Good chess primer by a RUSSIAN?

This may be controversial considering the user and owner demographics on this site, but I'm going to ask anyway :)

When asking here - and many other places - for good books for novices, you hear the same old names: Silman, Heisman, Pandolfini, Seirawan, Chernev, Reinfeld, "Fischer", etc.

But it has been the Soviets and then the Russians who have dominated chess for decades and down till fairly recent times. And they are still very strong.

There are plenty of advanced-level textbooks written by adherents of the Soviet school of chess. But what about books for beginners? Surely there must be some classics there too - didn't even the great Soviet players have to start somewhere?

Can anyone recommend some good books for novices/improvers in English translation (or in German)? Or are they still keeping their secrets to themselves? Thanks.

"Lev Alburt reveals the once-secret Russian method of training" -Garry Kasparov, 13th World Chess Champion.

The Convekta website has a lot of training DVD's that are based on books written by famous Russian trainers, but not sure about the beginner level.

Maybe the Russians (or "the Russians" as Bobby Fischer called them) gave the advanced textbooks to kids right from the beginning, and those who couldn't hack it were axed from chess, while the few gifted continued on. The only other thing I have heard regarding "Russian" training is a heavy early emphasis on endgames.

Ilya Maizelis' book is regarded as a classic Russian text book, available in English translation (I think) as 'The Soviet Chess Primer'

I will keep going. I do think that Lev Alburt's Comprehensive Chess Course volumes 1 and 2 are fantastic primers. Botvinnik lauded Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals, not Russian author, but obviously Botvinnik thought it was an important book in his chess development.

I've heard good things about The Soviet Chess Primer but haven't actually looked at it yet.

Artur Yusupov: Build Up Your Chess. Voll. 1-3 Best.

+1. "A remarkable book from which I learnt to play chess" - Kasparov.

Foreword by Dvoretsky and E.Lasker. A truly awesome intro to chess.

Overall, what the Soviets, Yusupov, Convekta consider "novice" or "beginner" tends to be more advanced than the non-Soviet authors that OP mentions. This has been my experience with many of the Convekta courses that are marketed for novices, courses that have material within them ranging from as low as 1000-rating, up to 2300-rating, yet still in the same course.

Yusupov's level 1 series are the concepts needed for a 1300-1500 rated player to get to 1800. So the difficulty of the learning material in those books lies in that range and there is plenty of material to go through prior to that (like the authors you mention in he beginning, or tactics, or chess mentor modules, etc).

The Soviet Primer, while highly regarded, I heard it quickly gets too advanced for a beginner. Does anyone know for sure? Also, while this book may have been used by Soviet coaches in formal chess instruction, it was probably used along with plenty of playing, analyzing, and feedback to the trainee, so that such a book may take a few years to go through (as opposed to playing through it once in a month or two).

Looking at your online ratings, I can only label Lev Alburt's Comprehensive Chess Course volumes 1 and 2 among the appropriate level "Soviet" books for "beginners".

Thanks a lot guys for your thoughts.

Alburt's course looks potentially interesting (though I've not seen inside the book) but I am partly put off by the photos of small children on the covers of both volumes. (What's with the obssession with children and chess? It's the same if you look for a chess coach online - all you see is "coach for kids", "children's chess" and "scholastic chess". Don't adults want to learn and play chess too? The majority of chessplayers in the world I suspect are probably over the age of 18. And as far as I know no minor has ever been a World Champion at the game).

"The Soviet Chess Primer" looks more like what I'm looking for. I've seen an excerpt from it and it looks like a serious chess book for adult improvers. And if Kasparov and Karpov learned from it, it can't be that bad. Parts of it may well be too advanced for me, but I will consider it an investment for the future.

Thanks!

If you search "Soviet Chess Primer" in this category of the forums (Chess Books & Equipment), there is a thread with only 2 posts, but one of them with a link to a detailed review of the book... the reviewer feels this book is most certainly too advanced for what we would typically call a "beginner", but check it out.

Thanks

"The Soviet Chess Primer" by Ilya Maizelis....

https://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Chess-Primer-Classics/dp/190798299X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1479384556&sr=1-1&keywords=soviet+chess+primer

My Amazon reader review is under "RLBell".  It is an excellent chess book, but with the following caveat.  The use of the term "primer" is probably a stretch.  That is, the book is probably not an appropriate choice for the beginner-novice, looking to learn the basics of the game. While it starts out simply enough, even dealing (in Chapters 1 and 2) with some basic concepts, the remainder of the book quickly becomes very challenging, with the material more accessible to the experienced, intermediate and above player.  Read the online review in the link of (kindaspongey's) post #15 below.

I guess the upcoming "The Complete Manual of Positinal Chess" will be a great one, you'll need only to wait for a couple of months and to get an endgame book.

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Manual-Positional-Chess-Middlegame/dp/9056916823

The Soviet Chess Primer by Ilya Maizelis

https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/the-soviet-chess-primer/

http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/Soviet_Chess_Primer-extract.pdf

Journey to the Chess Kingdom by GM Yuri Averbakh and Mikhail Beilin

https://www.chess.com/blog/Natalia_Pogonina/book-review-quotjourney-to-the-chess-kingdomquot

That is a very good, and in my experience (i.e. I have the book), accurate review of "The Soviet Chess Primer".  An excellent chess book, but not necessarily a "primer", in the commonly understood sense of the word!

 

This is a very highly regarded primer in Poland, where I live, recommended for novice players up to D/C class.

Thanks for the tips guys!