For many years, I reviewed chess books on various Internet chess websites, most recently for IM Jeremy Silman’s website. I’ve had a genuine love affair with chess books since I was a kid, when I checked out IA Horowitz’s Chess Openings Theory and Practice from the local library and hand printed many of the pages for my own study. His books, and Fred Reinfeld’s (and Euwe’s Chess Master versus Chess Amateur) were the books that first got me started in my love affair with chess - and chess books.
Hence this thread. We’re now in the ‘computer age’ of chess where books have a less regal place in our chess knowledge and development. While I accept this, I also find it a bit sad. Great chess books are so full of knowledge and life that to not know them - as a chess player - is a shame. I am much the better player and person for knowing so many great chess books.
So . . . here is just one of my favorites. Trust me, if you haven’t read this, you should.
Endgame Strategy by Mikhail Shereshevsky. I learned so much from this book - which is really not so much about Endgame Strategy as about chess strategy in general. Much of the coverage is about the middle game transition to the endgame. The sections on the theory of two weaknesses and the isolated queen pawn alone are worth the price of the book. A pure 10.
Hands down my favorite book is “Reassess Your Chess” by Jeremy Silman.
I want to get the 4th edition and go through that. I gave my 3rd edition away years ago. It’s the kind of book that is good to go through again if one thinks they need a refresher on strategy. I guess it’s targeting around the 1400 to 1700 player.
There was an essay contest in the old Georgia Chess Association Newsletter entitled, “My Favorite Chess Book,” which was/is "Chess Openings Theory and Practice."Although my essay received only honorable mention the editor told me I did not win because I had previously won an earlier essay. It was my second Chess book, after "How To Play Chess, by Fred Reinfeld. I used COT&P so much the cover came off…Many decades later I noticed a copy for sale at the annual book sale in Hendersonville, NC, and nabbed it immediately!
I liked “Endgame Strategy” by Mikhail Shereshevsky so much that I recommended it to others, all of whom became NM. This includes the Legendary One, Tim Brookshear, Jerry “Nashville Strangler” Wheeler, and Brian “Big Mac” McCarthy. I gave a copy to IM Boris Kogan, who said it was an excellent book.
This proves that two Chess players can find something with which to agree, if they communicate enough. Thus proving Tim “The Dude” Bond was correct when he said friendship entails, “Mutual interests; mutual respect.”
A book that was very helpful to me when I first started was “Winning Chess” by Fred Reinfeld and Irving Chernev. I would win games by seeing simple tactics that my opponents missed. A little later I was greatly influenced by Aron Nimzowitch’s “My System”. In hindsight I think I went too far in valuing static advantages like pawn structure over dynamic advantages like piece activity and the initiative.
ya know, i remember the reinfeld and chernev books but the ones that stick out to me were/are “san antonio 1972”, “chess catechism”, “benko gambit”, “life and games of mikhail tal”, “rubinstein’s chess masterpieces”. probably because those were the first ones i really delved in to. dover and, was it RHM?, put out some great books.
My first opening book was “How to Play the King Pawn Openings” by Fred Reinfeld. I saved my lunch money in junior high so I could buy Modern Chess Openings, 11th edition. A few years later I starting buying the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings, starting with volumes C and B.
One book I bought fairly early was “How to Think Ahead in Chess” by Fred Reinfeld and I. A. Horowitz (if I recall correctly). It advocates an opening repertoire consisting of the Stonewall Attack for White and the Sicilian Dragon and Lasker’s Defense to the Queen’s Gambit for Black. I used the Black part of the repertoire for a few years, but I stopped playing the Dragon after I bought Bobby Fischer’s “My 60 Memorable Games” and saw his annotations to his win again Bent Larsen in game 2: “Larsen was one of the diehards who refused to abandon the Dragon until recently. White’s attack almost plays itself … weak players even beat Grandmasters with it.”
Regarding the Encyclopedia of Chess Opening, here’s a misadventure I had as a high school senior in a postal game I played soon after acquiring volume B. I decided to learn the Najdorf Sicilian by playing it as Black with help from ECO. Unfortunately my other books, like “My 60 Memorable Games”, were still in Rhodesia (where my parents lived), so all I had was ECO B, 1st edition. The game started 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4. I consulted ECO. B90 looked like the section I wanted. It offered the following responses for Black: 6…Nbd7, 6…e5, 6…b5, 6…Bd7, all leading to a clear advantage for White, and 6…g6, leading to a slight advantage for White. No mention of 6…e6. 6…g6 looked like the best move, so I played it (a Dragon!). I did manage to win the game, but I didn’t get much help from ECO since my opponent immediately left the book with 7.Be3 instead of 7.O-O, 7.f4 or 7.Bb3. Later on I realized that 6…e6 would have transposed to B86 (5…e6 6.Bc4 a6). ECO often provides footnotes showing transpositions to other sections, but in this case it left it up to the reader to figure out for himself.
Great book - Jeremy is a very good writer on all facets of chess. One of my favored openings books is his (along with John Donaldson) on the Accelerated Dragon Sicilian.
Yes, another classic that I also ‘grew up with.’ Actually, I read Chess Praxis first (which I found to be a bit more accessible) - and from that grew a life-long interest in the Nimzo-Indian Defense. I agree with you on the static versus dynamic thing - it also took me awhile to figure that out after being a Nimzo student for so many years.
All good books. I enjoyed the San Antonio book with the players doing the annotations. Favorite was one game (annotated, I think, by Larsen) with Ken Smith as white. Smith played 1.e4 and his opponent chose (if I recall correctly) the French Defense. Larsen’s comment was 1…e6? ‘Against Smith, 1…c5 wins a pawn.’
Referring, of course, to Smith’s love of the gambit after 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3. Being a long-time proponent of the Sicilian as black, I’m not so sure it is as cut and dried these days in terms of insufficient compensation for the pawn.
Definitely in my top 10 as well. Bronstein’s notes were incredibly detailed but in a conversational way. I learned a lot about some very topical openings from that book (well, at least topical for 1953).
Fire on Board by Alexey Shirov. An earlier comment mentioned the interplay between static and dynamic in chess. Trust me - if you want to feel the dynamic, check out this book. It blew me away the first time I read it - WOW. Chess on speed - this is it.