of like a poker instructional book giving the principle "when you have the nuts you should value bet." It's not a bad principle in general, but the real skill in poker is managing to get the most value. The main skill in chess is applying tactical and strategic concepts in unfamiliar positions.

Anyway, that's just my opinion.

Your best bet to improve will just be to play in as many tournaments as you can and work on your opening repetoire.

First of all, start a new thread and post those games against the 2xxx opponents!

Second, definitely skip fundamental chess endings. Whether to bother with Silman or not depends on your base of endgame knowledge. It kind of sounds like you might be a very innately talented player, without too large of a knowledge base? If that's the case, blowing through Silman's Endgame Course is probably a good place to start. It shouldn't be too tough, but would give you a more complete base before moving on to Dvoretsky. If you have studied more, and already do have a good endgame knowledge base, then Ikasigh's recommendation of skipping straight to Dvoretsky might be better.

Thank you!

I read a post on chess dot com that made me buy Silman's one:
"since dvoretskys book take like 50 times the time the silman book takes to learn, do the silman book first in a few weeks and then spend a large chunk of your life on the dvoretsky book"

I also got interested on "Endgame Strategy" by Shereshevsky. I think I will also read it before Dvoretsky's.

Thank for your answer Bob, I'm not sure if I feel comfortable posting my games, but I will think about that.

You are right, I don't have a big knowledge base, my strength comes from applying well the little things I know.

Btw, I played a rapid tournament yesterday and things didn't go too well, I felt the time pressure and lost two games, for 1950 and a 2050, but I managed to win four games against the weaker opponents.

From what you have said, I suspect that you're similar to (maybe not quite as extreme as) a player in my chess club. He's 23, self-taught, has just played his first two tournaments over the last couple of months. He's a tactical whiz, trained up at blitz and bullet online, but with absolutely zero formal study of endgames and such. He's currently rated 1853 (provisional) after those two tournaments, and is probably a little underrated still (I know he was very nervous and threw away at least one half point in the first tourney in a way that is not reflective of his "true" skill level).

He mentioned at yesterday's club meeting that he doesn't know much about endgames, so to see exactly how small his knowledge base was I set up the following position and asked if it was winning for white, or if it was drawn, and whether it mattered whose move it was:



When he said he had no idea, I started working through a few variations for him, until I reached this position and said "which is of course a simple draw":



He looked at me blankly, and I ended up teaching him the "just retreat directly away from the pawn" drawing method. It was new to him.

This might be a particularly extreme case, but he's definitely an example of a player who is maybe close to 2000 strength via tactical acumen, but has no endgame knowledge base. I would NOT advise him to go anywhere near Dvoretsky until he's worked his way through Silman first. He might even be well advised to start with the Endgame Fundamentals book that I so quickly dismissed as worth your time.

On the other hand, if someone is roughly 2000 strength, but with relatively balanced ability (endgame knowledge and tactical skill being about equivalent), then that player is probably ready for Dvoretsky (which is much more in depth, at the expense of accessibility) without bothering with anything simpler first.

Somewhat off-topic but an interesting thought - I'm really not sure how important knowing theoretical endings really is. I'm about 2200 USCF, I've played somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000 tournament games in my life, and I can only think of a handful of examples where endgame theory had an impact on the result (where I missed a either win/draw that I should have known, or played a win/draw that I wouldn't have found without knowing the theory). Given that we all have limited study time, I can't really see this as being a critical area.

Off-topic yes, interesting yes. I think theoretical endgame knowledge becomes incredibly valuable if you frequently find yourself in time trouble, but less so if you usually have a fair amount of clock left. Generally there's not too much you'll study the theory of that you wouldn't be able to solve over the board WITH TIME, but when you have a minute left to blitz out several moves, just flat KNOWING the position theoretically will save you a lot of half points, and even some full points.

I mean I drew this position as black, because I reached it with under a minute left on my clock and panicked:



Of course I can figure it out, with a minimal bit of analysis, but I didn't have the relevant theory and pattern ingrained in my brain. And so I lost the opportunity to beat a player rated more than 400 points higher than me, and score what would have been my highest rated scalp so far in my chess lifetime.

Also, a solid grasp of theory makes it massively easier to accurately decide whether or not to trade down in various spots, which can save tons of analysis time. It's definitely valuable, imo. You may not have directly had your knowledge of theory impact whether or not you played a specific move correctly once you were already in ground covered by that theory, but I'll bet your theoretical knowledge has led to your making stronger moves (in more complicated situations) more than just the handful of times you're thinking of.

BobJoe weren't you there when I botched the endgame against Corey a full pawn up when he was reigning state champion?

Back on topic: I think it depends on what you're studying the book for -to increase knowledge, pattern recognition, imagination, etc. Think of your brain like a computer. Are you trying to add new software, improve processing speed, database...

I personally improved the most from reading a ton of books, and watching Fischer's 60 on autoplay on Crafty every morning while I ate my cereal. Oh, and reviewing with BobJoe and his friends.

Mtnracer, nope, I wasn't there (though it was while we were studying together). I went to the Grants Pass tourney that spring but not to Brookings. Corey played in our tournament last weekend, by the way, and seems likely to come to future events as well. You going to come down this way and try to get your revenge on him in one of my tourneys, at any point?

Has anyone read any books in the "Grandmaster Preparation" series (by Jacob Aagaard)?

My GF's dad was gifted two of these ("Calculation" and "Attack & Defence"), but since he doesn't want to read in English, he gave them to me.

The material seems to be way above my level, just wanted to know if anyone has checked these.

So, digging up this old thread to ask for book recommendations. Skimmed trough the posts and got some useful info.

I find that concepts, drills, tactics, etc, are most convenient to go through in front of the computer/ipad, but I would like some books I can use with my chess board. I'm mainly thinking of the type of books that go through entire games.

Some that come to mind:
The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games
Recommended by someone in this thread and have good reviews.

Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953
Recommended in this thread.

Kasparovs various series:
Garry Kasparov on My Great Predecessors (5 books)
Garry Kasparov on Modern Chess (4 books)
Garry Kasparov on Garry Kasparov (2 books, so far)
Someone in the thread said something along the lines of that MGP was deep and covered many variations (too many?)

My 60 Memorable Games
Also recommended here.

Thoughts? Other books not mentioned, or released after this thread?

I'm quite new to chess, but studying several hours a day now, so I should be able to follow along unless it's aimed at 2000+ players. I haven't identified a specific style of play that I prefer, so I can't make suggestions easier that way.

Some of those are far too advanced, as in you won't get that much out of them until you familiarize yourself with the basics. Logical Chess: Move by Move and Winning Chess Strategies would be good for you.

As a beginner myself, I found Chernev's Logical Chess: Move by Move to be very instructive.

As for player specific collections, I guess it depends a bit on who your favorite players are.

I would suggest you take a look at The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal.

Winning Chess Strategies seem to be the type of book I didn't ask for. I don't doubt that it's excellent, but I find that type of learning more convenient at the computer.

I'll definitely check out Logical Chess, though.

Out of the books I mentioned before, which ones are particularly advanced? Or rather, which one would be the easiest to grasp?

Another vote for Logical Chess, so I'll get that one. Will keep the Tal book in mind as well. Thanks.

Another great book by Chernev is The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played. Each game illustrates a different positional concept.

I missed this the first time round but I would recommend Fundamental Chess Endings to anyone from 1400 to GM+ (certainly Miss Abrahamyan could have benefited from it at the weekend...) You can either work through it chapter by chapter or use it as a reference, you will probably do both.

Here's as good a recommendation as you could ask for for it. That copy looks like it has seen some use.

Well excuse me.

I'm not sure. Probably The Mammoth Book.

Maybe I put it a little harsher than intended . I appreciate the recommendations. After looking through all the mentioned books with "Look inside" the two Chernev books seem suitable.

My 60 Memorable Games


I believe that anyone beyond the level of rank beginner can learn a lot from this book, given the simplicity with which Fischer explains important concepts.