What books are good for becoming candidate and/or national master?
Sort:
Tl;dr. But seriously, try to play a few games each day, solve puzzles, and try for trophies, as you need to have a few good wins under your belt to be titled.
I never played real tournaments and I don’t have a FIDE rating, but I recommend Chess Fundamentals by José Raúl Capablanca, Discovering chess openings by John Emms, if you want puzzles, try Bobby Fischer teaches chess by Robert Fischer.
watch gothamchess
git gud
There's actually a pretty good book on that exact subject: "How to Become a Candidate Master," by Alex Dunne. It's a collection of annotated games between candidate masters and slightly lower rated (1775-1950 approximately) players. It's pretty instructive
Aug 19, 2021
0
#10
Yusupov's course would be very helpful. Also, further progress at your level will require increasing your proficiency at endgames. Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual could be just what you need. Good luck!
Aug 19, 2021
0
#11
Hey BBLiu, awesome goals my dude! Since you're going to be playing chess for a long time, I know you’ll want to bring fresh ideas to an old game... Here are four things:
#1: Cognitive science.
Take some time to develop basic knowledge of brain mechanisms, neural pruning, rationalization, and decision making. Stanford has a free 20+ hr course on Behavior, on YouTube. This will help you develop a better understanding of not only your own psyche, but of your opponent’s. A good place to start is learning about the role of dopamine in motivation, and memory.
#2: Pattern Recognition
If you want faster recall of information, or to be able to recognize a position more easily, perhaps the “Woodpecker Method” may help. This takes time, discipline, and spaced repetition. You do a task, for instance a set of 100-1000 endgame drills/puzzles. Then, after a few days you do it again faster. Then again, a week later, faster. People have reported a better intuition for tactics after using this method. Another way to utilize this is to read theory books within your opening 3-5 times each essentially memorizing them… But practice doesn’t make perfect, as the saying would usually go. It makes permanent. So don’t rush, don’t make mistakes. Do it right. Soak up the information in a sustainable way.
#3: Game theory.
Game Theory. If you're into mathematics, there's plenty of that in this subject- but the core ideas can teach you a lot regardless. Nash equilibrium, imbalances, logical fallacies, the prisoner’s dilemma.
#4: Fitness and nutrition
You burn a lot of calories playing chess. That makes it very difficult to think. Eat right, and do cardio. Running, especially, is good for chess players. Running aids the function of the learning and memory center in the brain (aids neurogenesis in hippocampus). I believe I read a study recently saying that the optimum time to run may be 4 hours after having learned something.
I am around 1950 in USCF and want to be candidate master at the very least. I believe I have a long way to go in terms of middlegame, endgame, and strategy in general. What chess books, websites, etc. do you guys recommend?