How to read chess books?

No pain no gain. Maybe the first lecture of the book it will take as long it needs. But after some experience you get it, and you can „fly“ through the book.

Here i would put each game/position in a real board, try to understand each move, make my own thoughts on the position, calculate some variations, check it with what the book says, check with an engine as well.

This process can take hours for only one position/game, but it is worth.

You can speed things up some by finding someone who has made a PGN file of the positions/games in a book you are reading.
For example, Bill Wall's chess page has a PGN for the Amateurs Mind.
http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/collections/Silman-Amateurs_Mind.pgn
which contains 143 positions/games.

Going over them carefully can take many months.

@horse_lasagna said in #1:

Good evening lichess!

How do you get the most out of chess books?
I started reading Silman's "An amateurs mind" and "how to reassess your chess".

Do i just read it from page 1 until the end?

Would you put each and every game descibed on the board to "play along?"

How much effort do you put into the provided tasks?

I am asking this because i am spending hours for going through a few pages covering few motives.
Silman suggests tp "read the book every 6 month" to revalidate one's knowledge.
With the time i consume i would not even finish once within 6 months xD

Do you have some advise for me as a 1600-1700 rated player?

I am grateful for any hints!

Cheers and a successful new year!

horse_lasagna

Having read the book myself (years ago mind you) I wouldnt read it more than once or twice. There are other good books to read when you are finished with Silman. For example, if you like Silman as an author, his "silman's complete endgame course" is wonderful for establishing a solid foundation in theoretical endgames. To answer your questions...

1.) Yes. Read it from front to back. The author is a much stronger chess player than you and they thought it was important to include in the book, so I wouldnt go debating with an International Master as to what is important and what isnt.

2.) When I read it I DID put each and every game described on the board and played along. You are trying to learn, and you dont want to rush things when you are trying to learn, or take shortcuts. Any short cuts you take will undermine your efforts to learn.

3.) Put maximum effort into the provided tasks. I've read ReAssess, the ReAssess workbook and his Complete Endgame Course and each book took me months, working on them a couple hours per day. Now I just keep his Endgame Course in the washroom and skim it when nature calls. LOL. Great way to brush up on the Vancura position. ;) But yes, put maximum effort in when doing your initial read. Focus on trying to digest the material that is being presented, not how long it is taking or how many pages you have left to go in a particular chapter.

Hints for a 1600 lichess Rapid? Once you are done with ReAssess, take a deep deep dive into tactics and pick up Silman's Complete Endgame Course. Most of your games are going to be won and lost on tactics, and becoming a relatively strong endgame player will really help you churn out wins when the game goes the distance and also save games when you are behind in the endgame. It will also really be useful in helping you to know when middle game exchanges will be favorable and when they will be bad for you. If you see that the resulting endgame is winning, exchanging is probably a good idea (unless there is an easier win on the board). If the resulting endgame is unfavorable, then avoid those exchanges until conditions are better. You'll also learn not only when to exchange but also WHAT to exchange. For example, is it a situation where the resulting minor piece endgame will favor the knight over the bishop? Being able to accurately assess these and many other considerations will help you greatly on your journey to 2000 lichess rapid and beyond. Hope this helps.

Thank You all very much for your experiences and tips!
Great to hear i am not a slow snail, and even a speeding horse might take several months for the track ;)

Good to hear, that you all suggest taking your time. Somehow being so slow felt like reading it wrong.

Also the pgn hint is very useful, thanks for that!

Anyway i appreciate other perspectives and opinions!

1. Accumulate quality chess books in which masters or above have used.

2. Always have a chess board in front of you.

3. Limit opening books to 1 repertoire book for black and white. You can waste countless hours if you are like me looking at openings, but playing something and being consistent is best.

4. When you play through the game actually try to understand it, don't go through it fast as possible.

5. The hardest is to shut out personal life distractions... family, kids, everything get away from them and practice in silence. No TV, no music. You'll get way more out of your time if you get rid of all the excess noise. I think many players neglect this part of study.

6. Focus less on getting every item read and more understanding the things you do read. You don't want what you learn to be forgotten because it is just straight memorization (which the brain deletes in a short time if not practiced). Instead you want to solve problems because the brain doesn't like redoing work to solve problems. It will develop pattern recognition much faster if you work on solving problems as you go through games/annotations/questions. Funny enough, sometimes you go through an annotated game, reach a position, think "why didn't they play this move?" You play through and find no good answer. Put it on the computer engine and find out you were actually right! They played a move with a refutation that was simply losing and a game is just annotated incorrectly. The lesson here is to trust but verify! There are mistakes in written material quite often, and even if they end up being right and there is a reason, when you find it you'll start your path to becoming better. Don't cheat and use the computer until you've come to a conclusion about the line you're looking at. Circle page numbers, write in your books and only check your answer after you think you know the answer. Then the engine will tell you how dumb or not dumb you are.

@Whitsellf thank you for your prolonged answer!

No kids, no family - my time to shine has finally come :D

I still haven't looked into opening reportoire books so far, i a trying to follow opening principles but i don't know many openings by heart (except the london as white :P)

Do you read a few book simultainiously or one after another?

@horse_lasagna every book over 150-200 pages is a waste of time and this goes to Silmans books too or Dvoretskys. they get overextended all the time so when u see their book of 600 pages,they want to convince u this book has everything and the funny thing is that when(if) u actually finish this book u never use what u 've read there to develop ur skills. So instead of the Silman book that i bet u will never finish it,cause ur gonna get bored easily i'd suggest to read this book https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2592327-planning which covers pretty much anything in the middlegame in 115 pages and when u finish it pm me to recommend u another little diamond book which u''re gonna like it a lot or else keep trying the google marketing traps,ur choice bro

'The Way You Read A Story Book'

"instead of the Silman book that i bet u will never finish it,cause ur gonna get bored easily"

With other authors you will get bored even faster. So, if you read 0.5 of Silman's book, you will read only 0.1 of other book.