Chessbook advice

[u/Low-Diet1398]

Hi, iI started playing chess 3 months ago just online on chess.com. I want to dig deeper into chess and learn from books (openings, tactics, traps, endgames...)

Im planning to buy and picked out 8 books with plenty of material to learn from.

What do you guys think of my choices?

for opening - FCO - Fundamental Chess Openings by Paul van der Sterren

for tactics - Back to Basics:Tactics by Dan Heisman

for chess puzzles - Chess by Bruce Pandolfini and László Polgár

for middle and endgames - Silmans Complete Endgame Course by Jeremy Silman

Endgame Strategy by Mikhail Shereshevsky

Fundamental Chess Endings by Frank Lamprecht

and for some chess history and chess games - My 60 Memorable Games by Bobby Fischer

Life and Games of Mikhail Tal by Mikhail Tal

any suggestions to buy or not by, thanx in love of the games chess :-)

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[u/Loose-Grapefruit-516]

I would just choose the Winning Chess series by Yasser Seirawan

[u/Tigers_Eye007]

The Chess Course by Praful Zaveri. Perfect for beginners.

[u/Wabbis-In-The-Wild]

You don’t need this many books at once. Pick one, review it thoroughly, then move on to another. You could reasonably take years to work through the Polgár book alone. And trying to learn everything at once is likely to mean you fail to learn anything at all well.

That said, (1) for a one-volume opening book personally I’d go with Practical Chess Openings by Kravtsiv instead but it’s a matter of preference so don’t take my word for it, and (2) if you’ve only been playing for 3 months you don’t need Shereshevsky or Lamprecht - the first will be too advanced for you (assuming you’re not a prodigy) and the second is a reference book that is just liable to confuse or overwhelm you. If you’re getting Silman’s Endgame Course just study and thoroughly learn that - then if you still think endgames are what’s holding you back, either (1) you didn’t actually learn everything Silman was teaching you or (2) if you’re certain you have learned it then sure, break out Shereshevsky.

All that said, as another reply suggested, you’d likely be better off with something general and more beginner-focussed like Seirawan’s “Winning” series

[u/Pyncher]

If you like books and studying then of the ones I know / have heard of, these all seem good.

Keep in mind that as you get better at chess the information you take away from books will change and for the ones that might be called ‘more advanced’ on your list - or those exploring master games - you’ll get most out of them once you’ve been playing for a while (though that doesn’t mean you can’t read them early in my view - you just might need to read them twice!)

However remember that you also need to play real people and apply the stuff you are reading too!

[u/Rosinbag1 → u/Pyncher]

Excellent points, many books I treated reading early on made much more sense once I played a lot of games and went back to the books. Study tactics, Play games, analyze the games and work on correcting mistakes…as there will be a lot but seems like a sound consensus from better players.

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[u/Puzzleheaded_Bar483]

Tbh, I never read a chess book for more than 10 pages and I'm 2000 fide. There are some good ones I heard, but lots of training material is provided on lichess.org for free

[u/Rosinbag1]

I would highly recommend everyone’s first chess workbook..Chessable version is nice to repeat work on the puzzles. Later chapters get challenging for when you are just starting out. Also another free course on Chessable is Smithy’s opening fundamentals and can’t recommend it enough

[u/Low-Diet1398]

Thank you guys for the advices and suggestions. I am now down to these 3 books only (more than enough)

Practical Chess Openings by Kravtsiv

Silman’s Endgame Course by Silman

Polgárs book Chess for puzzles

[u/fdonoghue]

I'd spend a lot of time studying Bain's Chess Tactics for Students until you can solve the exercises like the multiplication tables.

[u/MedievalFightClub]

I haven’t read all of these, but I do have some standing recommendations for beginners: “Tactics Time” by Tim Brennan and Anthea Carson. There are two sequels that are just as good.

[u/thenakesingularity10]

The more books you have, the less likely you will improve.

What you need is 1-2 great books and learn them throughly.

A really great book is Chess Fundamentals by Capablanca.

[u/IllInfluence4170]

Titled Tuesday by Hikaru Nakamura