Should you read chess books? If so, what kind/specific examples should you read? This post is for insturctional and educational purposes only, not for promotional purposes
Yes, i read chess book for beginner & chess magazines long time ago.
Chess book for beginner:
Basic moves in chess, tactics, secret move: en passant, how to checkmate with 1 rook, 2 rooks, 1 queen, 2 bishops, 1 bishop & 1 knight.
Chess magazines: Grand Masters' matches.
Chess book for beginner:
Basic moves in chess, tactics, secret move: en passant, how to checkmate with 1 rook, 2 rooks, 1 queen, 2 bishops, 1 bishop & 1 knight.
Chess magazines: Grand Masters' matches.
Yes and no. They are ok but don’t overrate.
It's all about following principles and metaphors. They have helped guide me in my decisions. The first one I was told was "Don't talk to strangers". Everything is relavent if we can apply it in other ways. So, I prefer reading chess books that have good advise, covers methods and concepts and are peer reviewed by others, so that I don't feel like I'm talking to a stranger.
The kind of chess books I read ...
Author is well known;
Federation approved;
Foreword by a Grandmaster;
Known Publishers;
What others recommend might not be made for your age or experience. I think a person should search chess books according to their rating category.
youtu.be/utYiiAb1Ngg
The kind of chess books I read ...
Author is well known;
Federation approved;
Foreword by a Grandmaster;
Known Publishers;
What others recommend might not be made for your age or experience. I think a person should search chess books according to their rating category.
youtu.be/utYiiAb1Ngg
In order to learn more about chess you want explanations in plain language about why moves are played. Tactical ideas don't usually require much explanation, because you can see them played out by brute force in a few moves with a computer, but deeper ideas about structures and weaknesses often require lots of words to help students understand them, because they are usually just potentials that might be realized in many different ways or not at all. (Incidentally, good explanations are key to all learning: I know lots of science teachers who wow students with stunts, like wrapping rubber bands around a watermelon until it explodes, but without explanations they aren't really learning anything, and it's kind of like watching the evaluation bar swing back and forth in a chess game without understanding why.)
Not everyone can afford a coach to give customized explanations, so books can be a great source of knowledge. Lots of old chess books were valuable just because they contained data on games, but that's irrelevant now. Books published today have the advantage of being double checked with computers, but they don't always contain well written explanations, so you can learn a lot by reading the thought processes of great players like Alekhine and Tal even when computers have refuted the moves.
I happen to love chess books because I love books, but more and more it's possible to get explanations from videos, and in some ways it's superior. If you're not an avid reader, it might be better to hear someone speaking with emotion for example, and it's helpful to see the moves made on screen rather than static diagrams in books. In both cases it matters a great deal how people use them. Students often expect to passively absorb ideas in books or lectures, but that never happens. If you're reading a chess book, even a good one, you have to exert a lot of energy to understand it. You should probably stop and evaluate a position before reading what the author has to say, and reread passages that seem important. Playing the moves out on a board adds a tactile dimension that helps memory. I suspect that most people don't use videos this way, but if you stop the video and evaluate a position before listening to the analysis, you'll probably get a lot more out of it.
The short answer is that you should read chess books if you like reading chess books and will take the time to do it well, but I think it's possible to get a lot of the same material from videos now if you do it properly. One good rule of thumb when deciding whether to buy a chess book is to look at a sample page and see the ratio of moves to words. If a book has long passages of prose then it probably has more explanations, but if it's filled with lists of moves and variations then you could probably just use an engine yourself.
EDIT: I would add that it's really valuable to create explanations yourself. Use the study feature to write annotations for your own games where you describe why you played a move and why it was wrong. You could also look at master games and try to write out an explanation in words for why the engine registers an advantage.
Not everyone can afford a coach to give customized explanations, so books can be a great source of knowledge. Lots of old chess books were valuable just because they contained data on games, but that's irrelevant now. Books published today have the advantage of being double checked with computers, but they don't always contain well written explanations, so you can learn a lot by reading the thought processes of great players like Alekhine and Tal even when computers have refuted the moves.
I happen to love chess books because I love books, but more and more it's possible to get explanations from videos, and in some ways it's superior. If you're not an avid reader, it might be better to hear someone speaking with emotion for example, and it's helpful to see the moves made on screen rather than static diagrams in books. In both cases it matters a great deal how people use them. Students often expect to passively absorb ideas in books or lectures, but that never happens. If you're reading a chess book, even a good one, you have to exert a lot of energy to understand it. You should probably stop and evaluate a position before reading what the author has to say, and reread passages that seem important. Playing the moves out on a board adds a tactile dimension that helps memory. I suspect that most people don't use videos this way, but if you stop the video and evaluate a position before listening to the analysis, you'll probably get a lot more out of it.
The short answer is that you should read chess books if you like reading chess books and will take the time to do it well, but I think it's possible to get a lot of the same material from videos now if you do it properly. One good rule of thumb when deciding whether to buy a chess book is to look at a sample page and see the ratio of moves to words. If a book has long passages of prose then it probably has more explanations, but if it's filled with lists of moves and variations then you could probably just use an engine yourself.
EDIT: I would add that it's really valuable to create explanations yourself. Use the study feature to write annotations for your own games where you describe why you played a move and why it was wrong. You could also look at master games and try to write out an explanation in words for why the engine registers an advantage.
No, videos summarize a 100 pages book in 10 minutes and give better details and explanation
The great German poet and thinker, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, revered books, and he wrote:
“Whoever reads books sees in the world
and not just to the fence."
“Whoever reads books sees in the world
and not just to the fence."
@Tenakel said in #8:
> The great German poet and thinker, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, revered books, and he wrote:
>
> “Whoever reads books sees in the world
> and not just to the fence."
Yeah but that was 300 years before Stockfish.
"Screw readin', gimme iPad" - modern Johann Goethe, probably
> The great German poet and thinker, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, revered books, and he wrote:
>
> “Whoever reads books sees in the world
> and not just to the fence."
Yeah but that was 300 years before Stockfish.
"Screw readin', gimme iPad" - modern Johann Goethe, probably
If you read books and play moves on a physical board, you will remember ideas and improve.
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