(Part 2) Best products from r/chess

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):

• 5 hrs per week playing slow games (g60+5 at least) against players 100-200 points better than you, with occasional games against weaker players.
  
  
• 2-3 hours per week studying tactics, starting with safety and counting, simple mates and winning material. I use the excellent "Chess Tactics for Beginners" and CT-ART on my phone, and they also have PC applications. You can also do tactics at chesstempo.com or chess.com, but I find the structured studies better to start since you will be working through a theme and that helps guide your thoughts.
  
  
• 1-2 hours per week of reading, he recommends you split this between playing through annotated master games (Logical Chess Move by Move by Irving Chernev is a great place to start) and reading some more text based book on principles or improvement.
  
  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
  

I make study programs all the time. I like designing them for myself and testing them; usually they're very effective. It all depends upon how much time you have to spare. Self Study is key; I wouldn't waste my time with a coach, unless you can find a magical coach. I tried one and I hated it.

I'll break everything down by category and include some books.

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Tactics: I'd just use Chesstempo.com for tactics. Don't waste your money on the paid version; it's not necessary. I just imagine that eventually you'd be able to buy a book with the money you waste on ChessTempo and a book is a permanent resource that you could have with you for the rest of your life. When you get really good like 1900uscf+ as far as books go, I'd say try out Paata Gaprindashvili's book, Imagination in Chess.[http://www.amazon.com/Imagination-Chess-Creatively-Foolish-Mistakes/dp/0713488913] It's a complete Titan of a book and the puzzels are EXTREMELY difficult.

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Positional/Strategical play: I usually recommend Jeremy Silman's Reassess your Chess 4th edition, but Lately i've been recommending John Nunn's, Undersatnding Middle Games, because Jeremy Silman's writing is really fun the FIRST or SECOND time you read through it, but he has a lot of jokes and other nonsense he prattles on about, so it becomes really burdensome to read through over and over... Be warned, I only have a Kindle Sample of John Nunn's book, but It looks much more serious and perhaps even superior.

As far as practicing the skills you gain from one of those two books, I'd like to recommend Jeremy Silman's Work Book. I'd probably say Buy Nunn's book and then buy the Silman work book. The workbook has a crash course on "Silman's" imbalances, and I think that'd probably be sufficient.

Links:

1. How to reassess your Chess[http://www.amazon.com/How-Reassess-Your-Chess-Fourth/dp/1890085138/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406648641&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+reassess+your+chess+4th+edition&dpPl=1]
   
   
2. John Nunn's Understanding Chess Middle Games [http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Chess-Middlegames-John-Nunn/dp/1906454272]
   
   
3. The Reassess Your Chess Workbook [http://www.amazon.com/The-Reassess-Your-Chess-Workbook/dp/1890085057/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=0HNX7EVVHTZFVJ30BY6A]
   
   ---------------
   Endings:
   
   There are some amazing endgame sources out there, but I'd probably stick with Jeremy Silman's Complete endgame course. [http://www.amazon.com/Silmans-Complete-Endgame-Course-Beginner/dp/1890085103/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1N286TXXYT32NB4SY38C]
   
   If you want a much more serious and a much heavier book you can try Fundamental Chess Endings[http://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Chess-Endings-Karsten-Muller/dp/1901983536/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406648960&sr=1-9&keywords=chess+endgame+books]
   
   
   ------------
   Openings: I'd probably just stick with general openings for now. Studying openings in depth takes up an enormous amount of time. ENORMOUS. If you study them in depth, you'll have no time for anything else unless you literally sit at home for 8 hours a day just doing nothing.
   
   I'd like to direct you to Roman's Lab on Youtube.com:
   
   
4. I have not watched this one, but it's probably just as good as the 1.d4 video series [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2gZ45qkPCQ]
   
   2.Or you can watch this one(it's the 1.d4 video series), which I used in tournaments vs 1700-2000uscf and was extremely successful [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX9Ax29jZ1k]
   
   
   
   For black? It's harder, I don't know any good videos like there are for white. You could try wikipedia and play something safe like Caro-kann vs e4 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caro_Kann_Defense] and vs d4 play something safe and reliable like Queen's Gambit Declined [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Gambit_Declined]
   
   The only problem with those openings is that it's hard to lose and it's also hard to win, so they're not too dynamic and it may be hard to find a plan as a beginner. Many people say do the Nimzo vs d4 and the sicilian vs e4, but they can be much sharper and a lot easier to lose with if you don't know what you're doing. I always preferred solid over dynamic tight rope walking; it's kind of a pain.
   
   
   ----------
   
   I'd also recommend an annotated chess book, so that you can go over the games and basically round up all the above training.
   I like Franco Zenon:
   
   1.The Art of Attacking Chess[http://www.amazon.com/Art-Attacking-Chess-Zenon-Franco/dp/1904600972/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406649342&sr=1-2&keywords=franco+zenon+attack]
   
   2.Grandmaster Secrets: Counter-Attack! [http://www.amazon.com/Grandmaster-Secrets-Counter-Attack-Zenon-Franco/dp/1906454094/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_z]
   
   Both by Franco Zenon. Also great is: "How Karpov Wins." [http://www.amazon.com/How-Karpov-Wins-Second-Enlarged/dp/0486278816/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406649393&sr=1-3-fkmr0&keywords=how+to+win+like+karpov]
   
   Some people also recommend John Nunn's "Understanding Chess Move by move" but i've never even looked inside of it before: [http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Chess-Move-John-Nunn/dp/1901983412/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406649416&sr=1-2&keywords=Chess+move+by+move&dpPl=1]
   
   
   Also Check out the Saint Louise Chess Club on youtube. Ben Finegold and Akobian offer the BEST annotations on the games. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjZiy6FqqyE)
   
   
   ------
   
   Conclusion: well, it's long as hell, but that basically sums it up. As far as applying all these things to study you can do something simple like
   
   Monday-Sunday (this is Mon,Tues,Wed,Thurs,Fri,Sat, AND Sun) Do like 10-20 Tactical puzzles on Chess Tempo, and 2-5 Silman's Workbook puzzles everyday.
   
   Every 2 or 3 days do 1 game out of Franco Zenon's Book or Karpov's or whatever Annotated resource you have. (Studies show masters and the better chess players spent the most time looking at master games)
   
   On Friday-Saturday-Sunday: Study your openings and Endgames
   
   This should be enough to provide you with very rapid and substantial improvement. You pretty much get what you put into it. If you get a coach, all he is going to do is open a book like one of the above mentioned ones and just do exercises out of it, or something very similar. Except you have to pay him like $50-$100 an hour, when you could just buy the ENTIRE book for like $15 or $20 ONCE and you have the ENTIRE information for a lifetime.

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:

• Everyone's Second Chess Book Revised and Expanded Edition
  
  
• Logical Chess: Move By Move: Every Move Explained New Algebraic Edition
  
  
• Complete Book of Chess Strategy: Grandmaster Techniques from A to Z
  
  
  Also visit quality websites (Some recommendations below but not the only ones by any means...)
  
  
• From Beginner to Chess Expert in 12 Steps
  "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"
  
  
  
• Predator at the Chessboard
  
  Always do your best and enjoy the game! Good luck!

Well, nice win! After checking out the game, here are some thoughts:

You should strive to play stronger opponents that will punish you when you play listlessly.In the game your development was pretty aimless but your opponent pretty much let you go scot free.A stronger opponent might probably have demonstrated the drawbacks of your position.

Planning in chess is a vast, complicated area obviously and there are no simplistic answers. The summary of what I've learnt is that it's easier (and better) to simply know the typical plans than to try and formulate them during a game*.So a lot of your training should be devoted to learning typical structures and the plans associated with them the same way you do with tactics e.g the h4 push in the Caro is a pretty standard theme.One way to do this would be to simply go through lots of master games in your favorite openings and increase your pattern bank.

A more effortful approach is to go through individual middle-games solitaire-style and try to predict the master's moves.Whenever you're wrong you should try and find out why(with an engine, stronger player, game annotations etc).

Obviously you should also try to improve your baseline positional knowledge by looking at books and going through annotated games from positional players.Finally, tactics are still king, especially at your level(as your game demonstrated).All the strategic plans in the world don't matter if you're dropping pieces to forks.Getting better at tactics and short-term calculation will make you a far better player than any profound planning ever will.So getting better at tactics should still be occupying most of your time for the foreseeable future.

- I'm doing a poor job explaining this so I will just recommend a very** good book on chess improvement theories and planning - https://www.amazon.com/Move-First-Think-Later-Improving/dp/9056913980

Some other recommended books:


Michael Stean's Simple Chess for basic positional play

Botvinnik's & Karpov's game collections

The biggest bang for your buck that you'll get right now is solving tactics. Next, you should play slow games, and review those games. Double check your analysis with preferably a stronger player, but if you don't have one, use an engine. The key is in detecting and exploiting tactical shots (or defending them).

As for strategy, I would recommend Seirawan's book on strategy in the "winning chess" series. I didn't find the series itself very helpful, but the "strategy" installment is a gem. Here's the amazon link for it: https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Chess-Strategies-Everyman/dp/1857443853

It's great for beginners, as the chapters are broken into strategic themes, each having very clear cut illustrations in the games provided. There's more explaining of the position with words rather than with variations, which I think is really helpful for those more fresh on their chess journey. You should still go through the variations on a board in front of you, though. It's a great book to help nail down some strategic fundamentals.

A word of warning: Strategy in chess is like learning to write poetry in a foreign language. However, if you struggle speaking the language, or don't know enough of the words, the sophistication is wasted on you. In chess, if you play strategically sophisticated ideas only to blunder to some tactical shot, the sophistication wasn't so helpful. For most efficient improvement, spend more time studying tactics.

It's one of my only regrets in chess; early on I obsessed over strategy, and was frustrated to find that my opponent would play inferior ideas and win tactically anyway, or that the positions in which I had an advantage would fizzle into nothing, because I lacked the ability to capitalize on the advantage with tactics. Tactics really should come first.

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.

• http://amzn.com/0879801107 [1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate]
  
  
• http://amzn.com/0879801115 [1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices]
  
  
• All three books in the Test Your Chess IQ series.
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/John-Nunns-Chess-Puzzle-Book/dp/1906454035 [John Nunn's Chess Puzzle Book]
  
  [2] Endings
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Chess-.../dp/1857443489 [Winning Chess Endings]
  
  
• http://amzn.com/1936490137/ [Dvoretsky]
  
  [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:
  
  
• http://amzn.com/1857446682/ [Lessons With a Grandmaster]
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Pump-Your-Rating-Axel-Smith/dp/1907982736 [Pump Up Your Rating] [possibly my favorite chess book]
  
  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
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Chess-Algebraic-Edition-Dover/dp/0486424200 [Simple Chess]
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/The-Reassess-Y.../dp/1890085057 [Reassess Your Chess Workbook]
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/dp/9056914340/ [Techniques of Positional Play]
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Pawn-Structure-Chess-Andrew-Soltis/dp/1849940703 [Pawn Structure Chess]
  
  
  [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.

My favorite 2 books:

• Simple Chess - great for explaining fundamental positional goals in a game especially what to do with your pawns.
  
• Logical Chess Move by Move - goes over the reason behind every move in historical chess games.
  
  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.
  

The first two games of Boris Gulko's Lessons With A Grandmaster present two sides of this position.

In the first game (Gulko vs. Radjabov, 2001), Boris plays white and the opening is: 1. g3 g6 2. Bg2 Bg7 3. d4 d6 4. e4 e5?! 5. dxe5! dxe5 6. Qxd8+ Kxd8

He goes on to demonstrate how he continually maintains the initiative after this position, first by fianchettoing his dark square bishop to attack the e-pawn, then by forcing a trade of his weak light square bishop for black's dominant light square bishop, and then by initiating a break with the f-pawn. He's basically a move ahead the whole game on the back of this opening queen trade, but it's also important for him to constantly maintain the initiative to take advantage of it.

One quote from this game I liked "In general, when you are worse, you should avoid active moves, especially in the endgame." Essentially this is black making more complications for themselves while white already has the initiative. Also, "When you have the advantage in the endgame, exchange pieces not pawns; if you are worse, exchange pawns not pieces." A number of times in this game Boris opts to trade pieces or recapture in a way that forces trading pieces rather than pawns.

In the second game (Browne vs. Gulko, 1991), Boris plays black, and the opening is: 1. d4 d6 2. e4 Nf6 3. Nc3 e5 4. dxe5 dxe5 5. Qxd8+ Kxd8 6. Nf3 Bd6 7. Bc4

This time he allows himself to be on the receiving end of the queen trade. The position is more cluttered, however, and he responds with 7...Be6!, trading his dark square bishop and gaining doubled pawns. I found this confusing, but he explains that the doubled pawns are very strong because they are doubled CENTER pawns, and they control a huge amount of space. He then plays defensively, using his knights to threaten the e4 pawn and the d4 square, forcing white's knight's to stay where they are to guard those squares. He goes on to trade a knight for white's remaining bishop and eventually wins a with RRB vs. white's RRN after a very tactical end game. I think the main point about accepting the queen trade in this game was that the position allowed him to prevent white from maintaining initiative by using his doubled center pawns and knights to blockade white's position. Amusingly enough, white never castled in this game either.

Anyway, I'm still pretty much a noob, but my takeaway from these games was not that "you should always do a queen swap in the opening to prevent your opponent from castling," but rather, "Qxd8/Qxd1 are interesting tools that can prevent your opponent from castling and take initiative, but make sure you consider what might happen afterward, too."

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:

• Pawn Power in Chess is a good book to learn about pawn structures. I only skimmed the chapters on openings I was playing at the time, but I liked the content.
  
  
• Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy is a more modern book on chess strategy. Not as impactful to me as Silman's book, but it's more advanced and I remember it helping me go from 1800ish level to 2000+

>even prior to looking for forcing moves, try to understand the key features of the position

I'm very skeptical about this. I've read this advice so many times, but in hindsight I think this advice made me a much weaker chess player. After reading Move First, Think Later, in which IM Hendriks argues that this "First look at positional characteristics, and only then look at moves" notion is not even close to how strong players think, my chess has become much stronger.

I think strong players, upon looking at a chess position, look at moves immediately — especially forcing moves. They can't help it. And this is good, because looking at moves tells us so much about the position. Hendriks argues that strong players look at moves and positional features at the same time, and I'm convinced this is the only way one can play chess well.

For example, in the position in this thread, my first thought was 1.Qxh6+ Kxh6. When I saw that this didn't work, I considered that 1.Ne7+ and 1.Nxf6+ would pin the rook. I then noticed the solution. It took me around two seconds to solve this, but only because I looked at moves instantly without prejudice. Had I tried to follow your advice, I would have taken much longer, and I would have used more energy.

And didn't you do the same? I doubt a single strong chess player would look at a position like this and refuse to calculate forcing moves until they've taken a step back.

By the way, here's John Watson's review of Hendriks's book:

http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/john-watson-book-review-103-challenging-conventional-wisdom

Note how Watson agrees with Hendriks (and me!) that this idea, despite being taught in chess books throughout history, is fundamentally wrong.

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.

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.).

Great post, and now I'm excited to read your book when it comes out! When I read chess books I transcribe them to PGN for future study, and usually there is a lot of editing that happens on the way from book to PGN. Lots of cutting, rephrasing, and digging to try to better understand some of the concepts.

I'm currently reading Simple Chess by Michael Stean and it's a breath of fresh air. Everything he writes feels valuable and important. He has a few Fischer games in there as well and I think did a great job with them.

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.

OP, this is for down the road once you have some experience and are no longer hanging pieces:

> My question is, should I try a bunch of openings depending on how my opponent is playing even if I'm not fluent with those openings, or should I focus on 1 opening for white/black and play that every time to advance my knowledge of that 1 opening and increase my win % of that opening?

There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. If you specialize in an opening, it will be easier for you to get a good position out of the opening, and you'll have a better understanding of how to proceed in the middlegame. On the other hand, if you try a bunch of openings you'll get exposure to a wider variety of positions. So it's really a tradeoff and you'll ultimately have to decide for yourself.

How to Build Your Chess Opening Repertoire by Steve Giddins gives more details about this and other types of decisions you'll have to make when choosing openings.

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!

That's a piece of art for your house, not something to really play chess on. If your son has a nice modern apartment and he's looking for something fun to put on his coffee table then maybe you've got a winner on your hands. If you want to get him a nice board to play chess on try these.

https://www.houseofstaunton.com/walnut-and-maple-wooden-tournament-chessboard.html

https://www.amazon.com/Staunton-Tournament-Chess-Pieces-Wegiel/dp/B000Z9G456/ref=sr_1_9?keywords=chessmen&qid=1573834060&sr=8-9

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).

What is your budget and where are you based?

Assuming the US, this is quite a nice a nice set for a very cheap price: http://www.amazon.com/Staunton-Tournament-Chess-Pieces-Wood/dp/B000Z9G456/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1420904554&sr=8-12&keywords=chess+set+wooden

It's a tiny bit smaller than I'd like (the king is just over 3.5"), but it's still a decent size. I also love black pieces that are actually chocolate brown - they just look classy IMO.

I recommend Yasser Seriawan's book 'Play Winning Chess', especially the chapter on 'Time'. The concept of developing with threats and winning tempos is dealt with in there, and there are some great examples. Having read this and played through the examples, I'm much less worried about seeing a queen come out on move three or four, and see it as a challenge to gain a lead in development.

https://www.amazon.com/Play-Winning-Chess-Everyman/dp/1857443314

| How much better could some of these titans actually become?

One answer would be: no better than the technology and wisdom he was handed in the tablet.

In John Nunn's Chess Puzzle Book (expanded edition) is the chapter, "The Test of Time" (not to be confused with the same-titled book by Kasparov). The author's thesis - based on his studying of games - is that the world's best players of about a century ago would be about 2100 FIDE strength today.

I'd be most interested if the tablet were handed to Alekhine or Rubinstein, both obsessive perfectionists. Or Nimzowitsch, whose articulate writings were accessible and groundbreaking. Or the hypermodernists, Tartakower, Breyer and Reti, who had wild imaginations. Or God Himself: maybe He would've beaten Steinitz in their games.

I'd recommend going over Murray Chandler's Chess for Children with your son. It's a fun book to read along with a child and to do the 'tricky tests' together and is his great illustrations for children. You can take a look at it here

If your son is still keen after that you can try Chess Tactics for Kids and How to beat your Dad at chess by the same author are also good.

Great! You're getting some good books. I'm sure you'll be pleased.

Do you have a setup for following along with chess books? Do you use a board, a travel set, your computer, a tablet, &c.? Following along with a game book is important to snap those patterns into your brain.

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.

I've used Chessmaster 10th Edition and I think it's pretty good if you can get your hands on it. You can check out the Grandmaster Edition too, since it's more recent. Takes you from barebones how-the-pieces-move stuff, all the way up to tactics and positional strategy, plus some good analysis of the most popular openings and a few dozen grandmaster-level games, so by the end of it you'll have a small repertoire of openings that you can build on.

My first chess books and they laid a great foundation IMO.

Winning Chess Tactics (Winning Chess - Everyman Chess) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1857443861/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_6cxuyb72M9N01


Winning Chess Strategies (Winning Chess - Everyman Chess) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1857443853/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_Kdxuyb38ZVT8B

Not necessarily - but you mentioned portability =) For me, portability means 20-30 cm (8-12 inches), and probably foldable sets.

You could get a tournament sized set for 50$ or less. However, a travel set for 50-75$ is a fairly good quality travel set. A tournament sized set means 50-75$ gives you a cheap/lower midrange set. Somewhat depending on what you consider to be midrange of course =)

Very common tournament board + pieces used by a lot of chess clubs:

• https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Tournament-Chess-Board-No/dp/B000Z9EIGS (39$)
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Staunton-Tournament-Chess-Pieces-Wegiel/dp/B000Z9G456 (35$)
  
  
  Edit: I know that a lot of americans will disagree because they have to carry their own chess sets around at tournaments like common barbarians, but I really do not enjoy playing on plastic chess sets.

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.

You're going to have to be more specific with what you mean by endings.

If you meant it in the sense of...

• basic checkmating patterns (K+R v K, K+Q v K, etc..), then there are a million tutorials and other resources available online.
  
• Theoretical endgames (K+p v K, B+P v N, etc..) where there are very few pieces on the board, and a result can be guaranteed with perfect play, then something akin to Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual would go a long way. Look up the resulting type of endgame after you finish you game, and look at the winning/drawing technique. Speed will come with repetition.
  
• If you mean complicated endings where there are still many pieces on the board, then the best practice is to play endings against a similarly rated opponent. Unfortunately, I don't know of any ways to do this easily online and so my practice partner and I meet up fairly regularly to do this OTB.

I thought The Complete Book of Chess Strategy was an amazing first read. It's a quick read that can help a lot in my opinion. Teaches fundamentals, lingo, etc. It's written for someone who kind of knows chess and is willing to learn more. It was the first one I picked up. 10/10 would recommend for a beginner.
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Chess-Strategy-Grandmaster/dp/1890085014

Techniques of Positional Play: 45 Practical Methods to Gain the Upper Hand in Chess

It's anything but terrible. It's limited, yes. But knowing back rank mates and how to avoid them are very useful for a beginner.

Seirawan's "Play Winning Chess would be a good supplement.

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

---
Intermediate:

Practical Chess Exercises By: Ray cheng


The Art of Defense in Chess By: Andrew Soltis

Pawn Structure Chess By: Andrew Soltis

---

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

Back in the olden days we used to use something very much like this.

Most people just use smartphones nowadays, though. Not having to carry anything extra, and having a GM-level helper, is very nice.

btw you should totally grab one of these https://www.amazon.com/Chess-Checkbook-Magnetic-Travel-Set/dp/B004G0S39K/ref=sr_1_28?keywords=travel+chess+board+pocket&qid=1569519347&s=gateway&sr=8-28

or these https://www.amazon.com/WE-Games-Magnetic-Pocket-Travel/dp/B07KV8H7FS/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=travel+chess+board+pocket&qid=1569519395&s=gateway&sr=8-6

for just over ten bucks, this has been a super worthy investment for me. it lets you read those crazy complicated lines really simply just by following along real quick. also you can read and follow along in public without looking like a crazy person, it's much more subtle then a full size board. also, i mean, it fits easily in the front pouch of your backpack or your back pocket

If you have a Windows PC, Chessmaster is still fantastic to improve your chess: https://www.amazon.com/Chessmaster-Grandmaster-Linux/dp/B000SL4ANE/

Works on Windows XP and 7, but not sure about Windows 8 or 10. But there are patches and people claim it can be played on Windows 10 too.

Seconded. The tutorials are amazing. You can get the 10th Edition for $5.64 on Amazon. It doesn't seem that they've made any considerable changes in the Grandmaster Edition to warrant the extra money, so 10th edition seems the way to go.

To elaborate a bit on the tutorials, if you're a beginner, and in the unfortunate habit of hanging pieces, the course will get you analyzing the whole board while you unconsciously learn how to avoid simple hangings and more complicated tactical blunders. Intermediate players may gain less from the series, but annotated games from Josh Waitzkin and Larry Christensen breed confidence in tactical and positional awareness.

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.

Thanks for responding :) Are you talking about this one and does it give example games I could look at?

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.

I recommend Chess Steps. It's a program geared towards kids that'll take them from beginner to A/B level.

Murray Chandler's Chess for Children is also a good book.

Looks like an endorsement to "Move First Think Later" school of thought ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/Move-First-Think-Later-Improving/dp/9056913980 ).

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&ie=UTF8&qid=1483020174&sr=1-2&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

This is the shit. Trust me.

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.

Skip Silman books, use [Seirawan] (https://www.amazon.com/Play-Winning-Chess-Everyman/dp/1857443314/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1495561713&sr=8-2&keywords=seirawan) books.

Significantly better.

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.

You could try something like this: US Chess Checkbook Magnetic Travel Chess Set - by US Chess Federation https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004G0S39K/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_OvAxybFRV17JW

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004G0S39K/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_6ruVBb7YBCKN8

If you're ever making a random amazon order here's the set on there. I think it's more expensive, but it does have the amazon convenience factor.

I always like to have a "Show" board and a "Play" board (which I usually bring to tournaments). The show board looks to be what you have in the links above. I think you need a quality board that can take abuse. Perhaps something a bit more generic, but FAR more rugged. I recommend something along these lines. You can beat it up, it's weighted, it's tournament size, it's quality, and it's not the end of the earth if it ends up getting damaged because it's entirely replaceable. Keep your show pieces exactly that... for SHOW. Get yourself a travel set like this immediately.

https://www.amazon.com/Chess-Children-Worlds-Popular-Board/dp/1904600069

Buy this book - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9056914340/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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

Magnetic travel chess

Not the exact one but close enough