Current Events > Good chess books?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I can play but want to learn to play well.

I already have Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess.

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Aaron Nimzowitch's "My System", though it may or may not be 'above your level'

Yasser Seirawan has the series "Winning Chess", which, aside from the beginner "Play Winning Chess" includes books that cover:

Endings (a good knowledge of them being essential to squeeze a win out of a drawing game, or a draw out of a losing one),

Strategies (all kinds of little tricks from forks to Triangulation),

Openings (for when you're tired of defending the Ruy Lopez or Queens Gambit Declined yet again)

"Brilliances" (a collection of a dozen or so influential Grandmaster games that Yasser annotates move by move to get the reader in the head of great players)

Are you USCF rated? If you're not 'really good' I suggest putting off Opening Theory beyond a basic overview like Winning Chess Openings, firstly because who wants to memorize moves, and secondly because it can work as a crutch at that level (I played 1.c4 a lot in K-12 chess, and knowing it well gave me a big advantage against kids who were uncomfortable with flank pawns and fianchettos and stuff)

I think I owned Teaches Chess at one point but IIRC it's mostly tactics recognition? The most valuable information in that book is possibly that he counts Bishops as 3 points and Knights as 2.5, which is not position universal, but shows that Bishops' value inflates in the endgame.

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Doe posted...

Yasser Seirawan has the series "Winning Chess", which includes books that cover:

I've heard good things on this

Are you USCF rated? If you're not 'really good' I suggest putting off Opening Theory beyond a basic overview like Winning Chess Openings, firstly because who wants to memorize moves, and secondly because it can work as a crutch at that level (I played 1.c4 a lot in K-12 chess, and knowing it well gave me a big advantage against kids who were uncomfortable with flank pawns and fianchettos and stuff)

I perused this and can vouch that it's really good

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I don't know what USCF means so no, most certainly not.

Looks good, appreciate it m8.

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Tag.

US Chess Federation, you can sign up online and play Rated if you ever go to IRL tournaments.

Chess.com lets you play rated Chess against the world for free, and also offers analysis of games and stuff for a subscription fee.

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currently trying to crest 1000 rating on blitz :(

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Oh I did play Chess.com earlier this year, I got to about 1150 rating on the 3 day games but started to struggle against the 1400+ players I kept being put up against.

Learning time, thanks gang.

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I've used this too:

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

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The list from that blog looks excellent.

Question: how many of the basic mates (K+Q, K+R, K+2B, K+B+N) can you do consistently?

I have been trying to improve at chess over the last year or two now and tried books at first. I really struggled to read through them and lost my interest pretty fast.

I'm still very bad but have improved a ton already and am enjoying the process of learning. I did study some openings but mostly by watching beginners videos on youtube. A few weeks ago I bought a book on the caro khan and made it 10 pages before giving up and going back to youtube. You should also play some tactics puzzles. You can get them from the lichess.org or chess.com or there are some apps that just do tactics. They all also say to play long time controlled games and then study the game after you play it.

I have gone up about 500 points the last year in mostly shorter time controlled games. I can't play longer than 10 minutes games without getting tired or bored so I think my improving is being stunted until I do that. I also don't review my games enough. I just like playing and would rather try to get as many 3/2 games in as I can than play a long game and review it in that time.

You can learn a lot on youtube too.

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