Great Chess Books that Are Terrible for Beginners

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

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It's surprisingly easy to go wrong with chess books. National Master Dan Heisman:

"Just because a chess book is comprehensible and maybe even fun does not mean it contains information that's best to help you improve.”

If you googled "greatest chess books" in order to begin your library, you'd find all of these on the various lists. And there's the rub. They are all terrific, but they are not for beginners. Any book can be unsuitable if it's to hard or too easy, or addressing the particular skills that would be most relevant and productive.

And the rank beginner is offered little in the way of direction. We are instructed to get some books and study the game, but there are an overwhelming ocean of books devoted to chess. It's hard enough to figure out what to study, but then you need to find a good book to study that matches your level of play. And then there's the question of how to study chess books. It's easy to accumulate a stockpile of barely read books, and many of us have.

The following are just guidelines, you'll find what works best for you.

TACTICS

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1001 Chess Exercises for Club Players. As a beginner your focus should be on tactics, tactics, tactics. The truth is, even the easier book in this series, 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners is likely too challenging for those just starting out (see below). Make sure to get a book that explains tactical motifs before you leap into puzzle solving. Your puzzle solving ability will jump by leaps and bounds once you learn the basic motifs!

Try one of these instead:
Everyone's First Chess Workbook - Peter Giannatos
Chess Tactics for Students - John Bain
Chess Tactics Workbook - Al Woolum

And after those get easy:
Chess Tactics for Champions - Susan Polgar
Winning Chess Exercises for Kids - Jeff Coakley
1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners - Franco Masetti and Roberto Messa
Chess Tactics from Scratch - Martin Weteschnik

THE OPENING

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Modern Chess Openings.
This is a catalog of all the opening knowledge up to the date of publication. It is encyclopedic - and for the beginner - largely useless. What you want, if anything, is a book that explains opening principles. You can waste a lot of time memorizing variations that your beginner opponents won't play, whether it's in MCO or on Chessable. Your time is better spent on basic tactics.

Try instead:
Discovering Chess Openings - John Emms
The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings - Reuben Fine

Chessmood.com also has a free video course on opening fundamentals: Chess Opening Principles. Their stuff is very good (and by coincidence all materials are open and free at time of writing this).

THE MIDDLEGAME

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My System - Aron Nimzowitsch. Moving on to the middlegame, an absolute classic, My System (1925), used to be mentioned in reverential tones but seems to have fallen somewhat out of favor recently, partially due to some outdated ideas, partially due to the antique writing style. I once heard a grandmaster relate that he and some friends used to play a drinking game where every move played had to be justified by a rule in My System!

How to Reassess Your Chess: Chess Mastery Through Imbalances - Jeremy Silman.
A more modern updated work on the middle game, an amazing book, but very much not for beginners. Silman is an engaging writer, and takes a deep look into the middle game, the imbalances that guide a player into forming plans. For the beginner, a revelation, but pointless if you're regularly hanging pieces, missing basic tactics. Be careful! Knowledge is very tempting. But it's pointless if other skills are wanting. See the Heisman quote at the beginning of this article.

There are much gentler ways into the basic building blocks of the middlegame, such as:
Logical Chess Move by Move - Irving Chernev.
Simple Chess - Michael Stean.

THOUGHT PROCESS

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Think Like a Grandmaster - Alexander Kotov
Regarded very highly not so long ago. It contains some fascinating ideas pertaining to the way Kotov (a Soviet grandmaster) selected moves from a long tree of variations, but is waaaay above the heads of anyone under 2000 playing strength, and the ideas are now contested. As one GM quipped, "I don't think like a tree. Do you?"

The topic of the thought process, however, is very important and somewhat neglected. Dan Heisman covers it in interesting ways in his books, focusing on some basic but critical ideas such as checking if your move is safe before you make it, the skill of counting in calculation, and various strategies to employ when thinking about your game. There's nothing quite like his books, which are full of insights and food for thought.

Try instead:
A Guide to Chess Improvement - Dan Heisman

THE ENDGAME

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Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual.
Another book that straddles the fence between absolutely essential and totally useless. Exhaustive, comprehensive, not what you need.

Try instead:
Silman’s Endgame Course.
Silman can not only write well, but he knows how to teach. And while this book is large, it's arranged in terms of playing strength - so you can dip into it and learn a little at a time, as needed. A terrific book.

ONLINE RESOURCES AND CONCLUSION

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Some don't like books. Fine. While apps and websites are beyond the scope of this article, I can heartily recommend two resources that really great. Forget YouTube (other than for entertainment). These guys really focus on how to learn, and what to learn:

Chessmood.com
Not affiliated with them in any way, but as of this writing all their resources are free, so it's a great time to check them out. Tactic Ninja is a well explained and very thorough course on tactical motifs. You will learn a lot!

NextLevelChess.com
The "youngest ever Swiss grandmaster" has interesting thoughts about chess and often approaches learning problems from different angles. Take a look at his article on his One-Third Rule of training.

NM Dan Heisman has a list of chess books sorted by level - Recommended Books.

I hope some of this has been helpful to any beginners that are out there. Have fun with your chess!