Capablanca book

I am new in chess. I have one book it's name is Chess Fundamentals by capablanca.Is this book right for me for my level?How am I study this book?

1) Yes. 2) By reading it and playing through on a board.

The book assumes you know the basic rules.

If you do, it's an excellent place to start.

A couple decades ago Nick de Firiman 'updated' it.  Many of us consider that version a malicious defacement of the original.

The original version is commonly available via used book sellers. 

Don't worry about descriptive notation, you should learn and be comfortable all notation styles.

I agree. De Firmian took a lot of flak for that McKay version:

https://www.amazon.com/Chess-Fundamentals-Revised-Jose-Capablanca/dp/0812936817/

I also agree that it's good to learn descriptive notation, as there are still a lot of good chess books that haven't yet been converted to algebraic notation. However, I should point out that Everyman Chess issued an algebraic version, and they didn't hack it up like De Firmian did:

https://www.amazon.com/Chess-Fundamentals-Algebraic-Jose-Capablanca/dp/1857440730/

Read this book also....

"Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess"

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/bobby-fischer-teaches-chessa-book-review

"... 'Chess Fundamentals' ... does not deal so minutely as this book will with the things that beginners need to know. ..." - from Capablanca's A Primer of Chess

IMO Chess Fundamentals is the most over-rated chess primer around. Its main virtue seems to be the satisfaction some experienced players get when recommending it to newbies.

I notice players who recommend CF never tell us it was one of the formative books they read early on. Though I imagine there are exceptions.

Which is not to say CF is a bad book, but I don't think it's a good book for most beginners. The endgame emphasis is a lot of work for positions most newbies will never see. The opening and middle game stuff is good but scattershot. The annotated games making up the second half of the book will be entirely over a beginner's head.

CF is more a book for 1200+ players who sorta know their way around a chessboard and have started to realize how much they don't know.

And no, descriptive notation is not something any beginner in the 21st century should bother with. It's not trivial to pick up descriptive and it's very frustrating to learn from a chess book when you misread the chess moves. Being a chess beginner is hard enough.

There are algebraic versions of Chess Fundamentals. Stick with those.

I grew up on descriptive notation. I returned to chess a few years ago. Of course I knew how to read algebraic but not so well that I didn't keep getting the rank wrong as that is the key difference between algebraic and descriptive.

I also remember how long it took me as a beginner before I could play through an entire game score accurately in descriptive notation. I was a bright lad too.

Almost everything significant in chess literature has been reissued in algebraic. Unless one's goal is to save a couple bucks buying old chess books, there is not much reason to learn descriptive.

For the record, because Capablanca is on record saying that the best way to learn chess is to start from the endgame, Capablanca himself didn't learn chess that way. He learned chess, we are told, by the age of four from watching his father play for a while, then beat his father twice the first two games he played.

Well. We've all been there.

Not.

I will respectfully submit that Capablanca doesn't have much to say to ordinary human beings about learning to play chess and that what Capa said isn't how he learned in any event.

Thank you for your long and satisfying answer 

"... For let’s make no mistake, what ground Capablanca covers, he covers well. I enjoyed reading Capablanca’s presentation of even well-worn and standard positions. ...

Still, when compared with other instructional books for beginners and intermediate players, Capablanca’s Chess Fundamentals would not be my first choice. Other books cover the same or similar ground with a less confusing structure and more thoroughness. The following works come to mind as equal or in some ways superior: Lasker’s Common Sense in Chess; Znosko-Borovsky’s series of books; and Edward Lasker’s Chess Strategy. Later works that equal or surpass Chess Fundamentals would include Reuben Fine’s Chess the Easy Way and any number of Horowitz tomes.

Capablanca’s work has historical interest and value, of course, and for that reason alone belongs in any chess lover’s library. But there are better instructional books on the market. Certainly the works of Seirawan, Silman, Pandolfini, Polgar, Alburt, etc. are more accessible, speak a more modern idiom, and utilize advances in chess teaching and general pedagogy, etc. ..." - David Kaufman (2007)

https://web.archive.org/web/20131010102057/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review564.pdf

Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

Enjoy!

Sorry I got carried away there! 

Good review by David Kaufmann. I'm glad I'm not the only person who notices the deficiencies of "Chess Fundamentals" as a book for beginners.

The 14 games themselves  at the end is sufficient for the intermediate player.The book may seem unstructured to some but is the perfect output of the genius.No wonder Botvinnik who knows what he is talking about said Chess Fundamentals was the best chess book.

Both parts in bold, which are the whole of this quoted post, are/is completely irrelevant and incorrect and dead wrong in regard to how the fundamentals of chess should be taught and how the beginner to intermediate should approach the chess and learning and thinking in chess.

Capablanca knew very well, from his vast club experience and his career, as well as from his youth, how the chess is played and what is essential. Botvinik (disregard from his friendship with Capa) was not slow to recognize this.

The whole of the book is written in no-nonsense, straight forward manner, and it does address the essence of the game of chess as it really should be done, without any flowery depicting, irrelevancies and nonsense chit-chat and small talk.

The best advice I can give to the starter of the thread is to disregard posts like these completely, and to dive into this book, but to look happily elsewhere if not satisfied or wanting to complement on the matter given in the book at any particular moment.

Yes, you should, of course, absolutely read other books as well, Bobby Fischer, etc., there are good books out there, which can save a lot of time and make the improvement of the player faster, and make life for the student somewhat easier.

I did read some of these "negatively inclined" posts, in particular the one quoted, and was just in disbelief, mostly over how poor, incorrect and irrelevant the lines of the arguments supporting the "opinion" in these posts are, and with which sort of ease and confidence they are delivered.  


I am refraining myself from the further commenting on the quoted post in particular, for the moment, but many, far more knowledgeable chess people would have a great deal to say about it.
All of this was just my spontaneous reaction upon reading what was written there, when confronted at the same time with Capa's book.

Have b_zein and ipcress12 been here since 2017?

Anyway: "... 'Chess Fundamentals' ... does not deal so minutely as this book will with the things that beginners need to know. ..." - from Capablanca's A Primer of Chess

Now, I really do not see much substance in that remark, that is - in relevance to what I have addressed in my post, respectfully. The remark there is, of course, relevant as pointing out the difference between the two books ( I have not become familiar with "A primer of Chess" - yet).

I am not familiar with the difference between these two books from Capa, and I think it might suffice to say that both of those should be then consulted according to one own's level and needs.

Having said all of what I have said earlier, this post - for instance - is well argumented, since it gives the alternatives and says why, in more concise and nuanced manner.

My opinion is still that Capa's books are not to be underestimated and are well worth looking into, but I do like the suggestions given in the quoted post.

Notable exception would be, according to my limited experience, and somewhat dry taste, the Pandolfini book. I have started to read one of his beginner's books, and I have to say that I would choose Capa's books before it in no time and with no doubt whatsoever. 

I am not a big fan of Pandolfini, but I think it would be fair to guess that, in general, his target audience was similar to that of Capablanca when he wrote the Primer book.