Dvoretsky book collection: advise please

I would like to build a complete collection of books from Mark Dvoretsky. To assist, I came across this article by Tim Harding which highlights possible issues one might encounter with different publishers and editions.

Assuming one skips the now defunct Batsford books, the remaining publishers are Edition Olms and Russell Enterprises.

My aim is to build the best definitive Dvoretsky collection without duplication. Specifically, are the 2 sets of books published by Edition Olms completely separate and unique, or is one a reissue of the other? If so, which one is the latest and greatest?

If everything on this list is unique, then it appears that the definitive Dvoretsky collection would consist of 18 books.

Please advise. 

From the publishers' websites, I gather these are all of the books authored by Mark Dvoretsky:

EDITION OLMS

• SCHOOL OF CHESS EXCELLENCE 1: Endgame Analysis 
• SCHOOL OF CHESS EXCELLENCE 2: Tactical Play 
• SCHOOL OF CHESS EXCELLENCE 3: Strategic Play 
• SCHOOL OF CHESS EXCELLENCE 4: Opening Developments 

• SECRETS OF CHESS TRAINING: School of Future Champions 1 
• SECRETS OF OPENING PREPARATION: School of Future Champions 2 
• SECRETS OF ENDGAME TECHNIQUE: School of Future Champions 3 
• SECRETS OF POSITIONAL PLAY: School of Future Champions 4 
• SECRETS OF CREATIVE THINKING: School of Future Chamions 5 

RUSSELL ENTERPRISES

• Chess Lessons: Solving Problems & Avoiding Mistakes 
• For Friends & Colleagues Volume 1: Profession - Chess Coach 
• For Friends and Colleagues Volume 2: Reflections on My Profession 
• Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual 4th ed 
• Dvoretsky’s Analytical Manual 2nd ed 
• Tragicomedy in the Endgame: Instructive Mistakes of the Masters 
• Studies for Practical Players: Improving Calculation and Resourcefulness in the Endgame (with Pervacov)
• Maneuvering: The Art of Piece Play 
• Recognizing Your Opponent's Resources: Developing Preventive Thinking 

I can't answer your question, but the answer would be helpful. Thus, this otherwise useless response is given in order to give the thread a well deserved bump.

This is a nice list, thank you. This is what I know so far:

1. School of Future Champions was written with his pupil Yusupov. Starting point.

2. School of Chess Excellence (SCE) is next in line. He considered these 4 books as one.

3. Analytical Manual is the follow up to SCE. 

4. Chess Lessons is the follow up to Analytical Manual. I think there is another book coming up which should be the follow up to Chess Lessons.

  The above books are in certain study order. Art of Play and Recognizing Your ... are exercise books which were published in German in 5 volumes. I do not know where they fit in the above books.

  His Endgame Manual is considered to be excellent endgame book. His 2 memoir books were joy to "read". I read all his anectodes, but did not spend a second on the positions. I am sure I will enjoy them much more when I get more serious.

  I think our Russian friends can help us here.

I found the Endgame Manual useful. In Daily games I saved some difficult positions in the endgame by reading his explanations on certain endgames. 

Would be interested in hearing your book recommendations.

I recognize several of the titles as recommended books by guests on Ben Johnson's Perpetual Chess Podcast. Rowson's books have been mentioned several times. I own Secrets of Chess Training (Dvoretsky/Yusupov) (which was republished as School of Chess Excellence 1: Endgame Analysis by Edition Olms) and Applying Logic in Chess (Kislik). Chess Life has an interesting interview with Kislik on the Cover Stories podcast which led me to buy the book.

Thusfar, I haven't read any game collections or biographies but Zurich 1953 and The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal await on my bookshelf.

Though you generally don't like books by Dvoretsky, you do like Secrets of Chess Training which was co-authoried with Yusupov. What do you think of the Yusupov's Build/Boost/Evolution 10 volume series?

Shereshevsky 

I read on another thread that the book really improved your endgame skull

 The Endgame Manual is supposed to be one of Dvoretsky's best books but find it incredibly obtuse, Have even somewhat specialised in endgame training in last years. Have worked through examples in "Amateur to IM", "Endgame virtuso Karpov", and even the very difficult "Sharp endgames", and felt was learning something. Returned to the Endgame Manual thinking might be closer to right level for using it, but no good even when stick to the main bolded passages and ignore the exordinary detailed blue parts. 

On the other hand found the "Analytical manual" much more enjoyable than remembered before. It is all pretty random what works,

Guys, I think you should really have a look at Dvoretsky’s EGM in Chessable. You can register, buy the book and give it back within 30 days.  This is normal there, and they will refund your money without saying one word. So you are on the safe side.

The cool thing about Chessable (beside the amazing fact that you learn everything by spaced repetition) is that you stay highly motivated to review your lines at daily basis. Dvoretsky’s EGM in Chessable allow you to learn first the thing that Dvoretsky says is essential. The other things you can learn later. 

I guess there are few people in the world that learned or will learn the whole book, cover to cover. But I am sure that a high percentage of these people are training in Chessable. There is a kind of competition among students about who is top 5 in the leaderboard. Nobody will really talk about this, but usually you go to the leaderboard to see if you reviewed enough lines to be top five or something. 

Another important aspect of Chessable is that you can ask questions to other students about specific positions. This is really useful, as you don’t feel alone when learning. 

Although I have several of Dvoretsky’s books I would not recommend anybody to buy the whole collection. This is definitely too much. I bought most of my books in second hand bookshops for few money, but I didn’t work seriously with them. 

Another thing. If you are impressed by the bulk of information in Dvoretsky’s EGM you can just learn well one single chapter, and only start a new one after you know the stuff. 

If you are rated below 1200 here I would stay away from this book and learn Basic Endgames in Chessable. The book is very good and ... for free!!! A guy wrote the book for his students and made It available in Chessable for everybody. If you learn this stuff you will know enough for most part of your chess career. But if you take Daily Chess seriously I would go for Dvoretsky’s EGM. There is a difference between learning something you will perhaps use once in a couple of games or if you learn something that will show you how to save a difficult endgame or win it.

The Podcast mentioned above has an interview with one of the guys who initiated Chessable.

Look, I am a Patzer, even not 1700 in Daily here, so what I can say is from the perspective of a weak player. In EG you will find also basic stuff, like the meaning of key squares in the most obvious endgames, and things like pawn and king versus pawn and king where the defender has first to attack the passed pawn and at the same time approach the own pawn, the famous idea by Reti.

I know this stuff since 20 years, it is not new for me. Also all the basic rook endgames are there, and all the basic stuff on knight stoping a pass pawn, the draws in bishop endgames, etc etc.

And of course there is also the advanced stuff, but nothing there is completely from another planet.  I have extremely difficulty with stuff about correspondent squares, but I am not the only one. But everybody can learn this with some effort.

My approach at the moment is to work selectively with the book, not to learn everything (a typical strategy for people playing only correspondence chess). 

I have some of his books, like Excelling at Technical Chess, Excelling at Chess Calculations,  Grandmaster Preparation: Calculation, and two others on attack. I worked a little with the GPC, but it was definitely too high for me. Anyway, I have since long few motivation to train without spaced repetition, as I always feel that I should review systematically what I learn if I want to keep the stuff in my memory longer than only a couple of hours.

I like also 100 Endgames You Should Know, also available in Chessable.

Regarding the Aagard series, Aagaard himself recommends reading the last in series "Thinking Inside the box" first for an overview of entire approach. Am doing that at the moment, and finding the book quite accessible.

Great link, thanks. I now the Hertan Algorithm,   rather criticized but useful in Daily chess or post morten. I think it is called Hertan Hierarchy or something like that. Like in the video but with more points to consider.

As I said above, the Hertan method is conceived to be used in analyses, and, in my case, in Daily Chess, not in practical games. 

All those books are by Mark Dvoretsky?!

Some are collaborations.