Chess book?

Tim Robbins

What's a good chess book for someone who knows what basic chess concepts such as skewer, fork, get the pieces in the middle of the board at the beginning etc is but could do with plenty of improvement? I need to know more things about just good chess concepts and patterns.

RoundTower

Simon Webb's Chess for Tigers is a good book for what you want. Classic book, especially for players just above beginner level, should not be written off as a kids book. There are more good books but I can't think of another great one right now.

Two other resources that will help you:

the Novice Nook series by Dan Heisman at chesscafe.com. A lot of basic ideas about how you should approach different situations in the game. A new article every month, that link will take you to all the articles for the last 5+ years.

Chess by Laszlo Polgar. Doesn't explicitly teach you anything. In fact I think there's no text, apart from perhaps the chapter headings like "Mate in Two". It's a massive collection of tactical problems which are the single most important thing for you to concentrate on.

If you're just as comfortable doing the tactics online there is a great interactive site at the Chess Tactics Server, very simple concept but very useful. Problems for all standards of player -- it will find the appropriate level of problem for you very quickly.

Tim Robbins

RoundTower wrote: »

Simon Webb's Chess for Tigers is a good book for what you want. Classic book, especially for players just above beginner level, should not be written off as a kids book. There are more good books but I can't think of another great one right now.

Two other resources that will help you:

the Novice Nook series by Dan Heisman at chesscafe.com. A lot of basic ideas about how you should approach different situations in the game. A new article every month, that link will take you to all the articles for the last 5+ years.

Chess by Laszlo Polgar. Doesn't explicitly teach you anything. In fact I think there's no text, apart from perhaps the chapter headings like "Mate in Two". It's a massive collection of tactical problems which are the single most important thing for you to concentrate on.

If you're just as comfortable doing the tactics online there is a great interactive site at the Chess Tactics Server, very simple concept but very useful. Problems for all standards of player -- it will find the appropriate level of problem for you very quickly.

Thanks. I got Aron Nimzowitsch's 'My system'.

RoundTower

classic book but unless you are understating your ability/experience, it should be way too advanced for you. Read it, then put it away, then come back to it in a couple of years.

Tim Robbins

RoundTower wrote: »

classic book but unless you are understating your ability/experience, it should be way too advanced for you. Read it, then put it away, then come back to it in a couple of years.

Thanks, yes the writing in it is quite strange as well.
You need a board to go through it. Reading it on the train is very hard.

Jam-Fly

oh God, My System, way too advanced. It's not even just the chess concepts in it, it's the way he describes things, very complicated. (Btw, that's supposedly the "dumbed down" edition, you should see how wrote in the original version!)

I'd reccommend Raymond Keene's "Pocket Book of Chess". Really good book for people just starting out, explains the main concepts very well and very straightforward.

Also, it will give you a great headstart so you can read other books. What I mean is, he explains alot of the terms and concepts that seem basic and normal to the experienced chess player, but might not seem so normal to a newer chess player. Therefore, knowing and being aware of alot of these terms will make is so much easier to read other chess books and even to have chess conversations with players better than you (which is invaluable btw).

Abdiel

For positional concepts I would recommend the Jeremy Silman books - The Amateur's Game and How to reassess your chess. The amateur's game contains a collection of amateur games along with comments on how their planning was wrong and general concepts that one should be aware of - rooks on open files, etc.

For Tactics, there are loads, Dan Heisman has a recent one called "Back to Basics: Tactics" which is quite good for a start. Then maybe Learn Chess Tactics by John Nunn which is a bit more advanced or Understanding Chess Tactics by Martin Weteschnik - again more advanced examples and topics.

For a beginner, rather then concentrating on openings, I would recommend some game collections. The classic being Chernev's "Logical Chess Move by Move" which has great annotations and explanations. The best this I can say about this is that Chernev makes the game seem very simple! There are also a couple by Steve Giddins which fall into this as well 50 Essential Chess Lessons and 50 Ways to Win at Chess. Also I would recommend a collection of Morphy's games - always great to go over.

Jam-Fly

Yeah, Jeremy Silman is a great author. I would def reccommend his book, "How to Reassess Your Chess", at some point in your chess career. It's a good book to 'get you over that hump', but I think the OP should just a little bit more basic. One or two books, and forty or fifty games later, he should pick Silman's books imo.

banquo

I've got a few books if you want them. I live in Dublin / Kildare. You?