Book recommendations?

Panserborn

Hi all,

I have always wanted to learn chess properly (I know how the pieces move but have zero idea or training in tactics and strategy) but can't get to any clubs due to time constraints.

Can anyone recommend the best book they know of for beginners that will guide a player through simple openings, tactics and strategies?

Many thanks

ZorbaTehZ

Some books that I found usewful:

"Mastering the Chess Openings: Vol.1" John Watson
Gives a nice but brief introduction to strategy, and then the rest is focused on 1.e4 open & semi-open games.

I've also heard that "Chess Opening Essentials: Vol 1: The complete 1.e4" from Djuric, Komarov and Pantaleoni is excellent, but I can't say much otherwise on it.

Panserborn

Many thanks.

To show the level of my ignorance, what is "1.e4"?

macinalli

e4 is another way of saying Pawn to King 4. It's part of a notation used to describe moves in an easy concise way. The board has 8 files (a-h) and 8 ranks (1-8) - here's a wikipedia page describing how the grid is used - algebraic is by far the most common system used. You'll need to figure this out - otherwise you won't be able to read any books!

A club is by far the best way to learn, but if you can't make one then try playing online to try out what you're learning. Redhotpawn is a popular one here that is free to join and has players of all standards

ZorbaTehZ

Panserborn wrote: »

Many thanks.

To show the level of my ignorance, what is "1.e4"?

1 indicates it's the first move, e4 the position on the board.

1.e4 is by far the most common opening move in chess, and that's why it's the best place to start RE learning strategy.

macinalli

e4 is the most popular, but not "by far" the most popular opening move. Your 1st couple of moves will determine the type of game you have. Games starting with e4 tend to be quite open and can be pretty tactical; games starting with d4, c4 or Nf3 (the other popular openings) tend to be more positional and strategic. It's up to you to find an opening that gives you the type of game that suits your style - good luck!

Panserborn

Many thanks all, I'll look up the recommend books (and openings )!

mikhail

I think the books recommended here might be a little hard.

I'd recommend you look for a games collection, then flick through. If the comments are more text than chess notation, go with it.

If you can't find anything suitable, try Alexander Baburin (ababurin@iol.ie). He's a grandmaster based in Dublin who sells chess books here at tournaments and by post.

Static M.e.

Hi Panserborn,

Could you post back how you are getting along with learning chess.

Like yourself, its something I have been meaning to do for a long time now but I wont be able to start till after August (Thesis to write up).

It would be interesting to see what you thought was worthwhile for a beginner and what would be best left till later on.

Panserborn

Hey Static.

Will do, good to know there is another noob here as well.

I know the pain with a thesis, recently finished my PhD and all other aspects of life were put on hold, best of luck with it.

I've looked up all the books mentioned, they all have high reviews, but as a one of the comments mentioned there is a lot of notation to get used to. I guess thats just the way of it though.

namenotavailablE

For anyone starting out in chess who simply wants to see how the various pieces move you might be interested in the website http://www.chessgames.com, which features thousands of games by high-rated players.

You can play through the games on a board and see the pieces move from one square to another. This might help you to learn about the notation and also become a little more familiar with different openings. As you become more experienced, you might find that your tactical and strategic awareness will also improve and maybe even your positional understanding.

However, I'd second the preceding advice re getting a good book(s) to get to grips with the fundamentals (and, if possible, joining a club).

Sparks

Something I've found since coming back to the game is just how addictive buying chess books has become in the last two decades thanks to amazon and abebooks and the like. At the risk of seeming old (yes, I was only starting college when the web was invented), I only ever had Hoffer's book when I first started and never built up the library past that point. Now that there are ten million books one click and a credit card away, I've been trying to limit my library to sensible choices. So far I've been able to keep the numbers down -- the Starting Out everyman series and the Move by move series for openings (and this one which was an impulse buy), the Starting Out series along with Averbakh's Chess Endings for endgames; and a copy of The wisest things ever said about chess for the smallest room in the house for a total of thirteen books. But it's an addiction, and I've got a few more titles on the shopping list (Rowson, Heisman, Chernev, Hendriks and Silman to start...)

So I thought I might resurrect this thread to ask what people recommend for club players (as opposed to "I don't know what the little horsey does, what should I read" on one side and "I'm going for my GM norm next month, what should I read" on the other)-- and in what order they recommend (ie. read such-and-such when you're in the 1200-1400 range, read so-and-so when you get to about 1500, and so on).

So what do you recommend?

Ciaran

Books I've found useful were:
Sam Collins, Understanding the Chess Openings - Covers every (within reason) opening in a little detail, good for getting an idea of some of the ideas in an opening before starting to play it. Useful for anyone up to 1800 at a guess, though you'd need something more specialised as well at the upper end to start playing an opening.
Jeremy Silman, Reassess Your Chess - Covers lots of positional ideas that, looking back, you think you should have known about but didn't. Useful for 1300-1600 maybe.
Mikhail Tal, The Life and Games of - Interesting even just for the life parts but the games are fantastic. Great for reminding you why chess is great and studying world champions' games can't hurt either. Anyone would get something out of it but the better you are, the more it'll do for you I suspect.
Vladimir Vukovic, Art of Attack - Even if you learn nothing from it, just looking at the attacking themes is fun. If nothing else, the mating patterns at the start useful to know. Some of it is probably a bit beyond me but I definitely felt like I'd learned something from reading it! Rating-wise, I'd say you'd want to be 1400/1500+ to get a lot out of it.

Those rating estimates are guesswork for the most part and it'll depend on your own strengths and weaknesses but they might give some idea at least.

mikhail

Sparks wrote: »

So what do you recommend?

Unless I missed it, you don't have a good games collection. I'd rectify that. Tal's autobiography is popular, as is Fischer's My 60 Best Games but there are plenty of good books by modern and recent players from Kasparov to Gelfand.

Sparks

I've got an old photocopy of a chunk of Chernev's Most instructive games of chess, but you're right, I don't have a paper copy of it or other annotated games collections. Consider it added to the list...

Mel O Cinneide

@Panserborn: You write "zero idea or training in tactics and strategy" and you don't know chess notation? Then please ignore for the time being all the excellent books that have been recommended here. Get a book called "Begin Chess" or suchlike. For a concrete recommendation I'd go for "Learn Chess" by John Nunn. Somewhere down the road you'll be ready for the other suggestions here. And avoid all discussion of openings at this stage!

cdeb

Panserborn has posted once in the last 18 months, so it's probably unlikely they'll see your advice!

But it does hold for beginners in general alright.

Lucena

Mel O Cinneide wrote: »

@Panserborn: You write "zero idea or training in tactics and strategy" and you don't know chess notation? Then please ignore for the time being all the excellent books that have been recommended here. Get a book called "Begin Chess" or suchlike. For a concrete recommendation I'd go for "Learn Chess" by John Nunn. Somewhere down the road you'll be ready for the other suggestions here. And avoid all discussion of openings at this stage!

I think Sparky was restarting the thread to talk about books, not specifically ones useful for the OP.

Having said that, one piece of advise I would give anyone, after my ten years of playing chess and buying books is: Buy one book, finish it, and don't buy another book in between. I've broken this rule, everyone has, and it's not a good way to improve.

This isn't just a "I've so many chess books in my house I have to sleep outside lol" remark, I genuinely feel this book-hopping is almost a waste of time. The author, assuming they put their hearts into it, actually has a plan in their book. For (a made up) example, chapter one looks at the importance of castling early, chapter two at exploiting the fact that the opponent hasn’t castled, chapter three shows how to prevent them from castling etc. If you only read chapter one, then read something else, then come back to chapter two six months later, you’ll have lost the thread of what the author was trying to point out.

There are exceptions to this rule, opening books and ‘My Best Games’ type collections, but other than that I still think it’s important to stick to the rule.