What about The Soviet Chess Primer?
Always the same boring books listed, like if they were so outstanding- in their own league. Silman, come on! Tal’s book, decent but there are 10 other attacking books at least that good if not better. Why “100 endgames you must know”? There are easily 10 better from Gambit alone. Again this “for club players”, so overrated. The listed books are VERY HYPED. They are not bad, but they are more of a meme, automatic soundbites when a player lazily must list some books.
Just an example, why wasn’t Tiviakov’s new series Rock Solid Chess mentioned? Absolutely fantastic. Where is San Luis 2005? Where is Dvoretskys books? J. Polgars triology? K. Mueller?
Just an example, why wasn’t Tiviakov’s new series Rock Solid Chess mentioned? Absolutely fantastic. Where is San Luis 2005? Where is Dvoretskys books? J. Polgars triology? K. Mueller?
About how to purchase the books I would like to add one source: If you have a chess shop in your city/nearby go there! These kind of special shops need our support! Or maybe do some research online and go to your local book store to order a book for you. I know amazon is nice and I buy there too, but for books it is really not necessary to buy online...
1100 lichess is not 1000 chess.com
A good list and I have a number of the books recommended on there (My System, The Anthology of Chess Combinations, Think Like a Grandmaster) and they're all well worth reading. Again like with the previous article I think the rating range listed is a bit odd - a 1100 player and 1800 player are very different strengths so I'm not sure how suitable they would all be for both players. Surely a 1100 player is a beginner and not intermediate? The Anthology of Chess Combinations in particular is literally just a book with thousands of chess puzzles from master strength or higher games and is quite challenging - I don't think it would be much help to someone rated 1100 and is probably more suited to 1800+ players, if not quite a bit higher (particularly if trying to find all the relevant lines).
On a separate note there's a small error in the article - for "Play Like a Super GM" it shows a picture of Kotov's "Think Like a Grandmaster" again.
On a separate note there's a small error in the article - for "Play Like a Super GM" it shows a picture of Kotov's "Think Like a Grandmaster" again.
The main problem with chess books is it uses old forms of notation that make no sense today. IM Levy Rozman recently published “How to win at chess” which is designed for the modern chess players taking advantage of QR codes bringing you to studies automatically. Also you don’t need a physical chess board in front of you to read since it shows a diagram each paragraph. It’s designed for beginner to around 1200 so it’s probably not for your list but Rozman’s book is in my opinion a good blueprint of how chess books should be designed nowadays. Perhaps these books you recommended need new editions to make them easier to understand without having to learn outdated notation methods.
Kotov :):):) This list is a joke. There is 100s of better books written in the 2000s. But hey, guys, good luck reading these 20 ”outstanding” gems
@mburg33 said in #7:
> The main problem with chess books is it uses old forms of notation that make no sense today. IM Levy Rozman recently published “How to win at chess” which is designed for the modern chess players taking advantage of QR codes bringing you to studies automatically. Also you don’t need a physical chess board in front of you to read since it shows a diagram each paragraph. It’s designed for beginner to around 1200 so it’s probably not for your list but Rozman’s book is in my opinion a good blueprint of how chess books should be designed nowadays. Perhaps these books you recommended need new editions to make them easier to understand without having to learn outdated notation methods.
I don't agree. There is no way around playing and analyzing on a real chessboard if you want to improve OTB. The look and feel is completely different and unless you are an experienced OTB player already you should use a real board.
> The main problem with chess books is it uses old forms of notation that make no sense today. IM Levy Rozman recently published “How to win at chess” which is designed for the modern chess players taking advantage of QR codes bringing you to studies automatically. Also you don’t need a physical chess board in front of you to read since it shows a diagram each paragraph. It’s designed for beginner to around 1200 so it’s probably not for your list but Rozman’s book is in my opinion a good blueprint of how chess books should be designed nowadays. Perhaps these books you recommended need new editions to make them easier to understand without having to learn outdated notation methods.
I don't agree. There is no way around playing and analyzing on a real chessboard if you want to improve OTB. The look and feel is completely different and unless you are an experienced OTB player already you should use a real board.
Silman's books are good because they are entertaining and not boring. Some books (like some of Dvoretsky's books) feel like you're getting tortured on Qo'nos. Dvoretsky and Yusupov's books are excellent but I would never recommend them to kids. They're just quite difficult if you don't have a burning passion for the game (and some of the endgame books can make you sleep, and some of the others have position tests after EVERY chapter). Kids like entertainment, and Silman was also an established chess coach--he knew how to entertain young people.
The Tal book is a classic. Read it years ago, just make sure you get one rewritten in algebraic notation.
Kotov's book is something I would *NOT* recommend to any intermediate player. This book is very hard work, plus some of his advice can't really be recommended (go through one branch of the tree one time only? what if you have trouble visualizing correctly? Do you just blunder anyway? No, you have to keep doing it during a game until you can see the position accurately--but obviously you need to train your visualization skills and mental focusing later).
The Tal book is a classic. Read it years ago, just make sure you get one rewritten in algebraic notation.
Kotov's book is something I would *NOT* recommend to any intermediate player. This book is very hard work, plus some of his advice can't really be recommended (go through one branch of the tree one time only? what if you have trouble visualizing correctly? Do you just blunder anyway? No, you have to keep doing it during a game until you can see the position accurately--but obviously you need to train your visualization skills and mental focusing later).