Is My System/Chess Praxis by Aron Nimzowitsch a good book for beginners to study? Or would that be to advanced?
I have only read "My System" and although the concepts that are shown in the book aren't really that difficult to grasp, the style in which the book is written is way too verbose and it gets very tiring to read and to understand in the end. I think that a book like "Simple Chess" by Michael Stean, which goes over more or less the same concepts is more to the point and comprehensible in my opinion.
"My System" is excellent for beginners, towards the end it gets more advanced. "Chess Praxis" is more advanced.
The explanations in "My System" are very good.
For me its very important the diagrams and the alphabet,
I mean the typography, Im a visual player, good players
may read the board with chess notation but I like
a lot of diagrams, also at the moment I do not know
which one is best Arial, Times New Roman,
what Im trying to say its that the book can be overwhelming
in lines and I prefer easy peasy.
I would stay away of hypermodern chess if u are new
to chess, have fun some years playing normal and then u may look at it, I will try to find some time to take a look at the reti opening but there are a lot of main concepts
and priorities before that e4 for example
I say this because u were talking about books and there are a lot of books interesting but important books are first, so I would not spend time looking into a sideline
Someday I will write a chess book I hope.
"Chess Fundamentals" by Capablanca is more basic. It is in descriptive notation, but an algebraic edition exists.
Thanks @tpr descriptive notation, algebraic edition.
I cannot recommend. It has some historical value but there are 1000 newer books which are more suitable for noobs.
In the past there were just a couple of „bad books“, you had no choice. Today you have!
Today there are many bad books.
A book by the world's strongest player is worth studying.
you're at it again @tpr .. Just because the author is a very strong player... or world champion doesn't mean that the person is good at teaching or making people understand....being good at chess doesn't automatically grant you the talent of easy and effective transfer of knowledge... let me give an example... I'll rather learn about "gravity" from Hawking instead of Einstein, why? I love Hawking's humour and his explanations are really easy for me to understand whereas Einstein's somewhat difficult... and mind you Einstein is sometimes referred to as "the world's smartest man"......
I should probably give you another instance... when I was in secondary school... I was the best student in Mathematics,... Further Mathematics and Physics... but anytime a friend came to me for help on a topic the person might just end up more confused... why?.... I know the topic very well... but I always find it hard to put in words that are easy to understand..
Strength of the player isn't a criteria to select a good book...
Please any beginner or "noob"... read reviews about books before you read... and don't just read a book because it was written by "GM Magnus Carlsen"... you might end up worse!... Cheers! 😉
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