chess books

Originally posted by KAMachiavelli
TheBloop,
I think you're wrong about the openings. Tactical manuevers are difficult to set up against a well-prepared opponent, and being prepared yourself makes it very difficult for your opponent to get an edge. I think that studying, even memorizing opening theory will improve your game somewhat dramatically on any level. Investigating the open ...[text shortened]... attention to detail is fun; it's what you need to be doing in each and every one of your games.

After thinking about this, I think you're right...

It's better to have a lot of openings memorized (the WHYS as well as the HOWS). And I think I did read, either in Silman's web site or in one of his books, that a lot of tactical blunders occur because of poor positional play. It's certainly amazing the de la Maza, at 30, was able to improve from 1300 to 2000+ without knowing a single opening (by that he meant that he never memorized the names and moves of openings, not that he didn't know what moves were good and which ones were not).

I'm kind of like him in that sense. I can usually play decent opening moves, but if you asked me which opening I'm playing, I probably wouldn't be able to tell you beyond the first couple of moves. In other words, I know how the French, Sicilian open a game, but I certainly never memorized the names of the different variations.

I haven't played any games yet online here, and I probably won't do very well in tems of a won/lost record, but I'm looking forward to playing against real people. Sometime in the next month or so, I hope to have my home totally back to normal (after Hurricane Charley last August, I'm in Florida) and I'll be looking for players that like to make a move every couple of days.

Originally posted by Skorj
I'm wondering if you read de la Maza's article "400 points in 400 days" as well. I've heard that the book does not add much that is of substance to this article, which basically spells out his method. Not having read the book though, I'm in not position to judge. I do believe the method has a lot of merrit though and am trying a sort of modified version ...[text shortened]... e how various people have modified things to fit their lifestyle and the results they got etc.

I did print out de la Maza's article "400 points in 400 days", but I haven't read all the way through it yet. Someone pointed out that this article was archived in the Chess Cafe web site ,which I didn't know. So I found it and printed it out.

It looks fairly complete as far as the actual study program goes. I'll go through it over the next few days and will try to post any significant differences in this thread.

Also, someone else said that CT Art 3.0 is too difficult for low intermediate players. It IS difficult, but one of the good things about it,for those of you who haven't seen it, is that if you don't make the first move correctly, it will give you clues as to which pieces to move, along with showing the various attack lines. If you miss the second time, it will reduce the problem to a basic 5x5 board, which uses the same tactical theme. If you miss it then, it will give you the solution. So it doesn't give you the solution right away, it gives you clues first, which is nice.


But the problems themselves, especially from level 3 up to level 10 (approximately 100 problems in each "level"😉 can be very difficult. But I think it's also true that you can "grow" into it as you learn.

Originally posted by steven9
Does anyone know of any good chess books to buy..

I wrote one years ago. "Chess for Chumps". Don't think it's currently in print though.

Originally posted by TheBloop

Also, someone else said that CT Art 3.0 is too difficult for low intermediate players. ..

Since we're on the subject of books anyway, I have been using "The Ultimate Chess Puzzle Book" by John Emms. It is 1001 puzzles taken from actual recent games that are roughly arranged with increasing difficulty as you go through the book. It seems to fit most of the criteria that de la Maza suggests for his program for those who, like me, prefer a book (much more portable than my desktop) or if you worry about the difficulty level of CT Art, though Emms eventually gets to some really tough ones too.

I'll keep an eye out for the new post.