Reddit mentions: The best chess books
We found 749 Reddit comments discussing the best chess books. We ran sentiment analysis on each of these comments to determine how redditors feel about different products. We found 354 products and ranked them based on the amount of positive reactions they received. Here are the top 20.
1. Logical Chess: Move By Move: Every Move Explained New Algebraic Edition
- Author: Irving Chernev
- Pages: 256 Pages
- Publication Year: 2003
Features:
Specs:
Height | 8.5 Inches |
Length | 5.3 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | June 2003 |
Weight | 0.74075320032 Pounds |
Width | 0.748 Inches |
2. Silman's Complete Endgame Course
Author: Jeremy SilmanPages: 530 PagesPublication Years: 2007
Specs:
Height | 10 Inches |
Length | 7 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 2.45594959868 Pounds |
Width | 1.5 Inches |
3. The Amateur's Mind: Turning Chess Misconceptions into Chess Mastery
- The Amateur's Mind: Turning Chess Misconceptions Into Chess Mastery
Features:
Specs:
Color | Multicolor |
Height | 9.16 Inches |
Length | 6.04 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 1.6203976257 Pounds |
Width | 1.12 Inches |
4. How to Reassess Your Chess: Chess Mastery Through Chess Imbalances
Siles Press
Specs:
Height | 9.75 Inches |
Length | 6.75 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 2.54 Pounds |
Width | 1.25 Inches |
5. How to Reassess Your Chess: The Complete Chess-Mastery Course, Expanded 3rd Edition
reassessing your chess skills
Specs:
Height | 8.75 Inches |
Length | 5.5 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 1.2676580065 Pounds |
Width | 1 Inches |
6. Understanding Chess Move by Move
- Gambit Publications
Features:
Specs:
Height | 9.75 Inches |
Length | 6.75 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | April 2001 |
Weight | 0.99 Pounds |
Width | 0.8 Inches |
7. Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953 (Dover Chess)
Specs:
Height | 9.5 Inches |
Length | 6.5 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | July 1979 |
Weight | 1.14860838502 Pounds |
Width | 0.75 Inches |
8. Practical Chess Exercises: 600 Lessons from Tactics to Strategy
Used Book in Good Condition
Specs:
Height | 8.5 Inches |
Length | 5.5 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 0.6393405598 Pounds |
Width | 0.53 Inches |
9. Pawn Structure Chess
- Sold individually
- Inside box dimensions are 2-1/8" x 2-1/2" x 11" with six dividers
- Box holds up to 140 slides
- Use with Slide Storage Organizer (sold separately)
Features:
Specs:
Height | 6 Inches |
Length | 9.25 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | February 2013 |
Weight | 0.8598028218 Pounds |
Width | 0.866 Inches |
10. Modern Chess Strategy
- High Performance sound quality with super dynamic deep bass high resolution treble & crisp powerful sound. It has perfect stereo sound quality, Enjoy full listening comfort with soft, snug ear buds that conform to your ears, bring you the perfect audio enjoyment.
- Ergonomic and ultra-lightweight in-ear designed with solid sound-insulating material, reduces external noise while minimizing the sound leakage, giving you clear sound.
- The cord was built in a in-line controller and a high quality microphone, the controller was designed to play/ pause music/ next track/ previous track/ answer phone calls/ hang up phone calls.
- Compatible with iOS and Android System, perfect phone earphone. 6S Plus/ 6S/ 6 Plus/ 6/ 5S/ 5C/ 5/ Samsung S8/S7/ iPad Pro/ iPad Air/ Air 2/ iPad mini/ mini 2/ mini 4/ iPad 4th Gen/ iPod Touch 5th Gen/ iPod Nano 7th gen/Tablet PC
- If you have any question, please feel free to Contact us. Our service team will reply you with satisfied solution within 24 hours.
Features:
Specs:
Height | 8.51 Inches |
Length | 5.43 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | June 1971 |
Weight | 0.78043640748 Pounds |
Width | 0.68 Inches |
11. The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games
Used Book in Good Condition
Specs:
Height | 8 Inches |
Length | 5.25 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 1 Pounds |
Width | 2 Inches |
12. Fundamental Chess Endings
- Gambit Publications
Features:
Specs:
Color | Black |
Height | 9.8 Inches |
Length | 6.8 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | August 2001 |
Weight | 1.63 Pounds |
Width | 1.2 Inches |
13. Simple Chess: New Algebraic Edition (Dover Chess)
- Includes: Bowser, Clown Cruiser vehicle, and sticker sheet.
- Bowser also works as an Amiibo in select Nintendo games.
- Bowser and Clown Cruiser only work on Nintendo Games.
- This Skylanders figure requires the SuperChargers Portal (included in the Skylanders SuperChargers Starter Pack) to be used in-game.
Features:
Specs:
Height | 8.25 Inches |
Length | 5.25 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | January 2003 |
Weight | 0.39903669422 Pounds |
Width | 0.5 Inches |
14. Football and Chess: Tactics Strategy Beauty
- Used Book in Good Condition
Features:
Specs:
Height | 9 Inches |
Length | 6 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 0.58863423954 Pounds |
Width | 0.41 Inches |
15. The Reassess Your Chess Workbook
- Used Book in Good Condition
Features:
Specs:
Height | 8.97 Inches |
Length | 6.02 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 1.5652820602 Pounds |
Width | 1.1 Inches |
16. A Guide to Chess Improvement: The Best Of Novice Nook
- Everyman Chess
Features:
Specs:
Height | 9.61 Inches |
Length | 6.69 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | November 2010 |
Weight | 0.08598028218 Pounds |
Width | 0.79 Inches |
17. Comprehensive Chess Course, Vol. 2: From Beginner to Tournament Player in 12 Lessons
Specs:
Height | 9.8 Inches |
Length | 7.6 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | October 1996 |
Weight | 1.3337966851 Pounds |
Width | 0.8 Inches |
18. Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How A Lone American Star Defeated the Soviet Chess Machine (P.S.)
Specs:
Height | 8 Inches |
Length | 5.31 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | March 2005 |
Weight | 0.72625 Pounds |
Width | 0.87 Inches |
19. The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings: Algebraic Notation
Specs:
Height | 7.8 inches |
Length | 5 inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | August 1990 |
Weight | 0.48281235378 Pounds |
Width | 0.6 inches |
20. The Immortal Game: A History of Chess
Specs:
Color | Multicolor |
Height | 7.99 Inches |
Length | 5.17 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | October 2007 |
Weight | 0.74 Pounds |
Width | 0.71 Inches |
🎓 Reddit experts on chess books
The comments and opinions expressed on this page are written exclusively by redditors. To provide you with the most relevant data, we sourced opinions from the most knowledgeable Reddit users based the total number of upvotes and downvotes received across comments on subreddits where chess books are discussed. For your reference and for the sake of transparency, here are the specialists whose opinions mattered the most in our ranking.
I would highly recommend Dan Heisman's book "A Guide to Chess Improvement." It is the least chessy "chess book" I've ever read. It is basically a compliation of his Novice Nook column that he wrote for years at Chess Cafe, but in it he lays out a plan for study and improvement, links to more detailed articles from the column and provides lots and lots of resources for how to improve and what areas to study at what time in your development.
Basically you will want to break up your chess time into two areas, studying and playing, you should look to play about 50-60% of your chess time and study the rest. Stay away from Blitz and Rapid until you are 1400-1500 and practicing openings. You want to play slow chess and focus on discipline, thought process, time management and tactics.
Heisman recommends a breakdown like this until you reach 1500 level (based on 10 hours per week):
He also recommends a similar set of homework for the progression from 1500-1700, 1700-1800, and 1900 and beyond but I have not changed up my study schedule yet.
You might also look at a simple program to practice with and record your games on, and to analyze your games against other players with later. I used Lucaschess (Free and excellent) for a long time and then bought Fritz 15 on sale recently.
If you have a club in your area try to go and meet other players. The best way to improve is to play and if you can play and discuss your games with other players in person, you will improve faster than just playing online. Even if you only play online, if you are playing a long game, ask your opponent to discuss the game with you afterwards and try to keep a record of your games, either in a notebook or a chess database software.
Again, I really recommend Heisman's book, as it will really help you prepare you to start improving. And realize, it will take time, 200-300 point improvement in 2 years is pretty good, so if you are an adult beginner, it will probably take 3-5 years of continued study to reach 1800 level, but it is very rewarding.
For me
Ah I'm glad you asked!
My next project coming up is actually to create a site for analyses like this, aimed towards teaching others, like yourself, how to think tactically. Unfortunately there aren't many resources available for “a beginners approach to tactics”, per se, which is a shame; as the initial learning curve can definitely be steep and intimidating.. but, I'll share with you the process I used to learn about tactics and hopefully I can give you some ideas on how to learn to think tactically!
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Once you learn a tactic, pay attention to how that tactic fares against other teams' tactics (ie. 4-3-3 v 4-3-3; 4-3-3 v 4-4-2; etc.).
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Some really interesting reading materials and resources:
Inverting The Pyramid : This book is what I call my “soccer bible”. It gives an incredible scope into how soccer has changed throughout its existence, and while it only lightly covers modern tactics, as it was written in 2008, it explores the intricacies of various tactics, why they are used, and how to identify them. Its long, and very detailed so it may be a tough read but if you can get through it you will be gold.
Football and Chess I mentioned in another comment how soccer is analogous to chess, as this book taught me. A good starting point as it is a very accessible book to any reader.
Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning A fantastic read by itself, but with many parallels between Berhalter and Pep, this book can help understand some of Crew SC's tactics.
Zonalmarking.net : The “Tactics in the 2000’s” section is almost an extension to the aforementioned book; it outlines the current trends in football really well. The author of the site also does very detailed statistical and analytical recaps of matches.
Spielverlagerung.com (bonus content if you speak German- the German side of their site .de has even more info): The “Tactical Theory” section is a good place to start - While they are rather advanced articles, they do a good job at defining some of the key concepts in modern football. The writers are all very knowledgeable about tactics, and do in depth game analyses regularly.
The Number 6 Role : His last post sadly was 2 years ago, but his pieces are fantastic. Of course I'm biased, but Sean’s analysis of Frank de Boer’s Ajax team is incredible, and I would completely recommend a read as Berhalter employs similar offensive tactics (defensively totally different, but the situational pressing application is fascinating).
Think Football : Site focused on providing a wide range of info, content has declined in recent years as the site has sort of turned into a news site with brief articles, but it provides a bit more insight into world football happenings than say sky sports or fox sports; Good intro material.
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I hope this helps, and feel free to contact me if you have any questions as I’m happy to help you learn! Also I have begun writing a rather lengthy piece that will expand on the 6 points highlighted above, it’s far too long to post here but I will be sure to let you know when I have it up on my site. For now you have a reference sheet you can save and hopefully I set you up with a good place to start!
Let me tell you what I've experienced. I'll list off the most important things in descending order: 1. Tactics 2. Positional understanding 3. Basic Endgame knowledge (King pawn endgames and some basic rook pawn endgames)and 4. Openings.-- Now, people think this means openings are unimportant. so wrong... When I play players rated around 2000-2100 we're both doing the same thing:
Basic, vague generalizations in the opening and we play the middle game while trying to decipher the optimal positional goals to create and achieve and we crunch the tactics on the way to it, meanwhile considering the endgame that will arise out of the position along the way and always waiting for a chance to convert to a won or two result (win or draw) endgame.
Now, if you want to play with the big boys, you have to have a solid opening repertoire. I go to a decently strong club, everybody is rated around 1700-2100 sometimes a few 2300-2400's show up. I've won at least one of these tournaments and several times been second place. I often will lose either 0 or 1 game out of 3 or 4. (I typically draw my disadvantaged endgames).
--- The one thing all these players lack is a legitimate Opening repertoire. Once you reach 1700-1900uscf strength, you need some serious opening knowledge. SERIOUS. Knowledge. you need to know tons of lines, you need to know WHY they have to follow the lines and what you're trying to achieve and what THEY are trying to achieve. You have to know why Black can't develop his light squared bishop in the QGD Exchange variation. And when he tries, you have to know how to punish him. The opening becomes the game, and it is the game; I like to say that chess is the opening. The opening defines your strategic goals in the middle game and the structure of the endgame. Sure, the opponent can deviate, but at a cost. You'll at least be equal, and with all the general plans you learn about that opening, you'll be able to CREATE weaknesses and positions from openings you're familiar with, or continue about your plan because he's not following a proper one. The only problem is that Openings are extremely hard work. Extremely. It takes a huge toll on the memory and if you don't have enough time in your day, all the other areas of your chess will decline as you acquire your opening knowledge: Tactics, positional play, endgame etc. These things have to be drilled constantly so that you can improve. Without doing chess full time or at least having several hours a day to commit to chess, you're going to have to slip somewhere. ---
TL;DR and conclusion: My recommendation is that you acquire enough opening for your rating; what I mean by that is, get some basic guidelines, VERY Basic, for instance, go to wikipedia. and look up the opening you want to play, check it out, go to www.chessgames.com watch some pros play the opening you want to play, then start playing it. at your rating of 1300-1400 on chess.com I'd suggest switching to longer games (at least 15 min, but 45 would be nice) and studying tactics, and VERY importantly, get a book like John Nunn's "Understanding Chess middle games" [http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Chess-Middlegames-John-Nunn/dp/1906454272/ref=pd_sim_b_5/192-4270710-0603025?ie=UTF8&refRID=124Y382AWAKY8YZW33B1] or a book like "Jeremy Silman's Reassess your chess 4th edition" [http://www.amazon.com/How-Reassess-Your-Chess-Fourth/dp/1890085138/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405369188&sr=1-1&keywords=reassess+your+chess+4th+edition] These books contain the information necessary for you to understand positional evaluations in a game of chess. Also there is Jeremy Silman's Reassess your chess workbook [http://www.amazon.com/Reassess-Your-Chess-Workbook/dp/1890085057/ref=sr_1_fkmr3_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405369544&sr=1-1-fkmr3&keywords=reassess+your+chess+4th+edition+workbook
] They are all positional puzzles. It's great, because he breaks down the 7 main imbalances and you simply drill them. Very nice.---
Studying master games on your own is good, but you won't understand like 90% of what they do honestly. You need someone to hold your hand. If you could just watch it and understand you'd be a GM already.
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FYI. I have Reassess your chess 4th edition. It's a miracle jesus walking on water great chunk of information. However, I find myself almost completely incapable of reading it anymore. I am so tired of the banter and the jokes, I just want the dang information. It's cute and spunky and fun and whatever the hell when you first read it; a real great joy, but after reading the same dang joke like 5 6 7 8 9 times you really start to wish you had a more serious book, like John Nunn's (Which I admit I haven't read yet, but it looks more like no nonsense material).
>Is FICS still the best place to play?
For free places, definitely. If you don't mind paying, either ICC or Playchess will give you more/better opponents with better behavior, but I still play on FICS quite a bit even with an ICC account. Other free ones, such as Chesscube, I have found really annoying flash heavy interfaces that cause browser problems and very rude players that would rather let the 20 minutes on the clock expire hoping you will accept a draw than resign gracefully.
>Is Babas Chess the best interface?
Definitely.
>What's a good chess engine to analyze games? I have old version of Fritz, Fritz 8 I believe and I think Chessmaster 10.
The best two free engines are Houdini 1.5 (Houdini 2 is not free, but only like a 50 ELO gain so for your purposes no different) and Komodo. Komodo is almost as strong yet only single core right now, and I have found the analysis more useful personally as often Houdini will suggest lines I would never even consider playing.
>Anything else you think would be helpful?
I'd recommend playing slow games to start with, at least 30 30. I would also recommend a book like Logical Chess Move by Move. You can play through the games pretty quickly, don't bother analyzing things. Should help you get back into the feel for the game, I know doing something like that after not playing for a while helps me.
I posted this in the past to the same question:
Well there's a massive picture book type thing called A Photographic History of English Football which should be recommended more often than it is. It's one of those Guinness Book of Records sized books that might have trouble fitting on a shelf but it covers every aspect of the history of the English game (and thus the history of football itself). The pictures are extremely good too, especially the ones from the 1900s.
For a more in-depth study of football across the world, Simon Kuper's Football Against the Enemy is definitely one of my favourites though it's a little outdated now. However, Kuper travels round Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas interviewing key personnel in some of the bigger Clubs in the area and tells their history. His chapter on Dynamo Kiev and their Cold War era function as a funnel between East and West is worth the price of the book alone in my opinion.
In terms of autobiographies, I have always recommended Sir Bobby Robson's Farewell but not Goodbye as he tells the story of his journey from working in a coal mine in North East England to playing for his country and eventually nurturing the talents of some of the most important people in football now on and off the pitch. Most of all his personality shines through and the man is a hero to me and many others.
If you want a more technical autobiography then Rinus Michel's Teambuilding is the go to standard. Not strictly an autobiography and more a technical book but he intersperses it with his own experiences and you really get the feeling of how the greatest coach in the history of the game came to believe the things that he did.
If you like quirky but thought provoking books then Football and Chess might pique your interest. I'm a great believer in the vast similarities between chess and football on a tactical level and the author shared the same sentiment. Not the best written book in the world but it's gets your noggin ticking over and makes you reassess your ideas on the game which is always the best thing a book can really do for you.
Also as a fan of Italian football and culture, Gianluca Vialli/Marcotti's book The Italian Job is one of my favourite football books ever and extremely thought provoking on the differences in the football cultures in England and Italy and how both can learn from each other.
On the psychological side, I've recently read Inside the Mind of a Manager which was interesting. I can't say that I agreed with all of the conclusions and think the quotes were a little cherry picked but it's a good read for people who want to know more about what the modern manager actually does for a living and the people interviewed for the book are some of the best maangers alive today.
Lastly, if you really want to look at the business side of the game and how it is changing then I would recommend Ferran Soriano's book GOAL! The Ball doesn't go in by chance. Soriano is Man City's current CEO and former Barca CEO so he's certainly been there and done it on the business front and many of his ideas ion that book are beginning to be realised now. He recently did a lecture about it which skimmed over the ideas but the book delves into it deeper and tells stories from his time at Barca.
If you want more of a narrative and less of a business lecture then former Crystal Palace Chairman Simon Jordan's book, Be Careful What You Wish For is an excellent read. Be aware that Jordan is obviously bitter about his time at Palace and tries to settle some old scores here but outside of that it's a semi interesting look at his time at the Club and the problems he faced in implementing his business strategies.
The best book on strategy I've ever read is called "How to reassess your chess" link.
There are some really key things to be aware of.
Anyway, even if you don't play chess, I highly recommend that book. It will make you better at games in general.
When people first learn chess, they only learn the basic rules of the game. There is little positional or tactical understanding... (As it should be) There are many ways to get better at chess but all of them require work.
Some great players like Capablanca, insisted on learning the fundamental endings first. The problem is that, even if you know how to win with an extra pawn, you might not have the positional/tactical understanding to get to that pawn-up ending. So, I have found that you have to do a little bit of everything. I learned some endings, I learned some tactics and combinations, I learned some openings and so on.
I suggest that you study whatever is giving you the MOST problems first. Once you have taken steps to minimize and/or eliminate that problem, other problems will come up. Do the same and invest some time trying to get better in that area. Repeat until you get better. it is a simple concept but hard to do in practice.
Chess has a rich history. It is wonderful that we have access to the games of the past and all of its analysis. I recommend that you do not re-invent the wheel and that you read some books. The following should be helpful:
Also visit quality websites (Some recommendations below but not the only ones by any means...)
"If you know nothing at all about the game of chess other than the rules, there still things that you can do right away to help you win more games. You won't be beating tournament players, but you can rise above your current level by studying the right things. The same principle applies to all levels of players. There are things that you can do immediately to win more games. The key to chess improvement is pattern recognition. Whether you realize it or not, to improve at chess you must reprogram your brain to see things that you did not see before." - From the Introduction on "From Beginner to Chess Expert in 12 Steps"
Always do your best and enjoy the game! Good luck!
I don't know your level, but if you're a novice (as it sounds like you are) here's my advice:
As for the specific parts of the game, here are my suggestions. in order of importance:
Endgames: Learn to your level, then practice them on Chesstempo/friend/computer.
Tactics: It's tactics all the way down!
Openings: Play with the same openings. Don't spend too long on each, but maybe watch a few videos to get the ideas behind them.
Thought process:
That's all I got for now. Good luck!
The general consensus for novice chess players is to do a few things:
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So let's look at each of those items quickly.
Playing as much as possible.
If you can't play OTB, you still have a billion options. Here are some online options:
Don't have wifi and still need a game? There are plenty of apps for your phone/tablet:
Analyzing your games.
This is crucial. When you are done with your games, go over them and analyze the moves yourself. Where did you/your opponent go wrong? What did you do right? Did you miss tactics or mates? Did your opponent play an opening you were unfamiliar with? Did you reach an uncomfortable endgame and not know how to proceed? If your opponent played the same moves again in a different game, what would you do differently? Answering questions like these on your own will help you in future games.
After your initial analysis, you can then show it to a stronger player (you can submit your games to this subreddit to get criticisms, if you provide your initial analysis along with the PGN) and/or using a program to run a deeper analysis for you. Lichess provides free computer analysis on their site and I also made a quickie SCID/Stockfish tutorial a while back if you want more control over the depth of analysis.
Studying tactics.
"Tactics is almost undoubtedly the most productive single area that beginners and intermediates can study to improve their game - the more practice, the better." -- Dan Heisman (PDF)
There are a ton of places to study tactics online and you should make use of them.
Chess Tempo seems to be the gold standard when it comes to online tactics training. I would start with their standard set (Which means that time isn't a factor. You can stare at a board forever until you find the tactic, and the time won't affect your rating.) at first, but eventually play the other sets as well. I do a mix of each of them every day. Don't make it homework though, or you'll burn out, and chess will feel like a chore.
Don't forget to make use of their endgame trainer. After the first 20, you can only do 2 per day, and I recommend making it a top priority. Studying endgames, even for just a few minutes per day, will be very beneficial to your play.
Chess.com also has a tactics trainer, and for free users you get 5 tactics per day. At the very least, do the 5 chess.com tactics and the Chess Tempo endgames. You can find time for this every day, I assure you.
As a side note, this isn't really tactics but lots of people like this Lichess Coordinates Trainer for learning the names of the squares. If you do this once a day, for both black & white, it will take you about 1 minute. Easy.
Developing your pieces in the opening.
Read Dan Heisman's Beginner Guidelines, which I copied into this thread. At this stage, you don't need to study opening lines. However, whenever you read a point in the opening that you are unfamiliar with, you should look it up in an opening book, database, or online to find the common moves in that position. This will help you spot errors in your play and will set you up for success when you play that line in the future.
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There are a ton of other resources that you should look into.
For videos, I would recommend these channels:
As for books, the ones that seem to be promoted for you level the most are:
There are a bunch of great chess columns out there, but I suggest starting with ChessCafe.com, and specifically Dan Heisman's Novice Nook.
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Well fuck. I thought I was just typing out something quick, but I turned it into a novel. Sorry about that.
Time to eat some pumpkin bread and watch Sunday Night Football!
I play chess. My USCF rating is currently 2123... And I thought the sphere chess looked absolutely retarded at first too.
>Nah, I feel you should start from openings.
You shouldn't. Opening theory is quite dense and heavily influenced by computer analysis. You benefit more from trying to understand what you are trying to achieve, rather than trying to simply memorize some openings.
Logical Chess: Move by Move is a great book for anyone that has mastered the basics but is looking to learn more. You will pick up some opening knowledge along the way, learn how openings give rise to specific kinds of middle-games. And you will come across some endgames (although endgame basics are absent).
If you wish to seriously improve there are 3 parts:
There is quite a lot of chess literature. If you enjoy chess and wish to study and improve there are plenty of ways to do that. If competing in tournaments interests you check out the United States Chess Federation if you are in the states. If you are abroad, check out FIDE. And of course there are online options such as chess.com, the Internet Chess Club, etc...
Sorry... bit of an enthusiast :)
You've got to get yourself some good books and devour them. I have unconventional advice, but if whatever you've been doing isn't working, give it a shot.
My beginners routine
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You need a consistent motif; so, if you want to play 1.e4 try to stick to that. For black choose 2 defenses: one against 1.e4 and one against 1.d4
What you need to do here is learn the first few moves of the opening just so you can get yourself inside that structure... maybe the first 5 moves or so. And you're going to feel lost I promise you, but just do it, ok. When you win/lose, whatever, a part of your analysis is going to be to go to www.chessgames.com >set the year to >=2000 or 1980 something like that>set the openings to the opening you played or enter the ECO code>click search and you can watch Grandmasters play your opening. This will give you a good idea of what kind of moves are made and where you play on the board. You may even be able to extract some plans out of it.
Would it not be just as easy to ask /r/chess?
Anyway, in addition to what /u/Dazvac has said, you'll also want to learn about tactics; this is probably the most important part of chess. You can learn about them here and practice them here. Read through the first few pages of each chapter of the former site, then see if you can obtain the answers to the rest of the pages in each chapter. When you're fairly confident with the material in it, then train with the latter site. Don't worry if you fail the first 200 problems or so; you'll soon get to a point where the tactics are at your level (if you create an account).
As for reading material, I would suggest the two books "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess" and "Logical Chess Move By Move". You can easily find pirated PDF copies online, but you can also buy them here and here. "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess" mainly focuses around checkmating the king; "Logical Chess Move By Move" walks through games explaining EVERY SINGLE MOVE. It's also best if you have a chessboard set up when you read "Logical Chess", as it sometimes lists variations.
So here is, in summary, what the full list is:
If you are a newbie this is what you should do:
Get a proper chess course/book/video/whatever that explains well the basic tactics, positional game and most importantly the endgame. Back in the 90s I loved Karpov's introductory book but I don't think what's out there now, I read it in a different language and I cannot find it in English anywhere. In chess.com I think there's plenty of material including introductory material, although I haven't gone through it.
Don't just play the computer on easy levels too much, this is mostly a waste of time and won't improve your game at the beginner level. It's a common mistake. It will actually stall you big time if you get used to play back moves, have no discipline to continue in disadvantage and play for the draw, etc. Keep it real against even a poor computer opponent. Play it no more than a few times a day.
Don't try to memorize a lot of opening lines. Memorize the basic ideas from a good generic introductory source. Don't go reading opening books as a beginner, that can wait. Definitely the endgame must be mastered before going into that.
This is how you effectively use a computer as a beginner:
EDIT: another book you can peek inside for classic endgame positions and tactics http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pandolfinis-Endgame-Course-Concepts-Explained/dp/0671656880/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418228655&sr=1-1&keywords=pandolfini%27s+endgame+course
All that should keep you busy for a while. Then, calculation and tactical + positional theory. Maybe best with a coach because it will be hard to keep motivation on your own with just books.
EDIT2: as a beginner, you should not spend more than 15-20 minutes trying to figure out one single position. If you find yourself doing that, you are aiming too high. Your learning will be a lot more effective if it's incremental. As a higher-intermediate maybe studying a position from a book 20 minutes is just fine. But by then you will know.
I've been playing pretty religiously for roughly two years. I'm ~1600 on Chess.com.
ChessTempo is an incredibly valuable resource. With much persistence-- I try to do exercises on there at least an hour a day and sometimes more --my blitz/standard tactics and endgame ratings lie between 1500-1600 and continue to improve. Also, this book did wonders for my play.
In my playing, I've found "jumps" where I leap ~100 rating points which can probably be attributed to new discoveries in my tactical awareness and knowledge of theory (albeit being little in comparison to someone like Zibbit :-).
Obviously awesome people like Zibbit, Kingscrusher, Jerry (ChessNetwork), Christof (ChessExplained) and Greg (Greg Shahade) publish content frequently on YouTube and it's always interesting to revisit some of the material months after viewing as I often see the position more maturely than I had initially.
I hear so much talk from those around my rating of opening repertoire but so little about endgame theory, implications of the position, pawn structure & the notion of majority/minority, and key squares within a particular position -- these are ideas that often the big boys that I just referenced talk about and are ideas that I try to better understand through the analysis of my own games and when I do some "Guess the Move" with GM games. I'm liking the results.
We all were below 1000 at one point... it's about investing time and patience in what gives you the best results in your play. I think the staples of study are tactics and endgame theory but game analysis, best move, "guess the move", opening theory, and all that other fun stuff should be implemented in your study and you should pay close attention to which of those (if not all) are improving your play most.
Good luck.
You can try reading Bobby Fischer goes to war. I thought it in its briefness gave a good overview of, how Fischer impacted the scene. It mentioned several episodes, where you really could see that his presence was important. One of the quotes I remember was the following:
"Reshevsky and I are the only ones in America who try (to earn a living from chess). We don't make much. The other masters have outside jobs. Like Rossolimo, he drives a cab. Evans, he works for the movies. The Russians, they get money from the government. We have to depend on tournament prizes. And they're lousy. Maybe a couple hundred bucks. Millionaires back this game, but they're all cheap. Look what they do for golf: thirty thousand dollars for a tournament is nothing. But for chess they give a thousand or two and they think it's a big deal. The tournament has to be named after them, everybody has to bow down to them, play when they want, everything for a couple thousand dollars which is nothing to them anyhow. They take it off their income tax. These people are cheap. It's ridiculous."
If you look at the prize money between the world championship final he was in and the one before, there was an astronomical difference from what I recall. The way he's depicted in the book, it appears as if his immense desire to control and enormous fear of losing leads to him constantly pushing the envelope. People wanted to see him play, probably because he was an interesting person and one of the greatest players, but also because it seemed like a treat, when, after long periods of insecurity in regards to whether he'd show up to play or not, he finally did.
In the book, a friend of his mentioned that he did not know cheques worked, and that he'd actually been throwing them out, because he only wanted the "green bills". This gave me the impression that despite him often talking about wanting to become rich, and constantly pressuring tournament organizers for more prize money, really it was just a way for him to exert control or find an excuse not to play.
Either way, it seems to me that his interesting personality and skill not just attracted people to come watch, but also at the same time helped in increasing the benefit of this for the players themselves and not just the tournament organizers.
Ok, cutting and pasting my own post from early in the year. (Sorry about the formatting.) I originally composed this for a friend who claimed he was ready to work on chess for 20 hours/week. I don't think he's kept it up.
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Here's what I recently emailed someone in the same situation as you - well, his goal was year-end.
If you STUDY chess for 15-20 hours/week for a year, you should be 2000 strength by the end of the year, and 2200 (I expect - much better than me) by the end of next year. Studying is the same as for math and music - it does not include leisure time like playing blitz.
You can break down your chess study into five buckets:
Tactics (start now and continue forever)
Endings (start in April and continue)
Playing/competing (start in February / start reading in July)
Strategy/middlegame planning (start in August and continue)
Openings (start in November and continue)
I think you need to begin them in that order - overlapping, of course.
[1] Tactics - do these books in order. DO the problems, however long it takes - don't look up an answer until you have a solid solution. If the books offer clues on the page (e.g. this page is all pins and skewers), go through and black them out with a marker in advance.
[2] Endings
[3] Playing/competing Play slow games, at time controls of Game/60 to Game/120, preferably against stronger players. Keep score, then analyze and annotate those games in depth, without using a computer. Then go over the games and your analysis with a stronger player, e.g. bring it to Sunday chess club.
I should really stress this - chess is about playing, not just studying. You need to find a variety of strong players, not just computers, and play against them. You might also consider playing correspondence.
If you play in tournaments during this time, DO NOT THINK ABOUT YOUR RATING. Also, NEVER offer or accept a draw, EVEN if the option is losing. During the next two years, your only goal is to learn and improve. Learning comes from playing on.
After a few months of playing and analyzing slow games, read these books:
By "read" I mean go through them slowly, doing every exercise, thinking about every comment to every game. It's hard work.
[4] Strategy/planning
[5] http://www.amazon.com/Build-Your-Chess-Opening-Repertoire/dp/1901983897 [How to Build Your Chess Opening Repertoire]
Of course someone else could construct an equally valid study plan with hundreds of entirely different books, but ... the ones I've chosen are excellent, and I strongly believe that they are sufficient.
I don't mention computers very much. I think they can be most useful as sparring partners for learning your basic endings and (eventually) openings. But don't let your study center around computers or opening databases or internet blitz.
And of course ... don't let it stop being fun. :-) Maybe that's where some blitz comes in. Otherwise, what's the point?
Personally I came from a competitive fps and mmorpg background.
This book is rather underrated. This book serves more of a guide to overall improvement rather than specific chess knowledge. It also covers aspects most books don't talk about but all experience chess players know.
The best advice is to review your games after you play them and to play longer time controls. At least > 10-15 mins. I improved 200 elo just by recognizing how I made the mistake and how to punish these kinds of mistakes.
Most of this sub says do tactics and you miraculously get better but usually fail the mention how to study tactics properly. What you should do is study by theme of tactics and start with easier problems. This sub likes chess tempo but I personally prefer CT-ART or actual tactics books. The benefit of actual tactic books/software is that they are specifically curated by a stronger player to highlight themes. Technically you can do this with chess tempo but it is less obvious on how to do it.
After you have a feel for the game and have a majority of basic patterns in your brain you should study some positional chess and some thematic opening middle and basic endgames. There are many resources for this. I went from 1300-1700 by doing this.
Currently I sit around 1800-1900 uscf. I'm working through the yusupov series and balancing with pump up your rating.
Side note:
Don't get stuck in two common traps. There is the elo trap and the opening trap. Too many players get stuck in the notion that I have to learn something specific to get from one elo to another. There is nothing specific about it. I only added rating before as a general benchmark. You can virtually improve any aspect of your chess to improve your elo. It much more important to focus on the process than the result.
The opening trap is when player study too deeply in one opening and neglect studying other aspects of chess and at some point give up on an opening and jump ship to another one and the cycle resets. There are too many books with titles like "Crushing white with X opening" "Win with the Y opening". Opening books are useful to get general ideas for a position. However if you have good understanding of positional chess you can also come to the same conclusions. Its much better to understand positional chess than to study a particular opening.
If you want to pm me on a study plan you can do so. I don't have time to teach chess these days but I can help you formulate a study plan and next steps.
Here are some things that many people do to improve:
I hope all this helps, and welcome to the chess world!
If you're a beginner My System probably isn't the book you should be reading. Its aimed at much more advanced players (the r/chess faq puts it in the 1800-2000 rating bracket). Thats not to say you wouldn't learn anything, but there are almost certainly much more fundamental errors in your chess play and a lot of things Nimzowitsch will presume you are already familiar with will go over your head.
As for a good book to help, I'd recommend checking out Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev.
Endgame study is good, but I've seen a lot of beginners argue that being good at the endgame doesn't matter so much if the game is practically lost before you get there. Because of that I suggest you start with learning opening principles (control the centre, develop pieces, castling, don't move one piece too many times etc). There's plenty of stuff out there on this; if you really enjoy JBs videos then he talks about common opening mistakes a fair bit in his early "Climbing the Ratings Ladder" series, notably the under 1000 and 1000-1200 videos.
Note I don't recommend studying openings too much at this point, just the opening principles / ideas. Once you're familiar with those, move on to becoming comfortable with some standard endgames ( King+Queen vs King, King + Rook vs King, King + Pawn vs King)
As for watching John's game videos, I argue that if you're enjoying them then it doesn't matter too much if it's not the most efficient use of your time. Chess is about having fun, there's not much point to playing if you don't enjoy it.
Make sure you're focusing on his thought process and reasoning behind making the move rather than what the move actually is. Take time to pause the video in critical situations and think about what move you would make (similar to what Mato Jelic does in his videos) and then resume and see if you're right, or if he plays a different move again focus on his though process and reasoning behind it (i.e. why did you decide not to play that move whilst he did).
The most important thing when you're a beginner is to play lots and analyse your games. Once you know the opening principles and basic endgames, you should be spending most of your time playing and analysing your games (WITHOUT a computer).
Board recognition (wrong word but I hope the idea gets across) will come to you as you play, as will your ability to recognize tactics and form plans. Thus, I recommend that you just play a lot for now. If that isn't what you want then see below.
If you wish to learn strategy you need to learn the ideas behind openings, structures, and exercise your ability to create and execute a plan. This is because there isn't much of a point in playing any specific opening if you don't know what goals you're playing for with that opening. For this you may want to start with a beginner opening book and some endgame studies so you know what to do if you ever reach the longterm goals of the opening you choose to employ.
I asked around and came up with: Reuben Fine's Ideas behind the chess openings.
https://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Behind-Chess-Openings-Algebraic/dp/0812917561
There's also Yasser Seirawan's Winning Chess Openings.
https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Chess-Openings-Everyman/dp/1857443497/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1491463301&sr=1-1&keywords=yasser+seirawan
There are many different kinds of endgames. King and pawn endings are the most basic. I guess rook endings is the next step above that.
I learned practical endings from this book which looks like it's out of print now, unfortunately. Silman has a book that's also supposed to be very good.
There are also specific books that dig into very particular aspects of endgame play, like this book on pawn endings that heavily focuses on "corresponding squares". That book helped me a lot.
For practice, I found this android app to be very helpful. I believe there is also a PC version and probably an iOS version as well.
Playing endings out against a computer can be helpful but there are big downsides, too. The computer will usually not find the most stubborn human defense, for example. If a position is objectively lost it will just play any trash move because it sees everything as equally losing.
In addition to all of this, there's always the psychological aspect of chess -- meaning, it helps to keep in mind what you're actually trying to accomplish and to learn mental tricks to make playing endings easier. For example, sometimes it helps to imagine rearranging the pieces or pawns into a winning position and then figuring out how to work backwards from that. Also, it helps to keep in mind that zugzwang is a common factor in endings. When you're trying to checkmate somebody, it helps to visualize a mating "net" around the king, like imagining the squares he can't move to as being highlighted. There are also specific tactics and patterns that come up over and over again in endings.
It's a big subject!
My favorite 2 books:
I think both of these books are really good at mastering the moves that you should be making to reach a good position. I don't consider them too advanced, but they assume you know things like reading algebraic notation, basic tactics and motifs.
Also agree with others that a good tactics book will provide with serious improvement in your game. But if you want to understand how to get a position that will provide tactical opportunities, these two books are great.
When I was first learning, Logical Chess Move by Move was a huge eye opener for me. It explains every single move in the game in detail while going through full games. You get introduced to opening ideas, middle game planning, and endgame technique. The book is a very effective primer on a lot of key chess principles and it really teaches the beginner the importance of a single move since you get to read all of the ideas that go into every move.
When I was a low intermediate level player (I'd guess around 1300-1400), I read Silman's How to Reassess Your Chess and that had a huge impact on my playing level once I start to assimilate the knowledge. His coverage of the thought processes for middle game planning, move selection, and looking at material imbalances really opened my eyes to how I should be thinking about positions.
I've read probably 15-30 books in part or entirely over the years. Those two stand out the most to me. Beyond those instructional books, I think books of games collections are good to go through. My favorite were How Karpov Wins by Edmar Mednis (I am a Karpov fan) and Bronstein's Zurich 1953 book (one of the most highly regarded books of all time). Alekhine's Best Games was also a fun read, but it used old style notation I believe, which was a chore for me to learn and go through at the time.
Other special nods from me:
Lichess has a coordinates trainer where you're just given a square on the board in algebraic notation, and you find it as quickly as you can. The notation is easier to grasp once you're not taking a few seconds carefully counting through the files and then counting through the ranks to hunt for each square. Other than that, it's just practice. The more you see it, the easier it will be to read. Lichess also has some basic tactics training. Their puzzles are good too because after you've found the solution, it's easy to study the problem further on an analysis board and see why your first guess was wrong by playing it and seeing what the computer would do next.
On YouTube, IM John Bartholomew's videos are very helpful, especially the "Chess Fundamentals" series and "Climbing the Rating Ladder." ChessNetwork has a good series for beginners also.
A good book for beginners is Logical Chess: Move By Move by Irving Chernev. Chernev annotates 33 games to explain what the purpose of each move was. Chernev wrote before masters were able to double check all their analysis with computers, so there is the occasional questionable judgement, and some people think he puts too much emphasis on general rules you should follow without enough on nuances and exceptions to those rules. However, it is probably still the best book of this kind that is truly aimed at beginners, and it will be helpful if it at least drives home the idea that every move ought to serve a purpose.
Ray Cheng's book Practical Chess Exercises is exactly what you want. I'll just paste an excerpt from my copy (basically most of the introduction):
> Each exercise consists of a diagrammed chess position, and your task is to find the best move. For each position you are told only which side is to move; there is no further set-up. For example, you will not find a caption under the diagram such as “White to mate in 3,” or “How can Black exploit the undefended rook on a1?” The intention is to furnish only the information that you would have during a real game, when no such hints are expected or permitted. Indeed, any kind of training tends to be more effective to the extent that it simulates the conditions of actual competition. That is one of the core principles of this book. For similar reasons, the exercise positions are not grouped by theme or labeled by level of difficulty. Again, the idea is that in a real game, no one is going to whisper in your ear “Hey, you have a killer knight fork,” or “You’d better spend a little extra time on this move, because it rates four stars in difficulty.”
>
> Most chess puzzle books consist entirely of tactical exercises, but there is a downside to this. Knowing at the outset that there is a tactic to be found dilutes the value of the exercise. Indeed, it encourages the reader to adopt an abridged thought process—jumping right into calculating outrageous sacrifices, for instance, without being led toward the solution by skillfully reading the clues in the position. Just as often, this reader might prematurely stop calculating once a plausible tactic has been found (and affirmed by the solution in the back of the book), without bothering to double-check whether it really works. For that reason I included a number of positions where there is a tempting tactical try that fails for some reason, and the best move is something else entirely. In real life, many (and perhaps most) tactical possibilities turn out to be flawed, and thus the habit of double-checking them is well worth cultivating. Likewise, I included positions in which it is your opponent who has the tactical threat; your job is then to identify the threat and take any appropriate defensive measures.
> Many of the exercises in this book cover tactical themes, while others need not have a tactical resolution at all. There are exercises built upon positional ideas, such as outposts, weak squares, pawn structure, superior minor piece, and positional sacrifices. Other exercises are concerned with basic theoretical endgames that every chess player should know, or they feature interesting endgame positions that have occurred in practice. Many of them will illustrate important endgame concepts, including the active king, opposition, rooks behind passed pawns, and the outside passed pawn. As far as openings go, you will not be tested for your specific knowledge of theoretical “book” moves. You will, however, need to handle opening positions based on fundamental principles, such as those concerning the center, development, and castling. Of course, there will also be opening tactics and blunders to contend with.
>
> The exercises in this book appear in random order, not only by theme, but also by level of difficulty. After all, being able to judge how much time and energy to devote to a particular position is a valuable skill during actual competition. The exercises range from very simple to very difficult, with most falling into the middle categories. For the sake of reference I have labeled the solutions (but not the exercise positions themselves, of course) with up to four stars to indicate their approximate difficulty.
>
> Because they are not accompanied by artificial hints, working through these exercises will instill a more complete and realistic move selection process. They present opportunities to utilize and strengthen your tactical vision, positional understanding, theoretical knowledge, and intuitive judgment in an integrated and holistic manner. In addition, they will enhance your ability to anticipate your opponent’s ideas, calculate variations, and evaluate the resulting positions accurately.
I personally have found the problems to be interesting and of high quality :)
The Chessmaster program is indeed awesome. Fritz is better for serious play, or so I've been told, but there is all sorts of helpful stuff on Chessmaster for beginning/intermediate players.
My personal favorite chess book is Reassess Your Chess by Jeremy Silman. You won't find any "White to move and mate in 3" business. You won't find a bunch of sparsely annotated GM games, either. Instead, it gets into good depth on the tactics and strategy of the middle game. I really suggest it, it offers very useful methods of understanding the foundations of chess, recognizing imbalances, creating plans to exploit those imbalances, that kind of stuff. Fair warning, though, beginners might find it useful but I've found you need to have your feet a little wet to get the most out of the book.
Arguably what teaches you what makes a move good or bad at 1300 leve are the tactics puzzles and endgames. The standard for this type of learning is: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/1890085138/ and its the standard for good reason. If you don't want a course but more a good book of chess aphorisms and rules of thumb: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1936490323 and somewhat harder: https://www.amazon.com/Wisest-Things-About-Chess-Batsford/dp/1906388008. A good book on theory that will have you learn theory as it develops and is fun to read if you like great games is: https://smile.amazon.com/Masters-Chessboard-Richard-Reti-ebook/dp/B006ZQISDY/
You're in for a lot of fun kbphoto, welcome to chess.
For an adult beginner I'd recommend two things to start off with:
Both these together will get you off to a flying start and then later on you can take a look at some more resources listed in the FAQ in the sidebar.
Good luck!
Yeah, sure.
It depends on a few things. How seriously do you want to take it, and what are your goals. If you want to just casually learn about the game and kind of play it from time to time, that's greatly different from someone that wants to try and get really good etc.
I guess, what does get into chess mean to you? ;)
I'll give a more detailed writeup after that, haha.
edit: Some starter info I guess!
There can be more details etc but that's basically it.
First off, your best bet is indeed practicing tactics problems on Chesstempo.com. The great thing about that site is that it will give you problems at your appropriate difficulty, and you can keep solving problems as long as you want (no daily limits like there are on Chess.com). It's just like lifting weights or anything - the more you practice, the stronger you will get.
Meanwhile, a consensus seems to be that the first thing you should study are checkmate patterns and endgames in general. I personally like Jeremy Silman's Complete Endgame Course, which goes from beginner-level endgames to far more advanced endgames. And although many discourage simply memorizing opening lines, find some that work for you and memorize a handful. Maybe five or so. More importantly than the memorization is understanding the reasoning behind the moves. For example, are the moves designed to grab a strong presence in the center, or is it specifically geared towards an attack on the opponent's queen-side for example? Don't just memorize openings without understanding why the moves are what they are and what they hope to accomplish. Surprisingly, I think the Wikipedia Chess Opening Theory Wikibook is a fantastic resource for all this.
I've only read a couple chess books, but I found both of them very helpful as a beginning player. I find Jeremy Silman very good at explaining strategy, tactics, and openings in a way that's easy to comprehend. I got Modern Chess Strategy, by Ludek Pachman, from my grandfather's library. This book is much more dense, but it breaks down chess strategy very well and is organized better than Silman's in my opinion (Opening, Midgame (Tactics + Strategy), Piece by piece strengths + weaknesses, Endgame, Mental game, etc.).
I just finished listening to the book "Bobby Fischer Goes to War" that mentions two studies on chess memorization. In the first one, they found that expert chess players were significantly better at memorizing the location of pieces on board than non-chess players, which is not surprising.
However, in the second study, they compared 'meaningful' chess positions with random chess positions. They found that chess players were vastly better at memorizing positions that games arrive at, but that there was little, if any, difference between experts and non-players at memorizing the positions on totally random chess boards. These results suggest that chess players don't memorize individual piece positions so much as move orderings and piece groupings.
I came across this interesting article that, among other things, discusses how chess players also identify high-level conceptual information about chess positions that extends beyond simply recognizing familiar patterns (they use the example of how identifying a bad bishop might help you remember other aspects of the position).
>"To test this, Lane and Chang administered a chess memory task (look at a chess board, recall the positions of pieces), a chess knowledge test (consisting of questions about chess openings and strategy), a chess experience survey (estimate amount of time playing chess), and non-chess measures of fluid intelligence to 79 chess players. Replicating past work, chess experience correlated with chess memory. But, in support of the role of conceptual knowledge, chess knowledge correlated with chess memory after controlling for chess experience. In other words, a player could have played 1,000 games of chess, but never learned what a bad bishop is. That player would have worse memory performance than a player who played 1,000 games, but did learn about bad bishops."
I think a third angle is just that one of the physiological traits common among many of the best chess grandmasters is that they have a phenomenal memory. Combined with decades of practice visualizing positions and learning move orderings, I think Magnus just has a very good memory that he has trained specifically for memorizing chess positions.
However, I personally can't play blindfold chess for crap, so this is all basically speculation on my part. Perhaps some actual blindfold players can yield more personal insight.
I believe it was Philidor who said "Pawns are the soul of chess," and that is definitely true. As for knowing how they work, that's a bit tricky.
There are a lot of books out there on pawn structure chess (such as this one: http://www.amazon.com/Pawn-Structure-Chess-Andrew-Soltis/dp/1849940703)
But in my opinion, I think you have to understand the pieces very well before you should start tackling pawn movements. For instance, does the position call for to rip open the center by trading pawns (in situations where you are ahead in development or have bishops vs knights), or should I lock up the center and not trade the pawns off there (in a situation of knights vs bishops)? Or on another level, does this pawn move negate the possibility for him to get a defender to this square B that would defend square A?
But back to the pieces. I think a solid understanding on bishops vs knights games, developmental advantages, knowing when to pawn storm, etc. will allow you someone to better understand when pawn moves may be beneficial or harmful to their position. A good book for learning this kind of info is Reassess Your Chess by IM Jeremy Silman. It's not solely about pawns, but you learn a lot of indirect knowledge about pawns through reading it that allows for the understanding of certain pawn moves. After that I would possibly move to pawn specific books if you want to further your knowledge.
TL;DR - make sure you understand the pieces/positions and you can derive if a pawn move might be beneficial or harmful
From my personal experience I have always found chess books to be boring in the very least. I have only read 1 or 2 books that have managed to keep me interested and one of them is Silman's Complete Endgame Course.
I thought this book was good for a few reasons.
In regards to immediately practical advice:
If you're having trouble with game situations and nerves, I would suggest playing out positions with a friend. For example, if you are learning how to mate with a Queen and King vs King, you can set up a position over the board and play with a friend. This way you can practice and there is no pressure because you can take back incorrect moves. (Or if finding someone to play with is difficult, I recommend playing against an engine. Although that may be intimidating, you can always reduce its strength so that it shouldn't be a problem.)
I hope my advice has been helpful!
You should study how your opponent played: It was almost literally textbook play. The formation your opponent achieved in the opening of Nc6 - d5 - e5 - Nf6 is right out of any introductory chess textbook. Notice how as in your game the knights are immediately available to leap to your fourth rank harassing your position, while the bishops can in one move also start making threats. Also the knights and the queen cover the center pawns, while you are already having to think about tactics to defend e4. Then your opponent moves his king's bishop out so he can castle and then his queen's bishop clearing his first rank of all of minor pieces. He is all prepared to go right after you on the attack, and after gaining material and space, finishing you off with his rooks which are free to move to whatever file is most useful, here the center ones. It doesn't get more textbook than this.
If your opponent is having tremendous success following textbook play, it would be wise to also have read and understood this textbook. There are many fine books on the market and some public domain classics legally available for free. My personal recommendation is first try one's local library where hopefully one can find a good beginner's textbook such as this one:
Pelts and Alburt, Comprehensive Chess Course, Vol. 2: From Beginner to Tournament Player in 12 Lessons
This book has dozens of complete (short) games illustrating among other things exactly the opening errors you are making and how you are being punished for them.
OmicronperseiVIII wrote some great advice. If you want a book to help take your game to the next level, I recommend the Comprehensive Chess Course, Volume II. I think it's the ideal "second chess book," the first being a book on how to play. If you follow the structure of that book you'll improve really fast!
If you're aiming to compete, try doing all of the following if you can:
 
1- Find a chess teacher. A rating above 2000 is preferred
 
2- Get Chess books that teach the basics of tactics, strategy, and endgame.
 
3- Make an account on Chesstempo.com and start solving tactics
 
4- Play many rapid games online. Chess.com allows you to play for free
 
5-For book recommendations : Endgame/
Middlegame
-As for opening, you really need a mentor to guide you in choosing the best opening for you. If you want to learn some opening, this is a good basic book
I'm also a beginner, and this book has been absolutely perfect so far. It's not bogged down with advanced detail and theory, and it does a great job of getting across the fundamental ideas from historical GM games.
http://www.amazon.com/Logical-Chess-Every-Explained-Algebraic/dp/0713484640
Tell him to bring out a chess board, or open up an analysis board, and play each move along with the author. It really helps the lessons sink in easier.
I noticed that you mentioned nothing about endgame studies. You should probably shift your focus more from openings & middle games to middle games & endgames. Buy this if you truly want to improve your game.
Fast time controls like bullet and blitz won't help you get better at playing chess until you can understand the mistakes you're making. They're fun and great for working through openings, however that should be one of your lowest priorities at this stage.
In addition to using the tactics trainer, try to play through some endgames on chesstempo.com.
If you want the best stuff, then two books should be your foundation
First, Silman's Complete Endgame Course is strong. Silman is known for explaining things in an easy-to-digest manner. His book covers endgame ideas from beginner level up to ~2200 rating level. Despite the fact that you may not get much out of it (and so it will be a quick read), it is important to have all of his ideas understood before moving on, because the ideas he writes about are essentially basic.
Then, move on to Mark Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual. It's important to note that this book is not written by some patzer or some GM who knows how to play but not how to teach. Mark Dvoretsky is a well-known elite chess trainer who has trained some of the best players in the world, so you know that his writing is strong. The purpose of Silman's book becomes clear when this book is recommended: this book is for turning ~2100+ players into elite endgame masters. This book probably should not be read or understood until essentially basic endgames are understood.
Yeah, I've got my head around it now. I'm not finding it TOO difficult but definitely slows my reading down a bit. The funny thing is that the book still uses normal notation as we know it when referring to specific squares (f2 square, c3 square etc), so it is surprising that it uses a different format when referring to moves.
Aside from that I'm really enjoying the book so far https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Chess-Strategy-Ludek-Pachman/dp/0486202909
I'm on the same road. I'm not really good, but I'm working on it.
Read books such as Reassess Your Chess. Watch/listen to some great commentary at [Killegar Chess on YouTube](
http://www.youtube.com/user/SeanGGodley). Play different people frequently (online chess is great for this).
Did you know Amazon will donate a portion of every purchase if you shop by going to smile.amazon.com instead? Over $50,000,000 has been raised for charity - all you need to do is change the URL!
Here are your smile-ified links:
The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games
Understanding Chess Move by Move
Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953
Tal-Botvinnik 1960
Alekhine My Best Games of Chess, 1908-1937
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^^i'm ^^a ^^friendly bot
Great AMA! Two questions:
Don't worry about openings for now. You can have perfect opening knowledge and still get killed by weak players with a basic grasp of tactics and an ability to find threats. Those areas are the starting point.
To that end, assuming you know the rules already, and can read chess notation, start with a VERY simple book on tactics. Go through "Simple Checkmates" by A. J. Gilliam (Amazon link) seriously at least seven times--preferably about 10 to 20 times--until you can instantly see the right move in each diagram.
Learning chess is all about building up your knowledge of basic patterns, and I've yet to find a book that gives such a good grounding in the most fundamental and important of these basic patterns.
More advanced (but still cheap) books that are good for learning to see patters in chess would be 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate, by Fred Reinfeld (ignore any books of his that don't consist of just diagrams, though) and the excellent Chess Training Pocket Book: 300 Most Important Positions, by Lev Alburt.
I found Winning Chess Strategies, by Yasser Seirawan helpful as an introduction to strategy when I first started out, but some people think his writing style is more suitable for kids.
How to Reassess Your Chess: The Complete Chess-Mastery Course, by Jeremy Silman or The Amateur's Mind: Turning Chess Misconceptions into Chess Mastery, also by Silman are big touchstones for chess learners in the late-beginner phase. A less-known author that I highly recommend is C. J. S. Purdy. He wrote quite a while ago, but he's incredibly insightful in teaching amateurs to break bad chess habits and generally understand how to think in chess. Here's an Amazon search result for his books. (By the way, I don't necessarily endorse Amazon as the best place to buy chess books, but the links are convenient.)
Main thing is, get the basics down. Build up the basic patterns. Go over the simpler diagrams over and over until you know them cold. Then move on to strategy, more advanced tactics and endgames, then worry about openings.
In no particular order:
The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games
Understanding Chess Move by Move
Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953
Tal-Botvinnik 1960
Alekhine My Best Games of Chess, 1908-1937
Botvinnik Best Games trilogy
By mastering the tactics I'm assuming you mean learn the strategy? The phrase is ambiguous because 'tactic' has a special meaning within chess.
To be honest, my first exposure with 'real chess' was with one of Jeremy Silman's books, The Amatuer's Mind. I was rated ~1200 at that point, and used to just shuffling my pieces around and hoping my opponent blundered. The Amatuer's Mind taught me about the basics of planning, and that's something I've been learning about ever since.
Annotated game collections are an amazing way to learn.
Here's some suggestions to start with.
Dvoretsky's Analytical Manual: Practical Training for the Ambitious Chessplayer
Great all around.
Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner To Master
Some great endgame work for you.
Can't go wrong with Silman or Dvoretsky. Suggestion looking through their works and seeing what would work for you.
Kudos to all the commenters for recommending [Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner to Master] (http://www.amazon.com/Silmans-Complete-Endgame-Course-Beginner/dp/1890085103/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375204281&sr=8-1&keywords=Jeremy+Silman). If you do as Silman suggests, and don't start the next chapter until you have fully mastered the previous one, it will do wonders for your endgame playing strength.
That said, much will depend on what sort of time controls you play. The shorter the time control, the less likely that you will be able to convert solid endgame advantages into full points...
First of all, never say 'opening tactics' again. I think you mean 'openings', 'opening principles' or 'opening strategy'. Strategy and tactics are a different thing, and in chess the difference is huge.
Endgames can be beautifully complicated even when they might appear simple at first. Chesstempo.com has an endgame trainer that is useful. You can also learn a lot from books (example) and youtube (example).
Playing a lot is essential to improvement. But so is analysing your games, studying material and tactics training.
Openings: The Scandanavian will be fine for the rest of your chess career. Learn c5 if you feel like it, not because you think its 'better'.
Midgame: Tactics will be the first thing to help you improve your chess. I think its a good idea to add a little positional study in there, but focus on the tactics.
Endgame: This is a helpful thing to study. However, I don't have any good book recommendations for you on this one. Hopefully it is something someone else can help you with.
Christmas recommendations:
Gold membership on Chess Tempo for tactics.
Also the book Logical Chess Move by Move for some positional study.
I am about 1600 USCF, with about 100 chess books. However, most of mine are biographies/historical.
My favorites are:
Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953 by David Bronstein
Soviet Chess, 1917-1991 by Andrew Soltis
Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall - from America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness by Frank Brady
Aron Nimzowitsch: On the Road to Chess Mastery, 1886-1924 by Per Skjoldager and Jorn Erik Nielsen
Garry Kasparov on Garry Kasparov (3 volumes) by Garry Kasparov.
I think the best books for beginners are Comprehensive Chess Course vol1 and vol2 series by Lev Alburt. Even more advanced players can benefit from volume 2.
My new years "chessalutions" (if you will) was to do more study and play more. Unfortunately I have not done the latter as much due to work but I am hitting the books more and enjoying reading through Understanding Chess Move by Move by GM Dr. John Nunn. May look to do more tournaments but for the time being I am focusing on my job (I am a hotel manager so it is pretty busy all the time 24/7) and once I get that under control I can focus my attention on chessing.
i highly recommend this book for beginners: [Logical Chess Move By Move by Irving Chernev] (https://www.amazon.com/Logical-Chess-Every-Explained-Algebraic/dp/0713484640)
Here's an excerpt after the moves 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3:
At this point you will note that black must defend his e-pawn before going about his business.
There are several ways to protect the pawn. He must evaluate and choose from these possibilities:
f6, Qf6, Qe7, Bd6, d6, and Nc6
How does black decide on the right move? Must he analyze countless combinations and try to visualize every sort of attack and defense for the next 10 or 15 moves? Let me hasten to assure you that a master does not waste valuable time on futile speculation. Instead, he makes use of a potent secret weapon - positional judgement. Applying it enables him to eliminate from consideration inferior moves, to which the average player devotes much thought. He hardly glances at moves that are obviously violations of principle!
Here is what might go through his mind as he selects the right move:
2. ... f6: Terrible! My f-pawn occupies a square that should be reserved for the knight and it also blocks the queen's path along the diagonal. And I've moved a pawn when I should be developing pieces.<br /> <br />
2. ... Qf6: Bad, since my knight belongs at f6, not the queen. Also, I'm wasting the power of my strongest piece to defend a pawn.2. ... Qe7: This shuts the f8 bishop in, while my queen is doing the job which a lesser piece could handle.<br /> <br />
2. ... Bd6: I've developed a piece, but the d-pawn is obstructed, and my c8 bishop may be buried alive2. ... d6: Not bad, since it gives the c8 bishop an outlet. But wait - it limits the range of the f8 bishop, and again i've moved a pawn when I should be putting pieces to work.<br /> <br />
2. ... Nc6: Eureka! this must be best, as I have developed a piece to its most suitable square and protected the e pawn at the same timeBuy this book (any edition) and read through it. It's the best book (imo) for your level. You'll learn a lot playing through these games. As for notation, it takes a bit of practice... you can try to read through these games in your head, but I strongly recommend playing them out on a physical board in front of you (or on a computer program board).
Middlegame: There aren't so many middle-game books, but I liked Ludek Pachman's books. There were originally 3, but when they were translated to English they made it a 2-volume set. There are others like Yusupov or Dvoretsky or Romanovsky, but you could probably pick a couple randomly and get good ones.
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Endgame: Again, there's a lot of variety. I like a very large one done by a German Mueller and Lamprecht.
https://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Chess-Endings-Karsten-M%C3%BCller/dp/1901983536/ref=sr_1_14?keywords=chess+endgame&qid=1567215435&s=gateway&sr=8-14
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Unfortunately for me I have none of these today. I sold and loaned some books some time ago and I especially miss the endgame book.
My point is that if he's truly trying to grasp the basics, the names of all these openings shouldn't matter. Just play basic, solid chess. Follow the opening principles.
Also, you might check out Silman's book [How to Reassess Your Chess] (http://www.amazon.com/How-Reassess-Your-Chess-Fourth/dp/1890085138)
as it may be helpful.
Edit: Oh yeah, that's right. That is the Scandinavian. Thanks.
The Chernev book is awesome, one of my favourites.
In a similar vein Nunn's Understanding Chess Move by Move is brilliant.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Understanding-Chess-Move-John-Nunn/dp/1901983412
Also CT-ART 4.0 (android and iOS) is cheap and imo the gold standard for thematic tactics training :).
Other books I own and like.
Fundamental Chess Openings (covers a lot of ground explaining the goals of each without reams of variations).
Laskers manual of chess (oldie but goodie - get the new edition).
Positional Decision Making in Chess Gelfand).
Try not to buy too many books until you've read and got what you can from each, also revisit them once in a while because as you improve you'll find stuff you didn't see/understand first time around.
The best book ever How to Reassess Your Chess. This is the best book to learn or refine your chess. Order the workbook too and when you're done you'll be able to compete at a much higher level.
I started to take it seriously 2 years ago. I recommend the book Logical Chess .
Once you learn a few openers and basic strategy, you can take out a casual player pretty quickly. Practice on your computer too ICF/ Chess.com. I enjoy watching legendary chess matches on youtube too, especially with move by move narration . ie bobby fischer
Question for you or anyone: What is the best chess puzzle app? I'm a huge fan of Ray Cheng's book. Any phone app equivalent?
How to Reasses your Chess by Silman is essentially what you're looking for. It goes over the process of finding imbalances in a position and creating a plan around these imbalances. Examples of typical imbalances would be:
My suggestion would be to go over games by masters in the openings you play. Look for imbalances and take note of how the master uses them to create plans. I would also suggest not changing openings much if at all since plans can differ drastically based on the opening and you don't want to lose any experience you've accrued.
You can try a book that gives you an overview of the basic ideas of most common openings, such as Van der Sterren FCO - http://dev.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/FCO-Fundamental-Chess-Openings-p3561.htm
Then you can pick additional pieces of knowledge from annotated game collections such as Chernev's book or Mammoth greatest games of chess - https://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-Worlds-Greatest-Chess-Games/dp/0762439955, or look for some instructive contents on YouTube (St Louis Chess Club or Derrek's channel have some good explanatory videos).
But all in all, understanding openings takes time, and the English isn't the easiest pick if you're a beginner, so you must be patient :-)
The Immortal Game is a great book. It is a history of chess written for the layman. It deals with broad ideas rather than dry details and presents several interesting anecdotes about the game of chess.
Silman is notorious for making numerous claims on how simple chess can be. Just create some imbalances and win!
"How to Reassess Your Chess" is at best a mediocre book, based on a dubious hypothesis, and laid out in a far from satisfactory way.
Instead of Silman, read Ludek Pachman: Modern Chess Strategy, the book Silman cribbed from and watered-down. It is still out there, selling for much less money, and delivering 10 times the chess acumen.
https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Chess-Strategy-Ludek-Pachman/dp/0486202909/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=S09TM1ZR22BSP6XEV110
I gave you some advice for each book at each level. Of course all of these books can be switched around and if you want to read Dvoretsky (A very advanced author) at your level you're welcome to. Although a 1300 rating on lichess.org is still at a beginner level so I suggest you start from that section.
---
Beginner:
Play Winning Chess By: Yasser Seirawan
Logical Chess Move by Move By: Irving Chernev
How to Reasses Your Chess By: Jeremy Silman
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Intermediate:
Practical Chess Exercises By: Ray cheng
The Art of Defense in Chess By: Andrew Soltis
Pawn Structure Chess By: Andrew Soltis
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Master:
Fundamental Chess Endings By: Karsten-Müller and Frank Lamprecht.
Art of Attack in Chess By: Vladimir Vukovic
Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual By: Mark Dvoretsky
I might suggest some reading material that may help out your chess thinking process.
Silman's The Amateur's Mind and How to Reassess your Chess are both great for any beginner to moderate strength player, as they focus on understandable concepts and fixing common problems in many people's game.
I hope the responses you get put you on the right track. But there are books on this topic such as this excellent one which is 650+ pages. I only say this to point out that anything you read here is only scratching the surface. It just depends how deeply you want to learn.
Yeah! Check this book out if you want to read more. I'm a very mediocre chess player but am really enjoying the book.
If you’re still looking for something, I found this post as part of a search for the same thing and figured I’d come back and share this:
The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings: Algebraic Notation https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812917561/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_.SXYzbJ2VKQVN
A classic, apparently, updated with algebraic notation and with great reviews on Amazon. I’ve ordered a copy.
Not the book you're after, but I think Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking: From the First Move to the Last is a good book for you. It goes through 30 games (grouped by opening) by annotating every move, so you don't have to read through long sequences of moves without help.
Logical Chess: Move By Move: Every Move Explained is similar and probably good too (Chernev is cool) but I haven't read it.
amateurs mind is very good
also you should probably get CT-ART for tactics, since all games starting out will be won though tactics
Besides everything that is being said, analyzing annotated games from the masters is usually very useful and entertaining. This book is great if you want to do that.
This book, "Practical Chess Exercises", has a mixture of tactical and positional solutions, all mixed together: it's up to you to assess each position and determine what the best move is; it doesn't say "hey there are/aren't any tactics in this problem". So it is not 100% what you are looking for, but it may be helpful.
Get any book by Dan Heisman. Good one to start with is Everyone's Second Chess Book, or A Guide to Chess Improvement. Jeremy Silman is another excellent chess author for amateurs.
This might interest you then. It's a fascinating read and elaborates on exactly what you've mentioned.
If you're just starting, silman's endgame course is the best book. Silman's endgame course starts from absolute beginner up to ~2000. If you go through silman's endgame manual and dvoretsky's endgame manual, should be the only books you need for endgames until ~2400
Dvoretsky's endgame manual is universally known as the gold standard for what a player needs to know about the endgame. But it's hard to understand, so take time to ease into it.
Have you read "Logical Chess: Move By Move" - Irving Chernev? It might help you! It deals a lot with the other aspect of the game, strategy (and openings etc)... Well worth a read!
http://www.amazon.com/Logical-Chess-Every-Explained-Batsford/dp/0713484640
I'm a bit embarrassed to have missed that pawn.
I would like to finish reading The Game of Chess simply so that I don't just hop from book to book all the while getting nowhere in particular. However, after that I will definitely study some positional chess. Tarrasch focuses almost purely on tactics in his middle game section. Also, keep in mind that I posted a game that I lost in. I've had plenty of games where I've built successful attacks out of tactics that Tarrasch teaches. I'll defend that book because it helped me grow from where I was, but I agree that I have almost no positional understanding right now.
I already own Pachman's Modern Chess Strategy. Is this sufficient as a positional book, or is Silman's book that much better to warrant buying it?
Logical Chess Move by Move is a great one. I recommend buying a premium membership on chesstempo for custom problem sets and to find where you're tactically weak. Not blundering pieces at your level should be your biggest concern and chesstempo is great for that.
Agree on Silman (link provided). I read Reinfeld first, but this book uses older notation, not the modern algebraic style (think "BxN", rather than "Bxf6"). Silman is a good followup to Reinfeld in my case, but not so much as a first book.
Modern Chess Strategy by Ludek Pachman is fantastic for gaining a basic understanding of many general positional themes in chess. Many illustrative games relevant to each theme with great insight and analysis provided by Pachman. It is in descriptive notation, but that's not too hard to learn.
https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Chess-Strategy-Ludek-Pachman/dp/0486202909
> watching high rated games does nothing just like watching olympics doesn't make you faster runner or better at javelin
I disagree, depending on what "watching" means in this context. I believe actively working through well annotated master games can be very instructive. See for example the oft recommended Logical Chess: Move By Move: Every Move Explained.
The key difference between chess and athletics here is that you can watch actively, constantly coming up with your own candidate moves and calculations while "watching". Passively watching chess like you would watch running won't do much for you.
Heisman's book A Guide to Chess Improvement: The Best Of Novice Nook includes the thought process for avoiding blunders.
I heartily recommend Silman's Reassess Your Chess - it focuses on recognizing and imbalances and making plans to create or take advantage of them.
In general, if your opponent reacts during the opening in a way you didn't expect, you should spend some time figuring out why their move was 'wrong' - what imbalance it introduces, and why it is not part of the book.
The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games
It's such a canonical book that in chess circles, it gets its own abbreviation, HTRYC. I'd check your local library first, though, because it's so popular that they're bound to have a copy of it.
It's a good book for learning basic strategy, but I recommend you pair it up with this book so you can look for the themes without the crutch of context.
I suggest you get the book the Amateur's Mind and set up the situations on any chess game and work through them. I believe it is the best book for beginners.
Chess is a hard game! If you are a serious player, I recommend buying and studying The Amateur's Mind. You need to break down the game and understand the abilities and weaknesses of each piece. Silman helps explains these concepts by exposing the faulty logic in his students' analysis. (Hence, The Amateur's Mind!) It's an amazing book, and I really suggest you try it out!
Check out http://www.amazon.com/Bobby-Fischer-Goes-War-American/dp/0060510250. Awesome book.
https://www.amazon.com/Amateurs-Mind-Turning-Misconceptions-Mastery/dp/1890085022/
Jeremy Silman is a good chess author. I own...
The Complete Book of Chess Strategy
The Amateurs Mind
How to Reassess your Chess
Silmans Complete Endgame Course
...all are recommended
FWIW I've been there and know exactly how feel. Unless you do suffer from dyslexia or are mentally retarded (and based on your writing style I doubt that!) by playing and doing regular tactics training you will eventually begin to see improvement in your game. That being said, here are some things to consider:
You say you've read a chess book; which one? Esp. for beginner/intermediate players it's important to read the right books. e.g. a book covering a specific opening wouldn't be helpful. I learnt this the hard way: my bookshelf is full of books that are far too advanced/specific for me! (I'm still a class C player but I've gone from 1100 to 1500 in the last two years). I found the following books helped me to understand how to evaluate and plan, which also helped me to figure what my opponents are up to:
There's also a great video series by IM Lawrence Trent on Chess24 called Planning Unveiled.
Getting destroyed over and over is just a normal part of improving and you should come to terms with it. Analyse your games afterwards. First without an engine and then turn the engine on since it will help you find more accurate moves and expose flaws in your own analysis. Using the engine to find tactics you and/or your opponent missed is especially instructive and I do it all the time.
Just my 2c.
Cool, I'll be sure to include this. I already do this as part of my studying.
Right now I am picking games out of http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-Worlds-Greatest-Chess-Games/dp/0762439955
and - after move 10 or so - taking the role of W or B and guessing the moves...I also write down my thinking process.
https://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Chess-Endings-Karsten-M%C3%BCller/dp/1901983536
This is the book that Carlsen had in his too weak too slow video.
Its actually really good, better than Silman's book.
I know you asked for videos but there is a classic book called Logical Chess Move by Move that touts its 'every single move explained' approach. Might be up your alley if you are interested in a book.
So weird... I just found out about this game yesterday. I was looking for books on chess history at Borders and ended up buying The Immortal Game. So then I watched it play out in Chessmaster. And now here it is on Reddit.
While we're on the subject, what's the name of that phenomena where you hear a new word/learn about a new thing and then immediately afterwards you start hearing the word/references to the thing.
How to Reassess Your Chess - If you can only read one book this is the one to read. Third edition is insanely cheap, but if you want to fork over the extra 20 get the 4th edition.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Reassess-Your-Chess-Chess-Mastery/dp/1890085006/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1483020174&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=how+to+reassess+your+chess
Chess and the Art of War is a fun read. Easy and precise.
https://www.amazon.com/Chess-Art-War-Ancient-Wisdom/dp/0785832815
Bronstein, Zurich 1953. Easily one of the top five chess books ever written.
I thought that this book was very good.
I recommend Simple Chess by Michael Stean. It's short and to the point. I've read most of the books recommended here. They're all good but Simple Chess helped me the most.
I recently flipped through Spilman's Complete Endgame Course in a book store, and thought it was very well written and easy to digest. The chapters are based on level of difficulty (endgames for expert players, for A-class players, etc), rather than the type of endgame (rook and pawn, king and pawn, etc). Having already read Pandolfini's Endgame Course (a far more difficult read, by comparison), I found this chapter structure to be much better and more conducive to incremental learning.
As for saving yourself the $16.47, look for it in a library or just go to a book store and read it there without purchasing it (if you're in the US, Barnes & Nobles allows this).
I'm surprised no one has mentioned How to Reassess Your Chess by Jeremy Silman yet. I've linked to the previous edition, which is much cheaper (since you mentioned you didn't want to spend a lot more money). I found this book tremendously helpful in figuring out what to be thinking about when faced with a position on the board that doesn't have an obvious tactic or hanging piece.
Essentially, if you really want to get better at planning, there is simply no substitute for playing and analysing several games (as others have said). Chess is exceedingly difficult and requires significant effort; there's no way around it.
I really like this one : Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner to Master
https://www.amazon.com/Silmans-Complete-Endgame-Course-Beginner/dp/1890085103
The pawn structure is talking to you. It's telling you exactly where the pieces belong. Just listen, if necessary calculate, and make it so.
Each pawn structure dictates a different plan, so it is often difficult to generalize what to do in the absence of tactics for "all cases." You can start to generalize when you see big overarching patterns and techniques, but this is the stuff of decades of study.
A well heralded book on this is [Pawn Structure Chess] (http://www.amazon.com/Pawn-Structure-Chess-Andrew-Soltis/dp/1849940703) by Andy Soltis.
Edit:
An example is pawn rams. Eg 1.d4 d5. You have only 3 plans that work. Flank on the c file, flank on e file, or bite down on the center (c3, e3, Nf3, Bb2) and once the center is secure play for complete wing attacks/pawn storms (as you may know, wing attacks are best stopped by attacks in the center, hence the intense defense of the center).
Consequently, Nc3/Nc6 before moving the c pawn is very bad in most d pawn games because it's slows or eliminates two of the three plans, so you MUST play for an e pawn break.
This strategic info won't help you much in most Sicilian games.
i think this is what you are looking for: The Amateur's Mind: Turning Chess Misconceptions Into Chess Mastery
i have that book but haven't read yet. it is highly recommended. i will be able to make more accurate comments about the book after i read.
I like Modern Chess Strategy
I am currently going through this book by Ray Cheng-
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Chess-Exercises-Lessons-Strategy/dp/1587368013
I agree with this review segment -
What is it? It's 600 problems, six to a page, with solutions sketched (not detailed) on the facing page (which you need to keep covered with a sheet of note paper sized to fit the book). The problems are not the usual themed and rated tactics collection; they are a completely randomized assortment of REAL LIFE positions, many drawn from amateur games. They range from easy to hard, tactical to positional, opening to endgame, and attack to defense. But what is so great about the collection is that you are given not a single hint as to type, theme, or difficulty (until you look at the solution, wherein all is revealed). This simulates tournament play conditions exactly.
Pick up one of Jeremy Silman's books, like The Reassess Your Chess Workbook, or perhaps one from Yasser Seirawan - Winning Chess Tactics.
The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings by Reuben Fine is well thought of.
You can eliminate right off the bat How to Reassess Your Chess as your first Silman book to purchase. The FAQ on Silman's site includes a question on the order to read those three books. Here is his answer:
> The answer depends on your strength. However, let’s say you are 1800 or below. In that case read the 4th edition of How to Reassess Your Chess to page 28, next read all of The Amateur’s Mind, then go back to How to Reassess Your Chess and read the whole thing cover to cover. While reading those two books, spend some time going through Silman’s Complete Endgame Course (only reading as far as your rating level).
If you go to amazon.com's page for How to Reassess Your Chess and click the "Look Inside" link it gives you a preview of the Kindle edition. That preview includes more than the first 28 pages. The Kindle Edition doesn't have page numbers, but if I recall correctly page 28 takes you through "Part One/The Concept of Imbalances".
Given that, you only need to consider purchasing How to Reassess Your Chess after you have finished The Amateur's Mind.
The Immortal Game: A History of Chess.
Silmans Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner to Master is often recommended here
I'm asking for Ludek Pachman's Modern Chess Strategy as my first chess theory book. I guess I wanted a cool chess clock too, but I figured the book is simpler for others to find and get. I also had Lev Alburt's opening books in mind.
When I was a lad my dad never let me win against him at chess. He lent me this book, Logical Chess Move By Move. I set up a chessboard and played through all 40 of the historical games in this book. The book gives a short reason for each move. The results were incredible; suddenly I could hold my own.
Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking: From the First Move to the Last by Neil McDonald.
I liken it to Chernev's Logical Chess Move By Move: Every Move Explained but more up to date, covering games by Kasparov, Karpov, Kramnik, et al.
Logical Chess: Move By Move: Every Move Explained New Algebraic Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0713484640/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_edGRyb4EAXJBJ
Probably Logical Chess