I’d like to find used copies of two books in good condition for a reasonbale price:
Alexander Kotov: Play Like A Grandmaster
Andy Soltis: Pawn Structure Chess
Cheers,
Mitch
I would check Amazon. I’ve bought a couple of used books and had good luck with it.
I have, too. The problem is that with these books, the used book vendors are being rater exploitive. They want 2-3x the retail price of the book for one that is used and marked up, torn covers, etc. For clean copies, they want even more multiples of the original retail price.
Have you tried your local library, the library inter-library loan system, or a local college/university? You will not be able to buy the book(s), but you may be able to check it out for a few weeks. You will be surprised by what you can get access to this way. If you are a student enrolled at a college/university there may even be inter-library loan among the various institutions within your state!
As for Amazon or E-Bay, it is easier to get an old used book that was first published in the old english descriptive notation at a cheap price. Of course you have to know yourself how to use that system of notation. Hope this is of some help.
Larry Cohen
In February 2008 the Soltis book sold for $12 at Amazon (not that this helps you now). I remember preparing to pay a little extra for a rulebook in order to support the official USCF vendor at the time, but when shipping was absurdly high I instead purchased at Amazon and used the differences in the book cost and shipping cost to get my “free” book on pawn structure.