Hello!
After extensive research of good, solid, comprehensive chess books for beginners and advanced beginners, I have started reading both the "Soviet Chess Primer" by Maizelis and "Journey to the Chess Kingdom", by Averbakh/Beilin.
Everyone says that the Soviet Chess Primer is not for beginners, that Averbakh's book is a better option, etc...so I started with it....however I feel that the book Journey to the Chess Kingdom also has insanely difficult exercises for a beginner book. The guy explains the movement of the pieces and the exercises are about mate in 5, mate in 4, with very subtle moves (not forcing checks/captures, for instance).
Is this effective as a learning method?? I get them right maybe 70-80% of the time I guess, but sometimes it takes me 20-30 minutes to find the answer. Are these books actually effective for beginners? I know a beginner can work on them, but isn't it better to try to build the skill more gradually (mate in 1 first, then mate in 2, forced moves first, etc.?)
Should I stick to these books or should I switch to books that have a more gradual approach?
These books have such a high praise from respected players that I feel very confused....do they like them because they are actually that good? Or only because they were the ones available at that time? Are there better modern options around of good, solid, comprehensive chess books for advanced beginners (1300-1500 FIDE I would say)?
Thanks!
"Is this effective as a learning method?"
- Yes
"I get them right maybe 70-80% of the time I guess, but sometimes it takes me 20-30 minutes to find the answer."
- In school you also get exercises you are lucky if you get them right 70-80% of the time. 20-30 minutes of thought teach you something. Easy exercise you can find in seconds are worthless.
"Are these books actually effective for beginners?"
-Yes
"isn't it better to try to build the skill more gradually"
-No, if you can be right 70-80% of the time with 20-30 min of thought, you are on a good track.
"Should I stick to these books or should I switch to books that have a more gradual approach?"
-Stick to the books.
"These books have such a high praise from respected players that I feel very confused....do they like them because they are actually that good?"
-These books are good, their authors are good.
"Are there better modern options around of good, solid, comprehensive chess books for advanced beginners (1300-1500 FIDE I would say)?"
-There are many options around, but the ones you got are rightly praised.
Thanks! I appreciate your comments.
I agree that having extremely easy exercises doesn't help much.
I was just expecting something in between...maybe mate in 2, mate in 3, some forcing checks/captures first....
Learning how to mate with queen vs lone king and in the next page having to get a 5-moves mate that start with a waiting pawn move isn't exactly the most motivating way to teach, in my humble opinion :-)
You may first read "Bobby Fischer Teaches chess", this is structured and begins very simple (like 'can the queen be taken by the king?') and gradually becomes more complex. This will help you to get the basic grasp of how the pieces work and how to calculate a bit.
Then go on, keep reading the other two books. They are good. But read them like a newspaper. Knowing many middlegame books is better than knowing just one.
An exception is Kmochs 'Pawn Power in Chess'. This is a theoretical book, a structured reference, and should be read through sentence by sentence.
Thanks for your recommendations Klartext!
I have already read Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess...I have also done all the workbooks from Steps 1 and 2 of the Steps Method....so my calculation and tactical vision are not that bad....what I lack, I guess, is concepts....like weak squares, how to create and solve them, how to attack a castled position, how to work with pawn majority, how to calculate more effectively, king and pawn endings, etc
Of course I still have trouble calculating 4-5 moves, especially when the moves are not forcing like the ones in these books mentioned before, or when there are many available responses (i.e. king and pawn endings)....but overall my calculation and knowledge about how the pieces move is OK
These 2 books I mentioned have most of what I'm looking for....the basic concepts and theory...the problem were:
- the huge difference between the theory explained and the level of the exercises
- sometimes a shallow explanation...for instance: "see how easy it is to mate with 2 bishops...you just have to coordinate the pieces well"....and there is no good explanation on how to coordinate the pieces properly.
Thus, I was wondering if there is a better book...with all these basic concepts, but with better exercises and explanations.
thanks!
Another hilarious “beginner” book is Gregory Levinfish’s Book of the beginner chess player.
Literally in the first chapter BEFORE explaining how the pieces move the author asks the reader to memorize all squares on the board, their colors and which diagonals cross on each square. So, if I say f5, you are to instantly say what color it is (not allowed to count) and which diagonals cross on it.
I don’t even...
Then there are dozens of pages of rook endings while openings are “taught” like this: develop, castle, and most importantly fight for and control the center. That’s it.
Are there good alternatives?
I've tried some more modern stuff:
namely Wolff's Complete Idiot's guide to chess and Alburt's Comprehensive chess course volumes 1 and 2...but these were too shallow
:-(
@Hwyrion ' I guess, is concepts....like weak squares (= stop squares), how to create (you cant, opp must make errors) and solve them (better to prevent them in first place), how to attack a castled position (e.g. castle on the other side, advance your pawns opposing his king protecting pawns, open files), how to work with pawn majority (build pawn duos, activate king, control open files)' - all this gets explained in detail in the already mentioned 'Pawn Power in Chess' by Kmoch. The books by Jusupov and Dvoretzky elaborate further on these topics, on a very high level. E.g. the principle of the two weaknesses has been formulated by Dvoretzky. (And his students made jokes about: 'the principle of the zero weaknesses').
'how to calculate more effectively' this is an interesting question, and to be honest, most chess books suck at teaching this. The common hint is: Do tactics, masses of tactics. And this actually happen to function well. So do 25 tactics every day (or more, if your time allows that), here or on Chess Tempo. I suggest to not use more than one minute per tactic in the beginning, because in the beginning it is more about learning the motifs, later it will be about calculating. The second heavily depends on the first, this has been proven by studies. The only books i know, which try a structured view on tactics and calculation are 'Understanding Chess tactics' by Weteschnik (tactics) and 'Chess Master ... at any age' by Wetzell (calculation). Edit: Nunns "Secrets of Practical Chess" also elaborates on that in detail, Nunn in general writes very good books.
', king and pawn endings' For this i recommend Bernd Rosens 'Chess Endgame Training', because it consists just of diagrams to solve, plus short explanations of the theoretical concepts behind, aka, it is short. Every page has six diagrams, the whole book is 92 pages, including solutions. However, the book does not discuss the basic mates, for this you may use for example Dvoretskys Endgame Manual. But in general all endgame books are good and they do not age.