"... I found [the books of Aaron Nimzowitsch to be] very difficult to read or understand. ... [Nimzowitsch: A Reappraisal by Raymond Keene explains his] thinking and influence on the modern game in a far more lucid and accessible way. ... The books that are most highly thought of are not necessarily the most useful. Go with those that you find to be readable. ..." - GM Nigel Davies (2010)
A My System sample can be seen at:
www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/MySystem-excerpt.pdfA Chernev sample (discussing 5 Nxe5, after 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 f5 4 d4 fxe4):
"Apparently a strong move. White gets his pawn back and prevents [5...d6] or [5...d5]. After either of these moves, the continuation [6 Nxc6 bxc6 7 Bxc6+] wins the exchange.
White also has a powerful threat in [6 Bxc6 dxc6 7 Qh5+ Ke7 8 Qf7+ Kd6 9 Nc4#].
This is all very tempting, since the possibility of mating so early in the game is attractive to the young player, but such ambition should be suppressed. Premature mating attacks are usually repulsed with loss of time or material to the aggressor.
A safer continuation is [5 Bxc6 dxc6 6 Nxe5]."
@kindaspongey said in #11:
> "... I found [the books of Aaron Nimzowitsch to be] very difficult to read or understand. ... [Nimzowitsch: A Reappraisal by Raymond Keene explains his] thinking and influence on the modern game in a far more lucid and accessible way. ... The books that are most highly thought of are not necessarily the most useful. Go with those that you find to be readable. ..." - GM Nigel Davies (2010)
> A My System sample can be seen at:
> www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/MySystem-excerpt.pdf
My System was very hard for me to understand. It still is. I think it's the very old writing style?
"... In my view, you should be at least 1800 strength to benefit fully from [My System]." - GM Jonathan Levitt (1997)
in other words (op question) besides moving things on the board, are they ideas to aim for that might scaffold your play toward the best terminal outcome, the goal? or is it just pure solo experience, hours spent, repetitions made. Should one even ask questions beside which way is mate... So the title.
Nobody mentioned a book call Point count chess which seems to be glossing over tactics to focus on long term goals (probably implying some tactical work, but not as focus and no enumeration of it).
I have heard very good things about it, and is my next rare chess book I will ever try to read. (the other was Nimzo, and
I could only do part of it, or was interested by only that part at that time). PCC. it seems an oddity. But for my mathematical enclined mind, it seems very promising (i am trying to psych myself up to do some streamlined reading,, really hard for me). a book. in its order..... but it promises. I have actually browsed in TOC, and preface,, which convinced me. but that is not enough.
The first thing after knowing how the pieces move is probably to learn the heuristic points system it's like 1 point for pawn, 3 points for knight and for bishop, 5 points for rook, and 9 points for queen. Check in your turn to see if you can capture your opponents piece, and if you can do it, check that they can't capture you back, or if they can then check if you end up with more points after the exchange.
I once browsed through Point Count Chess and I would imagine that it would be helpful as long as one was okay with the descriptive notation (1 P-K4 P-K4 2 N-KB3 N-QB3 etc.). My guess is that it is not so good that one would have difficulty finding similarly helpful modern books.
Practice, analysis positions, learn tactics and watch instructive games
@kindaspongey said in #18:
> I once browsed through Point Count Chess and I would imagine that it would be helpful as long as one was okay with the descriptive notation (1 P-K4 P-K4 2 N-KB3 N-QB3 etc.). My guess is that it is not so good that one would have difficulty finding similarly helpful modern books.
Well isn't it the only book that makes the effort to present high level words in a non vague fashion, as an ensemble, which is something I have been longing for ages to get, and is difficult to do in a book because it is physically made in a sequence.
The mathematical concern for quantities about positional objectives to be taken all together seems unique. It is still a book, is my only problem. But I don't think there is any other equivalent with that approach.. (unless there is?)
