Which book on the opening or on a specific opening would you recommend? What is your favorite?
My favorite one is "Mastering Opening Strategy" by Johan Hellsten. It's full of exercises, which is important as active learning is better than just reading it.
The best opening book is... an endgame book.
@tpr I know you are referring to Capablanca:
"In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before everything else, for whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middle game and the opening must be studied in relation to the endgame."
He does have a point. But that doesn't mean the opening shouldn't be studied at all.
I think what you are referring to is the mindless and tedious memorization of opening theory which is indeed not relevant for most amateurs.
What I'm referring to is a deep understanding of chess opening principles that goes beyond common advice like "Develop your pieces", "Castle early", "control the center" which is good advice for total beginners, but isn't that useful later on.
What does it even mean to control the center? Putting your pawns on d4/e4 and now what? Why is this even advantageous for me? What can I do with a good center? Why is it bad to neglect your developement? What to do if your opponent doesn't castle? How to restrict your opponent's plans and so on and so on.
The opening phase has more to offer than just a bunch of long variations.
As GM Boris Gelfand stated, "don't make a move you don't understand" and I feel like this book does a good job in exploring the many aspects of the opening phase so that you will be able to come up with good opening moves and understand why they are good.
There is also another book named "Discovering Chess Openings: Building Opening Skills from Basic Principles" by John Emms. I don't own it so I can't say anything about it.
"In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before everything else, for whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middle game and the opening must be studied in relation to the endgame."
He does have a point. But that doesn't mean the opening shouldn't be studied at all.
I think what you are referring to is the mindless and tedious memorization of opening theory which is indeed not relevant for most amateurs.
What I'm referring to is a deep understanding of chess opening principles that goes beyond common advice like "Develop your pieces", "Castle early", "control the center" which is good advice for total beginners, but isn't that useful later on.
What does it even mean to control the center? Putting your pawns on d4/e4 and now what? Why is this even advantageous for me? What can I do with a good center? Why is it bad to neglect your developement? What to do if your opponent doesn't castle? How to restrict your opponent's plans and so on and so on.
The opening phase has more to offer than just a bunch of long variations.
As GM Boris Gelfand stated, "don't make a move you don't understand" and I feel like this book does a good job in exploring the many aspects of the opening phase so that you will be able to come up with good opening moves and understand why they are good.
There is also another book named "Discovering Chess Openings: Building Opening Skills from Basic Principles" by John Emms. I don't own it so I can't say anything about it.
My suggestion is to develop a repertoire and start reading books for each opening or buy chessable courses which is even better.
Let's illustrate Capa's folly with a simple hyperbole, the opening (first) book should discuss how to move the pieces.
I prefer BCO, ECO, MCO, or something similar. By reviewing all openings, you are show the general principles and it will be (mostly) relevant throughout your life. This also allows for more complicated openings as you progress.
If you must buy a specific repertoire book, I suggest anything by Lev Alburt. The format and explanations make it easy to understand the idea(s) behind the opening.
I prefer BCO, ECO, MCO, or something similar. By reviewing all openings, you are show the general principles and it will be (mostly) relevant throughout your life. This also allows for more complicated openings as you progress.
If you must buy a specific repertoire book, I suggest anything by Lev Alburt. The format and explanations make it easy to understand the idea(s) behind the opening.
The best opening book is... you know what? Nevermind.
The best endgame book is "Endgame strategy" by Šereševski.
I started playing as a teenager in the 90s, and mostly learnt stuff from secondhand books. My favourite for openings was an old copy of The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings by Rueben Fine.
It was written in 1948 and it shows - the cutting edge of Sicilian theory is the Dragon Variation coming into the ascendance over the Scheveningen with no Najdorf or Sveshnikov in sight, the Berlin Defence is dismissed as obviously inferior to 3... a6 lines, the most important line in the Giuoco Piano is with 5 d4 and so on - but the general approach is very informative: "this is the sort of thing that one side would ideally like to do if the opponent doesn't fight back, here, broadly, are the approaches that the opponent has to stop that happening, here is what it looks like when that plays out in practice". I wouldn't recommend it as a main source for studying openings in the 21st century, but as an example of how to introduce opening play to beginners I think it holds up really well.
The Hellsten book looks really good too - maybe philosophically similar but a few notches more advanced?
It was written in 1948 and it shows - the cutting edge of Sicilian theory is the Dragon Variation coming into the ascendance over the Scheveningen with no Najdorf or Sveshnikov in sight, the Berlin Defence is dismissed as obviously inferior to 3... a6 lines, the most important line in the Giuoco Piano is with 5 d4 and so on - but the general approach is very informative: "this is the sort of thing that one side would ideally like to do if the opponent doesn't fight back, here, broadly, are the approaches that the opponent has to stop that happening, here is what it looks like when that plays out in practice". I wouldn't recommend it as a main source for studying openings in the 21st century, but as an example of how to introduce opening play to beginners I think it holds up really well.
The Hellsten book looks really good too - maybe philosophically similar but a few notches more advanced?
@RamblinDave It's quite interesting how chess has developed over time and how views on certain openings have changed completely. Many things older books talk about are outdated, but some concepts prevailed til today. For example nowadays it is quite a modern approach to push g4 on the kingside in certain variations with the counter intuitive idea of fighting for the center. That's not a new idea. Lasker already applied this idea in his games and also Réti wrote in his books that pushing pawns on the flanks might be a way to fight for the center.
It's quite instructive to look at chess history and realizing that many things the old masters discovered are valid til today.
Thx for sharing your story!
It's quite instructive to look at chess history and realizing that many things the old masters discovered are valid til today.
Thx for sharing your story!
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