Books I Am Reading
I've got 3 chess books going at once now. I'm learning a lot from each of them. Here, I've listed them in order of focus, where the book I spend the most time reading is listed first.
Pawn Structure Chess by GM Andy Soltis - This book has shown me a LOT of things about strategic play based on pawn structure. Unfortunately, although I'm nearly finished with reading it, only a little has really stuck with me. Therefore, I plan to re-read it upon completion before beginning the next book in line in my strategic studies. That book will either be Kmoch's Pawn Power in Chess, which I read years ago, but need to refresh the memory on, or Watson's Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy, which I had begun earlier, but it was over my head at that point.
Imagination in Chess by Paata Gaprindashvili - This book is for all you MDLM graduates out there. Give this book a go. Over 750 tactical puzzles of Expert difficulty and higher. I've only completed about 25 of these and each one has taken me from 15 minutes to about half an hour to fully solve.
Play the King's Indian by Joe Gallagher - This one is specific to a personal weakness of mine; playing against 1. d4. This opening seems to provide versatility (can be used against 1. c4 and 1. Nf3 as well), as well as lots of tactics (which I love). However, I need to learn a lot of the ideas behind it to use it effectively.
Pawn Structure Chess by GM Andy Soltis - This book has shown me a LOT of things about strategic play based on pawn structure. Unfortunately, although I'm nearly finished with reading it, only a little has really stuck with me. Therefore, I plan to re-read it upon completion before beginning the next book in line in my strategic studies. That book will either be Kmoch's Pawn Power in Chess, which I read years ago, but need to refresh the memory on, or Watson's Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy, which I had begun earlier, but it was over my head at that point.
Imagination in Chess by Paata Gaprindashvili - This book is for all you MDLM graduates out there. Give this book a go. Over 750 tactical puzzles of Expert difficulty and higher. I've only completed about 25 of these and each one has taken me from 15 minutes to about half an hour to fully solve.
Play the King's Indian by Joe Gallagher - This one is specific to a personal weakness of mine; playing against 1. d4. This opening seems to provide versatility (can be used against 1. c4 and 1. Nf3 as well), as well as lots of tactics (which I love). However, I need to learn a lot of the ideas behind it to use it effectively.
posted by CelticDeath at 8:12 AM
12 Comments:
Interesting list. I have read a good review of the Soltis book.
I don't know what possibly could be tougher, the problems in that "Imagination" book, or pronouncing the author's name (;-)
Pawn Structure Chess....ahhh yes.
One of the first ever chess books I bought, as a total patzer. I thought it would teach me general things, like what a pawn chain is, what a weak pawn is, etc..
That dammned book is still gathering dust on my shelf, still WAY over my head. Maybe someday I'll appreciate it.
BDK, get through the tactical circles, and then take a stab at the book again. Also, I'm studying it in conjunction with working Chess Mentor (specifically Silman's 2 strategy supplemental programs as well as Wolski's Mastering Your Technique supplement)and the games start to "come to life" as I play them. I'm getting really good at predicting moves now. The tough thing is getting these to translate into my games.
Cool, I didn't know Silman had actually developed programs! How are they?
He just provided the positions and analysis on some of the supplements. Aficionado is the company that put the software out. Personally, I love the software, but the company is apparently troubled and was going through restructuring. You can still find it at ChessUSA.com and probably some other places. Pawn Sensei owns some of the software, too, although I don't know if he's gotten any of the supplementary courses yet. It's got a good training engine that basically works like this:
1. You are presented with a problem and need to solve it.
2. You are given a score based on how well you performed.
3. If your solve was perfect, the problem is removed from the mix, and you are considered having "learned" it.*
4. If your solve was less than perfect, the problem goes back into the mix and you will be given another chance to solve it later (at some random time).
That process continues until you achieve 100% on all problems in the "solving cycle."
*Of course, you might not really have learned it. So, it's a good idea to repeat the solving cycle periodically.
Oh, and a post-note about Silman's style. If you've ever read his book The Amateur's Mind, you'll notice how rough he is on his students. Well, you can get a taste of this yourself through the supplemental courses he wrote for Chess Mentor. His comments are biting and sarcastic when you screw up, but very positive when you do well.
Sounds like a lot of fun. Is it mostly strategic on Silman's modules?
He might have one or 2 others. Your best bet is to research them at ChessUSA.com. None of the other modules appealed to me, though.
I have placed a moratorium on chess books. I have several still waiting to be picked apart but I can't help cruising amazon and other sites in search of the ultimate magic tome. Did you complete chess mentor by the way (comprehensive chess course section)?
I've complete the Comprehensive Course without the supplemental courses probably about 10 times in the past. Although I still don't have perfect command of that material (some of the endgame situations are pretty tricky), I do retain quite a bit and have been able to use that info in my games.
Now, the supplemental courses have REALLY slowed down my completion of the solving cycle. There are several problems there that have solutions with 10 - 20 moves, and even 1 miss of a move on a problem puts the problem back on the table for later solving.
Hey CD and BD,
I got the Comprehensive course for Chess Mentor. I believe it has 5 or so modules. I could have gone without the openings module. In fact I skipped it after doing a couple. It's just not the right medium, in my opinion, to teach openings. But the other modules are excellent.
Silman's problems are my favorite by far. I really like his writing style and I can tell which problems are his when I'm doing them in Chess Mentor. With the other two guys, one guy says "cute" a lot and the other writes like a teenage skater.
I too have Soltis' book, but I specifically bought it to sit on my shelf until I reach 1800 or so.
PS
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