Apparently in computer chess engines times it doesn't matter how strong an author of a book is. Everybody can beat a champion with computer assistance. What matters is how well he can write about it.
To call it even, i think it's safe to say that Capablancas' book is a classic in the field of chess books. But i think there's probably also good books by "lesser" masters (not world champions), which are worth reading. Do we agree? Yes or no? Anyone?
Guys, this book is really weird, full of strange stories which have hardly any value. There are some basic concepts covered. Well, it probably gives you a warped start. If you become good despite this book, good luck. It is completely overrated.
By the way, I have read first Dr Tarrasch. 1930, dogmatic and more sober. This would be a more neutral old book starting with endgames first, finally some openings. And also a historical bestseller.
By the way, I have read first Dr Tarrasch. 1930, dogmatic and more sober. This would be a more neutral old book starting with endgames first, finally some openings. And also a historical bestseller.
#29
Dvoretzky was a strong IM 2690, even stronger than GM Michael Stean 2661.
Dvoretzky was a strong IM 2690, even stronger than GM Michael Stean 2661.
#35 your point?... I just can't hold myself from replying lol... going by your ideology people shouldn't take advice from you @tpr about chess because your..rating for example rapid.. is 2081... whereas @Sarg0n who has a higher rapid rating 2300+ and is also a candidate master... his advice should be rather taken... I think its safe for us to disregard your advice(and you games analysis lol) and rather listen to those of the "higher rated's" since by your opinion the higher rated's impart knowledge better....
I'm really just hitting on this because I know that there are alot of "noobs" in this forum that hold your advice as paramount simply because you "seem" to reply to most forum posts...
anyways... every man his choice.. 😁
I'm really just hitting on this because I know that there are alot of "noobs" in this forum that hold your advice as paramount simply because you "seem" to reply to most forum posts...
anyways... every man his choice.. 😁
My system was the first chess book I purchased .
I was fascinated by the descriptions and dutifully tried to follow the examples and ideas in the book.
The first chapters are on opening principles. Basically everyone needs some version of it in order to survive the first ten moves and get a playable middle game. But this could be learned elsewhere .
The meat is annotated games with Nimzo's principles attached to the games moves.
I learned a ton from that ambitious book. and it shaped my play for two years and beyond.
Though I had to unlearn some, adapt some and internalize some of what I learned there I don't regret the process anymore.Though I did while I was unlearning.
There is a question of opportunity cost when chosing a chess book that I can't really answer here, though I really really liked The book "simple chess " and am using many of the ideas in that short volume even today.
I don't even want to get into the limitations of 'thinking system' books because chess advancement is a series of ladders we climb and discard the ladders themselves at some point when they are internalized , changed or abandoned.
As the first of many asides...
Meditation helps players improve and is used by noted Indian trainer Ramesh (am I spelling that write?).
Apart from helping to focus and relax which has nothing to do with this topic....
Meditation can cause us to enter a state of observing our thinking. If we can observe our thoughts over being our thoughts we can gain more power to change and experiment with different ways of viewing something. This is usefull for adapting , discarding and internalizing chess ladders.
The trouble with strategy is it's layered.
Eventually, I'll give an example that starts out obviously but quickly gets convoluted. Please don't take the levels too literally they are arbitrary dividing lines in rook understanding. Also the inefficiency of studying higher level rook strategy is that the simplest levels are the most common and most often correct. So if you meta game rooks to the heavens you gain more appreciation for chess than actual playing strength.
Without further ado another aside...
In terms of raw improvement via strategy
its most efficient to have a very basic strategic framework like "simple chess" combined with an additional book on pawn structures and one on middle game themes.
And to train the contents of the three books over and over. And play the concepts in those books in your games over and over. Eventually they may become your own, or you'll adapted them in some way.
In two and a half years on Li chess I've played over 10 000 games of chess. I'd say about a third of those would be 'try hard' which has some resemblence to deliberate practise. That's a lot of games for feedback.
Once some kind of simple strategic frame work is cemented The other forms of training resemble weight training where you learn to look a little further and a little wider until you get up to anywere from 2 to 6 moves ahead depending if you want to be a strong club player or a tactical beast. It's not just brute force searching most of time every move has a meaning and a reason. Calculation only works well if we have a reason.
Personally I cut myself of at two or three moves and find this is enough for all but maybe 3-4 times in a game , Those moments that require deeper looking I often miss and highlight a limitation of my cut off method.
And finally rooks layered strategy.
Rooks
level 1-a. get your rooks active to the open files
b.be the first one there to dictate matters
c.coordinate with your forces to tease out weak squares
d. gain access to entry squares or 'swing squares for your rooks
Ok so that is half of the coin for level one rooks, the other half would be defensive measures since all the above thing were describing activativing your own rooks.
You could actually break down level one rook strategy which is likely enough for below 2000 playing strength. In fairly simple terms.
"Activate your rooks and harrass the things in it's way."
Level two rooks is taking the minors into account.
a.Minors are worth less than rooks. In a game of trade offs the weaker the piece the greater the threat of trading up.
b. with enough minors on the board or a harmonious pawn and one minor set up. The rook can be denied useful entry from it's occupied open file.
c.In most quiet middlegame positions one tempo is worth about a third of a pawn. Therefore if one side occupies a file on principle but the file is not useful for either side for the moment, the objective evaluation of the position will shift. Now if the position is sharper handing a tempo away for a 'pretty move' could just lose on the spot.
d. The better minor piece in a middlegame often has more available squares to wander around to than it's 'bad' counterpart. Ideally the better minor will either be targeting or threatening something .If this action happens to be tieing up a rook in an awkward position we can have a temporary power play on the board as long as we are able to activate our rooks.
Now to applying level two rook strategy.
Level two rook strategy is to place less value on intially activating the rooks, but instead create more harmonious coordination of our minors so that when the battle for the file occurs we have more tools in our tool box to win that battle. It could be harrassing the opponent rook of the file. Targetting pawns with our minors and defending a pawn our minor asking the rook "are you sacrificing the exchange for a pawn here?"
I can't explain where all the minors go in every structure, and there is no formula for it , you learn where they go by studying annotated games, openings , middlegame, and playing a lot.
1. I could explain rook strategy up to level 4 where the neural network assess space and kingside attacking chances when chosing to whether or not to sieze the open file. They sometimes want additional firepower for a long term slow burning king side attack.
2. But the reality is that I still blunder two and three movers in my games almost every game . My chess culture and wide brush strock narrative is not fundamental to chess improvement.
3. Level two rook understanding is quite useful though since , if your opponent is unaware of it they often try to do something with their rook on that open file only to find they have expended three tempo entering into a postion that was ready for it.
The number of games I have won in blitz from my opponent activating their rook, finding nothing to do with it so going on an adventure deep into my position only to have to give it up for a minor is quite large. What people miss is a rook swinging up an open file is also a target.
As though this post wasn't long enough already I have one recommendation/opinion
Recomendation-Google 'Bloom's Taxonomy revised'
look at the image of the triangle and read the notes within.
Opinion- The vast majority of below master strength chess improvement needs to be focuses on the bottom three sections.
The higher level functions are engaging for educated adults.
But our training should center around "remembering" ,'understanding', 'applying'
over deeper strategic and evaluative realities.
I was fascinated by the descriptions and dutifully tried to follow the examples and ideas in the book.
The first chapters are on opening principles. Basically everyone needs some version of it in order to survive the first ten moves and get a playable middle game. But this could be learned elsewhere .
The meat is annotated games with Nimzo's principles attached to the games moves.
I learned a ton from that ambitious book. and it shaped my play for two years and beyond.
Though I had to unlearn some, adapt some and internalize some of what I learned there I don't regret the process anymore.Though I did while I was unlearning.
There is a question of opportunity cost when chosing a chess book that I can't really answer here, though I really really liked The book "simple chess " and am using many of the ideas in that short volume even today.
I don't even want to get into the limitations of 'thinking system' books because chess advancement is a series of ladders we climb and discard the ladders themselves at some point when they are internalized , changed or abandoned.
As the first of many asides...
Meditation helps players improve and is used by noted Indian trainer Ramesh (am I spelling that write?).
Apart from helping to focus and relax which has nothing to do with this topic....
Meditation can cause us to enter a state of observing our thinking. If we can observe our thoughts over being our thoughts we can gain more power to change and experiment with different ways of viewing something. This is usefull for adapting , discarding and internalizing chess ladders.
The trouble with strategy is it's layered.
Eventually, I'll give an example that starts out obviously but quickly gets convoluted. Please don't take the levels too literally they are arbitrary dividing lines in rook understanding. Also the inefficiency of studying higher level rook strategy is that the simplest levels are the most common and most often correct. So if you meta game rooks to the heavens you gain more appreciation for chess than actual playing strength.
Without further ado another aside...
In terms of raw improvement via strategy
its most efficient to have a very basic strategic framework like "simple chess" combined with an additional book on pawn structures and one on middle game themes.
And to train the contents of the three books over and over. And play the concepts in those books in your games over and over. Eventually they may become your own, or you'll adapted them in some way.
In two and a half years on Li chess I've played over 10 000 games of chess. I'd say about a third of those would be 'try hard' which has some resemblence to deliberate practise. That's a lot of games for feedback.
Once some kind of simple strategic frame work is cemented The other forms of training resemble weight training where you learn to look a little further and a little wider until you get up to anywere from 2 to 6 moves ahead depending if you want to be a strong club player or a tactical beast. It's not just brute force searching most of time every move has a meaning and a reason. Calculation only works well if we have a reason.
Personally I cut myself of at two or three moves and find this is enough for all but maybe 3-4 times in a game , Those moments that require deeper looking I often miss and highlight a limitation of my cut off method.
And finally rooks layered strategy.
Rooks
level 1-a. get your rooks active to the open files
b.be the first one there to dictate matters
c.coordinate with your forces to tease out weak squares
d. gain access to entry squares or 'swing squares for your rooks
Ok so that is half of the coin for level one rooks, the other half would be defensive measures since all the above thing were describing activativing your own rooks.
You could actually break down level one rook strategy which is likely enough for below 2000 playing strength. In fairly simple terms.
"Activate your rooks and harrass the things in it's way."
Level two rooks is taking the minors into account.
a.Minors are worth less than rooks. In a game of trade offs the weaker the piece the greater the threat of trading up.
b. with enough minors on the board or a harmonious pawn and one minor set up. The rook can be denied useful entry from it's occupied open file.
c.In most quiet middlegame positions one tempo is worth about a third of a pawn. Therefore if one side occupies a file on principle but the file is not useful for either side for the moment, the objective evaluation of the position will shift. Now if the position is sharper handing a tempo away for a 'pretty move' could just lose on the spot.
d. The better minor piece in a middlegame often has more available squares to wander around to than it's 'bad' counterpart. Ideally the better minor will either be targeting or threatening something .If this action happens to be tieing up a rook in an awkward position we can have a temporary power play on the board as long as we are able to activate our rooks.
Now to applying level two rook strategy.
Level two rook strategy is to place less value on intially activating the rooks, but instead create more harmonious coordination of our minors so that when the battle for the file occurs we have more tools in our tool box to win that battle. It could be harrassing the opponent rook of the file. Targetting pawns with our minors and defending a pawn our minor asking the rook "are you sacrificing the exchange for a pawn here?"
I can't explain where all the minors go in every structure, and there is no formula for it , you learn where they go by studying annotated games, openings , middlegame, and playing a lot.
1. I could explain rook strategy up to level 4 where the neural network assess space and kingside attacking chances when chosing to whether or not to sieze the open file. They sometimes want additional firepower for a long term slow burning king side attack.
2. But the reality is that I still blunder two and three movers in my games almost every game . My chess culture and wide brush strock narrative is not fundamental to chess improvement.
3. Level two rook understanding is quite useful though since , if your opponent is unaware of it they often try to do something with their rook on that open file only to find they have expended three tempo entering into a postion that was ready for it.
The number of games I have won in blitz from my opponent activating their rook, finding nothing to do with it so going on an adventure deep into my position only to have to give it up for a minor is quite large. What people miss is a rook swinging up an open file is also a target.
As though this post wasn't long enough already I have one recommendation/opinion
Recomendation-Google 'Bloom's Taxonomy revised'
look at the image of the triangle and read the notes within.
Opinion- The vast majority of below master strength chess improvement needs to be focuses on the bottom three sections.
The higher level functions are engaging for educated adults.
But our training should center around "remembering" ,'understanding', 'applying'
over deeper strategic and evaluative realities.
Create
Evaluate
Analyze
Apply
Understand
Remember
Evaluate
Analyze
Apply
Understand
Remember
So I've seen a couple of other books suggested, and I've narrowed it down to three other choices alongside My System to buy: Soviet Chess Primer, Chess Fundamentals by Capablanca and Simple Chess by Micheal Stean. Which of the four would you recommend the most for a beginner based on content and ease of understanding the content?
@pointlesswindows What do you mean by "It's an anti-beginners book"?
@pointlesswindows What do you mean by "It's an anti-beginners book"?
@TheBoarShark The opposite of a beginner's book.
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