Strategy books for minor to intermediate player ?

For improving my skills I would be glad if you could recommend some books on strategy (mostly middle game) for an minor to intermediate skilled player ?

If you`re allowed to buy only 1 or 2 books in your whole life on this topic, which ones would be you purchase ?

Thanx in advance :-)

Grooten's Chess Strategy for Club Players, perhaps?

What is your rating? "Minor to intermediate" leaves a lot of room...

I think the Amateur's Mind (Silman) is a good book to start with the strategy of the game. 

At this moment I'm studying the Silman books (Amateur's Mind and How to Reasses). Amateur's is easiest that How to Reasses and is a good introduction to the "Imbalance mentality".

I'm not beginning (I'm +2000 national elo)but I'm not a strong player, and I'm reading another strategy books in the past and I learning a things of strategy and this is good, however my chess knowledge is very fragmented. 

I like the Sylman system of imbalaces because it is complete (not fragmented) and it useful in all phases of game. This give me a tool to re-analize my games, before only view tactics and a few isolated strategy concepts, I started to review some of my defeats with the imbalances in mind in I'm started to know best why I can lose. 

Obviously this isn't a magic potion, and obtain a decent calculation and tactics is still necesary, but it gives me a way to rethink my chess and improve. 

Annotated game collections are also very good educational tools, especially if you're under intermediate level (~1700 OTB). Pure stratgy books will teach you some positional ideas, but not the general flow of the game, which is IMHO more important when you start...

Nimzowitch: My System.

It worked for me, since if you want understand today's strategy, you will have to know how it developed. And Nimzowitchs book explains how chess was in 1920-30. (That was before you could sacrifice a pawn and get position compensation). 

This

Take a look at Complete Book of Chess Strategy by Jeremy Silman. Nice basic book.

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Chess-Strategy-Grandmaster/dp/1890085014/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1365514348&sr=8-5&keywords=Jeremy+silman

Sokolov's Winning chess middlegames

+Infinity.

Do not pick up a strategy book until you've gone over the classic annotated  instructional books.  They are way friendlier to an inxperienced player.

- Chernev's Logical Chess , Most Instructive Games
- Euwe's Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur

The more recent Best Lessons of a Chess Coach  by Weeramantry is a personal favorite. So is Heisman's very recent Most Instructive Amateur Game book.

If ur just starting out i would suggest studying tactics. a good book here for a beginner is Reinfeld's 1001 Brilliant ways to Checkmate.

Chess Strategy for Club Player by Grooten. While Simple Chess is a good book too, Grooten's book is more comprehensive. His writting style is also pleasant.

you should first try to play some games here rather looking for some books..

Totally disagree on Grooten or any of the fancier books mentioned above. Waaay too complicated for somebody new / inexperienced.

Why?

a) lower-intermediate players need move-by-move explanations to absorb games rather than the fashionable "list 14-20 moves, then explain a critical point" format as that information is really useless without a context. (This is how Grooten's 1st diagram/game of the 1st chapter reads!!!)

b) To understand strategy from a newbie perspective, it is critical to first showcase  games where Player A has positional understanding and the other is a complete dumba##.  

We need more of the:

"See Spot. See Spot Run. See Spot create a pawn weakness. See Bob attack that pawn weakness and keep pressurizing it until Spot lashes out in anger and blunders" chess books to begin with.

  Watching two masters play perfect chess and then reading  about some "nuanced" positional mistake that occurs after 15-20 moves only makes sense to you when you've built a foundation of basic patterns and ideas in your head.

This is the curse of almost every strategy book out there.  They grossly over-estimate the intermediate player's ability to grasp concepts and overload them with information like drinking from a fire hydrant (which they will either forget or never really apply)

It is no different than reading about how and when to deploy the landing gear of a 747 with lots of turbulence when you are still struggling with getting your damn single propeller plane onto the runaway. 

Sure ... there are always going to be talented players who will "get" this stuff at a very early stage just the same way there is always a prodigy in a math class who is 4-5 years younger than his peers.   These talented players can "skip the basic stuff" as a lot of what is not obvious to you or me is pretty damn obvious to them.

The rest of us have to learn to crawl before we can walk.

End-of-rant :)

Signing everything Shivsky wrote.

"This is the curse of almost every strategy book out there.  They grossly over-estimate the intermediate player's ability to grasp concepts and overload them with information like drinking from a fire hydrant (which they will either forget or never really apply)"

The title of Grotten book is "Chess Strategy for Club player" I think a club player isn't new in strategy. Perhaps the recomendation of the book isn't the best but this doesn't means that the book ins't good. 

I think the "Amateur's mind" it can undestand for low to intermediate players.

For my part, I don't like Chernev's logical chess but in other hand - Euwe's Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur is great. 

@Shivsky: I agree.

I'll go back to my more usual advice: Chess Steps workbooks 1-5 first*, then Yusupov, and playing a lot of serious games.

Both Chess Steps and Yusupov introduce all concepts with only very little text, and then exercises. And if you do them in that order, the exercises will start at beginner level and work their way up to 2300+ level strategy.

Unfortunately the number of exercises may be less than you need to get the corresponding increase in strength, but there are many other exercise books too. Just not as neatly ordered in strength, and doing exercises that are over your head won't help much.

It's like doing Chess Tempo, but on the whole of chess, not just tactics.

Edit: and doing loads of these exercises help to get into a "every diagram ever is an exercise" mode. Maybe that Grooten position is helpful if you first set it up on a board and struggle with it yourself for 5-10 minutes.

*: Skip some of the first if you're already above beginner level

Good rant, Shivsky.

I'm surprised there aren't more books along the lines of Euwe's Chess Master vs Chess Amateur.

Totally forgot to add this goldmine of a book : Winning Chess Strategy for kids by Jeff Coakley.   Extremely under-rated and easily the safest book you could give a lower/intermediate player and expect ZERO brain aneurysms (as per the rant diagram in my last post). :)

Thanx so much for all your hints !! Much appreciated -:)

It's out of Print, so you might need to find a used copy, but "The Inner Game of Chess" by Andrew Soltis.  A must read for anybody under 1600!