My rapid rating seems about 1650, though still provisional with my recent return.
Comprehensive Chess Course Volume 1, Lev Alburt (I read it in 4 days, learned a few things, and gave it away.)
Comprehensive Chess Course Volume 2
Chess Opening, Traps and Zaps, Pandolfini
Chess Openings, Traps and Zaps 2
Play Winning Chess, Yasser
Weapons of Chess, Pandolfini
Pandolfini's Endgame Course
Chess Training Pocket Book, Lev Alburt
Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess
The Art of Logical Thinking, Neil
The Art of Defense in Chess, Soltis
The 6 Power Moves of Chess
The Secret of Chess
Practical Chess Exercises, 600, Cheng
Lasker's Manual of Chess
Chess Tactics for the Tournament Player, Lev
The King in Jeopardy, Lev
Chess Rules of Thumb, Lev
The Winning Way, Pandolfini
The Reassess Your Chess Workbook, Silman
Your First Chess Games
Chess Tactics, Littlewood
I owned Weapons of Chess before. It is a fast, easy, educational overview, with a few problems I missed last time.
I also owned Pandolfini's Endgame Course. It has many different positions to know and brought me out of the dark ages. But I need to review it again.
Comprehensive Chess Course Volume 1 was mostly easy, but some problems were challenging. I also made all of them harder by doing them in my head and extending the problem requirenents.
The Winning Way has several positions worth knowing. I don't like his word gymnastics and wish he'd use the space to annotate a few extra moves. I cover up the clues.
Your First Chess Game starts with simple mates and then has ever more complex games building on them. I enjoy the annotations. But getting the fast mate requires more than just bad moves from the losing side. The winning side must make bad moves that turn out good because of the other side's bad moves. So there is some instructive value, but it is all very artificial, unlikely to happen to someone who plays their knight to f3.
Comprehensive Chess Course Volume 2 is very thorough at explaining the basics of tactics, great for any true beginner. Nothing is assumed. And he even patched a few gaps in my knowledge.
Chess Rules of thumb was a 1-2 hour read and had some useful facts I did not know, such as draw percentages for each endgame imbalance.
Practical Chess Exercises 600 is at a good level. I solve 60% and find the answers instructive as they mention relevant positional features.
1650 euros?
"The 6 Power Moves of Chess"--eek!
My plan is to get book markers for them all and then work through them all at the same time. I'll give away the easiest ones to friends, but do the others 2-3x each over the next 2 years.
Do you see any glaring omissions or bad books on that list?
@MrPushwood said in #3:
> 1650 euros?
The books in golden biding or what?
Every book is bad unless one reads it!
I just dusted off a book I had from a long time ago. Chess Strategy for the tournament player. I guess that covers that for a while.
I also loaned Your First Chess Game to an intelligent friend who barely knows the rules. The book is way advanced for a true beginner, better for someone rated at least 800. Like most books, different strength players will learn different aspects of it and need to go through it twice.
I didn't know so many chess books even existed
@Chesserroo2 said in #4:
> Do you see any glaring omissions or bad books on that list?
Well, certainly that Power Moves thing is a dreadful title.
One book that helped me so much when I was at your level was Winning Chess Strategies by Seirawan. One of the best books you'll find to explain positional play.
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