How to read chess books?

I currently have 3 chess books on my kitchen table and one in the home office in which I work. Kassanen's advice on pages is absurd. Many GM and masters swear by Dvorestsk's books. I own 3 of them myself. Silman's quality is hit or miss but does contain bits of very useful information.

My suggestion in terms of study is to have a variety out because one gets bored sometimes with doing the same thing. Being able to switch things up and keep things fresh gives better results than beating yourself to death trying to make it through a single book. Long as the book you have in front of you is at or above your level to the point you are learning, bouncing between in fine.

One thing I would suggest is of the books you bounce between force yourself to have a book devoted to calculation/tactics. It is always the last thing we want to study but I've seen some statistical analysis and up to master level, tactics are the result of most losses. It is the least sexy thing to say "study tactics to get better", but it is very important once your opening is strong enough that you generate pressure on your opponents in the middle game. Without tactics your advantages slip away, or worse yet you overlook something and your opponent punishes you with a loss.

Probably best is an endgame book, a calculation book, and then one book for your opening variation that you lose the most in and you are trying to improve. You can move between any of the materials you have, but make sure you are focusing on the cause of your losses. If 1-2 move tactics are killing you focus up that calculation. If your opening position is getting slaughtered, focus that. End games are no less important, so mix it up.

Try to learn ONE thing from every game!

@Whitsellf said in #11:

I currently have 3 chess books on my kitchen table and one in the home office in which I work. Kassanen's advice on pages is absurd. Many GM and masters swear by Dvorestsk's books. I own 3 of them myself. Silman's quality is hit or miss but does contain bits of very useful information.

My suggestion in terms of study is to have a variety out because one gets bored sometimes with doing the same thing. Being able to switch things up and keep things fresh gives better results than beating yourself to death trying to make it through a single book. Long as the book you have in front of you is at or above your level to the point you are learning, bouncing between in fine.

One thing I would suggest is of the books you bounce between force yourself to have a book devoted to calculation/tactics. It is always the last thing we want to study but I've seen some statistical analysis and up to master level, tactics are the result of most losses. It is the least sexy thing to say "study tactics to get better", but it is very important once your opening is strong enough that you generate pressure on your opponents in the middle game. Without tactics your advantages slip away, or worse yet you overlook something and your opponent punishes you with a loss.

Probably best is an endgame book, a calculation book, and then one book for your opening variation that you lose the most in and you are trying to improve. You can move between any of the materials you have, but make sure you are focusing on the cause of your losses. If 1-2 move tactics are killing you focus up that calculation. If your opening position is getting slaughtered, focus that. End games are no less important, so mix it up.

I tend to binge on one thing for a while, instead of bouncing around. I’ll do 3-4 months of endgames for example, then maybe move on to tactics and do 3-4 months of that.

My advice on mixing it up isn't because focusing on one area is wrong, it is more just psychology that many people have shorter attention spans and intense focus for 3-4 months on a singular area of chess might be unrealistic for the average person. Though if you have intense focus or maybe small/great amounts of OCD you might gain a lot more with that hyper attention to a single subject matter. I just don't think that the average learner is going to be that intense though.

I read a lot of ebooks in CBV format, and also use PGN files that people have made available on the internet. If none exists, I sometimes make one.

When I am going through a book with annotated games, I go through the game several times myself before I read the annotations in the book.

@Whitsellf said in #14:

My advice on mixing it up isn't because focusing on one area is wrong, it is more just psychology that many people have shorter attention spans and intense focus for 3-4 months on a singular area of chess might be unrealistic for the average person. Though if you have intense focus or maybe small/great amounts of OCD you might gain a lot more with that hyper attention to a single subject matter. I just don't think that the average learner is going to be that intense though.

Fair point. :)