how to follow chess books?

Hi there,

I have problems with reading chess books. I always get overwhelmed by all those variants. Can't follow the games in my mind so I play it on a board, but after a few variants, and putting the pieces back and forth and back and forth,  I mostly lose track of the game. That frustrates me and I put the book back in the shelf - for months until I try again (with the same result). And it's not only books for pros that have so many variants but also books intended for beginners.

So what's the trick? :)

Try to play over the game in whole to get a general idea. Then you play the game again. If you have trouble with the sidelines, just use two boards. One can have the position after the opening, the other can be for looking at the sidelines. Don't look at the lines randomly, just see ''why the author says it is a clear improvement.'' It is ok if you don't do the whole game: Just understand a few lines.

In time you will get much better at just ''setting up a past position from the top of your head.'' You won't need two boards as much and you won't have to replay the game as much. All of this is much easier with a PGN viewer. 

I have personally never used two boards: I am quite happy to play the game over again to the critical point. I mostly don't lose track from looking at one variation either: You can simply play the variation backwards to get back to the stem position too.

Also good books have diagrams.

What kind of books?  Opening books?

Books vary wildy in how much side-analysis they confuse you with.

I too hate an overwhelming amount of variations, and generally try to avoid those books.

Using a second board like Dutchday said helps as well. Just a small one, to keep track of the position on.

One of the first impediments to visualizing future positions in your mind is the physical position that you have set up on your chess board. The goal is to read chess books without setting up a board and pieces.

Practice visualizing the position in your mind. That is the first step to the trick.

thanks for the helpful advice

@transpo: yes, I should learn to do that, but visualizing the postions is more a long term goal than the first step :)

@wafflemaster: no, its not only opening books - take Nunn's "Understanding Chess Move by Move" for example

I have another short question and don't want to make a new thread just for this:

I try to go through Chernev's Most Instructive Games of Chess ever Played (at least no variants :)) and it's in decriptive notation. so I read the basics and tried to convert, but:

1.  P-Q4 (d4)  P-KB4 (f5)

2. Kt-KB3 (Nf3)   P-K3 (e6)

3. P-B4 (c4)   Kt-KB (Nf6)

4. B-Kt5 --> what means Kt5 ??

Knight 5 i.e. Bg5.

ah, got it - you can leave this queenside-kingside stuff out and N got in this book just Kt every time - thank you

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/free-kindle-book-chess-vision?lc=1#last_comment

Click on the above. It will explain in detail.