Which Book To Buy?

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Actually, I have Chess Blueprints - haven't started working through it yet though. I am glad you rate it!

It seems that we are twins !! very similar Trends in chess book buying ! :-) What other books do you have bro ?!

Thanks for the advice, think i'll get the Heisman book. I am rated over 1600 but thats mainly due to my tactics training, my positional skills are very poor.

BTW I recently ordered tips for young players by Mathew Sadler, is that the book you have mentioned?

Thanks

Jon

Jon, I don't think you can go far wrong with Heisman. He's a good teacher, imo.

aidan299, Too many books to list and probably too many for my own good.. lol! I'll tell you what I am reading these days...

Practical Chess Psychology: A Chess Player's Behavioral Guide by Avni (picked this up secondhand recently)

The Reliable Past by Genna Sosonko (Chess biography. I thoroughly enjoyed his Russian Silhuoettes)

Kongsted's How to Use Computers to Improve Your Chess

Jesper Hall's Chess Training for Budding Champions

and

Lessons with a Grandmaster: Enhance Your Chess Strategy and Psychology with Boris Gulko (I like any book with a "thought processes" slant)

Wow , It seems that you have so emphasize on Psychologic aspects of game ! fine.

I don't usually respond to a question like this but I think I can help here. I may have about 200 chess books in my collection at the present time. Most of them are of no use to me now, but I would like to recommend one in particular to you that will help any player get over that 1800 rating quite quickly and it is very easy to comprehend.

Not sure if it is still in print but it is called "Winning Chess" by Cherney and Reinfeld. Hope this will be helpful to some. God bless, Enoch Elijah

Well , the book you are refering is out of print now and it's exact name is " Winning chess ,how to see three moves ahead" or " wining chess tactics". it proceeds mainly to middle game tactics , tricks and hints.The only drawback is that it's in descriptive ! I have that valuable book , and sometimes read one chapter of it , especially when i feel weak in Middle game ! Good news for you is that there's a twin for this book , very similar in structure :" How to improve your middle game " by Andrew Kinseman.I can say 70% of material is the same !

Thanks for your updated info, I will look for this book by Andrew Kinseman. Hope you and your family are all safe in Iran.  Blessings,   Enoch

thanks Enoch.... Infact Iran is not so bad country that some western Media describe . I can accses to all the latest chess soft ware and books here in a week or so ! and also latest technologic breakthoughs....PCs, Macs , Apple products....etc . Another point of being here is that those Russian chess treasure is very accessable here easily ! And I can get some Rare and valuable chess books that seldom you can find in west. for i.e the book " art of combinatian " or " Alekhine's chess heritage "( by kotov) or Nezhmedinov's books or Old russian chess school books....,Blokh's books , Reshevsky's....,spassky's.....and so and so.....Secrets of Russian Chess masters..... :-) it Seems that russians all are chess- nuts !! Some times I think If there was not a nation like them on the Earth , Chess now was a childish board game like Backgammon or Pokker or Black jack....! :-) I can watch Foxnews , CNN, NBC , abc , .... Espen...and even follow Obama's presidental debates Live ....! Although I like Sarah Palin very much ;-) I would like to play a chess game with her very much...! :-) ....wait a minute ! When is the next tea party ?!

I really recommend Perfect you chess by Andrei volokitin! even though it is directed toward Fide master or above, still the average player can learn a lot from it....sure I did.

i used to be just at your level and i have to tell you first off get an account on chesstempo.com so you can do tactical puzzles you MUST do this and take it serious. building your tactical vision is the MOST important thing for a beginner HANDS DOWN do a good 50 puzzles a day and it will improve you more than anything else right now. along with this a good book on tactics like winning chess tactics by seirwan.

and then after that a good general book like how to reasses your chess by silman has got to be the best general book but like i said the 1's i listed before that are gonna be something you need to be at a level to understand and benefit from how to reasses your chess.

asking for a general book is kinda hard as there is no book thats going cover every single aspect of chess(its too complex of a game).

so for someone at your level i would recommend a good couple of books for each area

1.tactics= winning chess tactics by yasser seirwan(he's beat kasparov and karprov read his book lol)

2.endgame= silmans complete endgame course by silman(its great chapters are seperated by level so it will be the only endgame book you'll ever need until your a grandmaster) 

3.general/strategy= how to reasses your chess and HTRYC workbook by silman(until you go over the first 1 and your level in the endgame book this will probably be over your head)

4. annotated game collection= understanding chess move by move by john nunn(this is a great collection as its organized by themes of the games)

5.as a beginner you shouldnt be studing to much openings and you deffinetly shouldnt just be memorizing them. but after HTRYC you should build a repoirtore of postional and tactical openings for every situation so you can get a feel and practice for all types of games. i can recommend

for tactical play as white: kings indian attack, black vs e4: sicilian najdorf, black vs d4: grunfeld

for positional play white: queens gambit, black vs e4: caro kann, black vs d4: semi-slav

i hope this was helpful if

While the above post consists of some good recommendations , I have some critiques : ........1-Chesstempo : I know it's free but those random computerised puzzles never can substitue some well selected and organised tactical or strategical puzzles, instrucive basical , carefully selected by Top- notch GMs which you can find only in their books. ......2---There are some excellent GENERALL books out there that cover almost more than % 90 of what a class D and C player most learn. one example is Patric wolf's excellent work..........3---Yasser's tactic book is his best in winning series , but not best in all available chess tactic books for a beginner. the fact that he has beaten both KA's doesnt relate to the matter ! ......4----I dont see a need to study a seperate End game book by a beginner. it must be first studied in the contex of a General basic book. .....5-----one of the most common pitfalls for a beginner is to study HTRYC and a hursh into it !! It's an excellent book , but not as one's first 3 or even fourth book on chess ! Sileman himself advocates that at least one should read some parts of his other book " Amateure's mind" before it ! .....6---as far as I know John nunn's move by move book , targets an over 1800-2000 level player ! and a beginer is Faaaaar behind it....( it takes several years to get to that point normally )!!.......7-The only opening study advise that all experts agree on it for a beginner is to start with 1-e4 and complete open games, mainly because of wideness of tactical upportunities which a beginner can train via it. every other recommendation is myth. .........Aidin

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Chess Duels - the best!

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I wish there were more in that genre. The personal perspective is what makes it so appealing to me.