Best chess book ever
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Oct 24, 2017
0
#2
There is not one book, but several which are good for different people. I like for example books in where authors write about their own games, explaining the psychological aspects relevant to single moves, or about things which are relevant for the match but are often not considered in most chess books. One of these books is for example The Seven Deadly Chess Sins by Rowson. The beginning is weird, but soon after he begins a phantastic narrative about how to play chess, about intuition, about materialism in chess and so on. He analyse also games played by other people.
I was asked by a mature beginner what book to recommend. Is 'The Soviet Chess Primer' any good ?
"I was asked by a mature beginner what book to recommend. Is 'The Soviet Chess Primer' any good ?" - Ziggy_Zugzwang
"... The title might suggest [that The Soviet Chess Primer by Ilya Maizelis] is for beginners, but that is not the case. It does start off with some basic positions, but quickly moves on to much more advanced material including chapters on positional play and techniques of calculation." - IM John Donaldson
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/the-soviet-chess-primer/
http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/Soviet_Chess_Primer-extract.pdf
There is no one best book for everyone. A lot depends on the individual. If one wants one book on a bunch of topics, one might consider the fairly recent book, A COMPLETE CHESS COURSE by Antonio Gude
http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/A_Complete_Chess_Course.pdf
or Journey to the Chess Kingdom by Yuri Averbakh and Mikhail Beilin.
https://www.chess.com/blog/Natalia_Pogonina/book-review-quotjourney-to-the-chess-kingdomquot
Ansuman_13 wrote:
Which book about chess,do you think is the best chess book ever?
Possibly of interest:
https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-best-chess-books-ever
https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-books-and-youth-vs-old-age
https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-cyborg-chess-teachers-and-chess-books
I really like "Move First, Think later". But Rowson's books are fun too.
Oct 24, 2017
0
#7
Two of my favourites are:
Lev Alburt - Comprehensive Chess Course Volumes 1 and 2 (this is just 1 book)
Chernev - Logical Chess Move by Move
Never heard of the Fischer book mentioned.
There are many great books. Here are some of them
1100 Rating and Below
Play Winning Chess By GM Seirawan
World Champion's Guide to Chess by GM Polgar
How To Win at Chess by GM King
Chess 5334 Problems by Polgar
1200-1500
Logical Chess Move by Move
The Complete Idiot's Guide To Chess by GM Wolf
Winning Chess Strategy
Winning Chess Tactics
Chess Tactics for Champion
Complete Endgame Course by Silman
1500-1900
Simple Chess by GM Stean
Chess Secrets Giants Of Strategies
Chess Strategy for Club Players by Grooten
Understanding Chess Middlegames by Nunn
Ultimate Chess Puzzle Book by Emms
Winning Chess Brilliancies by Seirawan
Lesson with a Grandmaster 1 and 2 by GM Gulko
Endgame Strategy by Shereshevsky
Chess Training for Budding Champion
2000-2300
Mastering Chess Strategy by Hellsten
How to Play Chess Endgames by Muller
Beat The Grandmaster by Kongsten
Endgame Manual by Dvoretsky
Chess Lessons by Popov
The Road to Chess Improvement by Yermolinksy
The Fischer book is called My 60 Games.
"The greatest book by far was written by Fischer himself its called 'World champion's positional understanding' ..." - ZebraGang
SeniorPatzer wrote:
The Fischer book is called My 60 Games.
That was well before Fischer became world champion.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708234047/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review684.pdf
ZebraGang wrote:
The greatest book by far was written by Fischer himself its called "World champion's positional understanding"
I did a Google search on the title.....with no results. Tells me that there is no such book....
Ziggy_Zugzwang wrote:
I was asked by a mature beginner what book to recommend. Is 'The Soviet Chess Primer' any good ?
It's good, but too advanced for the beginner-novice. The use of the term "Primer" is misleading. I would say the book is suitable for those at ELO 1600+
A beginner can find lots of instructive books in the following list...
Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond.....
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond
Of course, any answer is typically a product of personal experience and therefore necessarily subjective, but for the improving chess amateur (e.g., me)....
For positional/strategy/middlegame training - "Pawn Power In Chess" by Hans Kmoch
For endgame training - "Silman's Complete Endgame Course" by Jeremy Silman
For openings, theory and principles - "Mastering The Chess Openings" by John Watson (4 Vols)
ZebraGang wrote:
The greatest book by far was written by Fischer himself its called "World champion's positional understanding" it was regarded by many as the greatest chess book ever written. Kasparov once said that if it wasn't for that book you would have never become world champion. This book is simple and very instructive. I started chess a few months ago. I became 1400 on my first tournament and after reading that book I'm now 1900. My friend studied the book for 6 months and after that, his rating jumped from 1100-2100. I taught chess to a couple a people and after showing them the book they started out as a beginner and now 1800 after just a few months. A highly recommend this book. Carlsen once said that after reading that book he became a GM the year after.
Oh give me a break!
ed1975 wrote:
Never heard of the Fischer book mentioned.
That's because Fischer didn't write it. Evidently that was supposed to be a joke.
Lucky I was wearing my deluxe corset, otherwise my sides may have split 
The Fischer book was handwritten and only 20 copies were made; Fischer got into a dispute with the publisher over the typesetting and he refused a 20 million dollar offer from Harper & Row to publish it
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ab121705 wrote:
The Fischer book was handwritten and only 20 copies were made; Fischer got into a dispute with the publisher over the typesetting and he refused a 20 million dollar offer from Harper & Row to publish it
Uh huh. Not surprising since publishers routinely offer multi-million dollar advances for chess books.
Which book about chess,do you think is the best chess book ever?