Winning Chess Series

Hey guys. I recently bought some of Yasser Seirawan's Winning Chess books, and was wondering what "order" is best to read them in. Whatever order would benefit me most.

Also, I was wondering how I should study the books, if that's not too stupid a question. atm, I've just been reading through with a chess set in front of me, then doing some of the tests at the end of each chapter. Is there a more effective way of studying the info in his books?

Thanks :) 

Hi,  I own most of the series myself,  I would start with Play Winning Chess.  The book covers all the basics and provides a solid base.  Then I would move onto the Winning Chess Tactics book, I am still working through this one.  It is suggested that the reader of this book reads it a few times, with breaks between readings.  The test in the back of the book will give you some idea of how well you retained the information presented in the book.  The order that the books were published is the suggested order of reading, Play, Tactics, Strategies, Brilliancies, Openings, Endings, and Combinations. 

As far as studying the books go my suggestion would be to work through them beginning to end, I like to work through the problems without a board in front of me to sharpen my minds eye, still need a lot of work on that.  Use the board to help with the explanations for the problems or when he is running through games or positions.

I hope this helps, I personally love this set of books for they really cater to players who are beginning their learning process. 

Good luck to you.

I disagree that the published order is the best order to read them in.  (Though not terribly strongly, so don't take offense. :) )  Seirawan himself said that he wanted to do endings before openings, but his publisher wouldn't let him.  Maybe I'm just old-school, but I'm a big believer in the theory that "to study endings is to study chess".  Openings are actually one of the last things you need to worry about studying.  Just make sure you're using sound opening principles, and you should do fine.

So, here's the order in which I would recommend reading the Winning Chess Series:

1. Play Winning Chess
2. Winning Chess Tactics
3. Winning Chess Endings
4. Winning Chess Strategies
5. Winning Chess Openings
6. Winning Chess Brilliances
7. Winning Chess Combinations

After all that (and with quite a few games under your belt) you should have a very solid foundation on which to build and be ready to tackle the wealth of more advanced material available.  Good luck, and have fun! :)

The only thing to be careful of there (and I'm really not meaning to be argumentative... I hope that's not how I'm coming off) is that the beginning student often misdiagnoses themself.  Most beginners come out of the opening losing not because they don't understand opening theory, but because they don't understand tactics.  It's important to understand good opening priciples, of course, but actual memorization of lines is unnecesary until relatively late in your chess career.  I also think that some grounding in strategy is necessary in order to get the most out of studying openings, because otherwise you won't really understand the kind of middlegame the opening is trying to achieve.

Just food for thought. :)

we shall read tactics first and then combinations. tactics is very importat