Patzers Progress - The Chess Blog and Musings of Anthony Toohey

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LIBRARY

WHAT IS A CHESSPLAYER WITHOUT HIS BOOKS? Probably richer, that's for sure. I'm a sucker for books. I have had many in my collection, but have tried to narrow it down to a reasonably managable size. But who cares? I love my books.

Following is a list of my favorites. Any links here will take you to the The Chesshouse as I'd rather see you shop there than that ol' Amazon outfit anyhow...

HOW TO REASSESS YOUR CHESS by Jeremy Silman: When I get confused during a game (which is often) I find myself falling back on Silman's thinking methods to try and get my bearings and clear my thinking. A Classic.

MY SIXTY MEMORABLE GAMES by Robert J. Fischer: One of the best game collections ever produced. An early hardcover edition is sure to set you back $40 or $50, but sometimes you can do better. Be sure to get an early version, even if it is in Descriptive. John Nunn, bless his soul as one of the best chess authors in the world, screwed up the more recent algebraic edition pretty bad!

LOGICAL CHESS, MOVE BY MOVE by Irving Chernev: This is a must read for any amateur chess player, esp. those rated under 1400. Even though reading a hundred different renditions of "1.e4, The best move on the board!" gets a little tiring, the level of explanation and detail given for each move assumes nothing of the reader. Irving Chernev was a master at annotating for young and inexperienced players, and this is often considered the pinnacle of his efforts. Happily the linked edition is in algebraic, a long-awaited near necessity. For the life of me I can't find a page for this at The Chesshouse, which doesn't make sense, so I'll have to check with Raphael on this one.

POWER MATES by Bruce Pandolfini: I'm a big fan of Pandolfini for the inexperienced player, though it's true that some of his efforts have been uneven. This tome is, in my opinion, one of his very best. It is something in the vein of Logical Chess, but what Bruce does is give you the games of famous Grandmasters with excellent annotations, then leaves off the "Power Mate," the key move that begins the mating sequence that ended the game. It's up to you to figure it out, then check your answer in the back of the book. I worked through this book over a few days, treating it like a "solitaire chess" exercise. Upon completing it, I went right out to my local haunt and played my best chess ever, beating two players I had never before beat my first day out.

CHESS TRAINING POCKET BOOK by Lev Alburt: There are many great puzzle books out there, but what I like most about this is that the puzzles are mostly from real games, you can take the puzzle cold, or read the accompanying hint, and it's SMALL! You can carry it around in your hip pocket and take a pause to work from it in the line at the grocery store or wherever. I don't know if these are REALLY the 300 most important positions, but they are certainly worth the money.

POWER CHESS by Paul Keres: This is another book that really helped me to understand better how to conduct a cohesive attacking game. Keres annotates a slew of aggressive games full of imagination and beauty. You'll come away from this one feeling like you can really kick some butt! I think this one is out of print, so you may have some searching to do.

500 MASTER GAMES OF CHESS by Saveilly Tartakower: This is an incredible collection of games, mostly from the first half of the 20th century, in which you can almost watch the early progress of modern chess theory. Excellent annotations for such a large collection of games. You'll have to brush up on your descriptive notation, but it's worth the effort.

WINNING WITH THE FRENCH by Wolfgang Uhlmann: I include this not because the French is such an important opening, but because the structure of this opening manual is one of the best I've ever read. It's structured more like a collection of Uhlmann's games in which he played the French as black. There are even a few losses in which he demonstrates how he went wrong. Many of the wins are against world class competition, including Fischer, Bronstein, Geller and Suetin, a beautiful draw with Short, and exciting and educational losses against Stein and Karpov. This is the only book on the French I used and was quickly comfortable in the positions that resulted. There is no link to this out of print volume at the Chesshouse, but I think a new edition is being published this year, so email sales@thechesshouse.com and Raphael, I'm sure, will get it for you.

1001 WINNING CHESS SACRIFICES AND COMBINATIONS by Fred Reinfeld: This, and its sister book (listed below) is a necessity and a wonderful practice tool. It's in descriptive notation, and a few of the combos need checking, I think (and have heard) but overall this is widely considered a staple of every learning chessplayer.

1001 BRILLIANT WAYS TO CHECKMATE by Fred Reinfeld: Checkmate is what it's all about, and any chessplayer would be remiss not to spend some time immersing him or herself in the most common and not always obvious ways this end all can be completed. Also in descriptive, it's worth the trouble to get used to the descriptive to use this tool.

THE AMATEUR'S MIND by Jeremy Silman: Silman is one of the best, hands down, and this book is no exception. This book is well-used as a corollary to his "Reasses Your Chess" as the two are related in purpose and methodology. The beauty of this book is that Jeremy took the time to get into the minds of his students of varying strengths and record their thoughts during games to help illustrate the many different ways we amateurs screw ourselves up with faulty thinking, then demonstrate better methods of evaluating the same situations to help the reader overcome their weaknesses. Excellent tome.

200 OPEN GAMES by David Bronstein: A very entertaining collection of swashbuckling chess by one of my heroes. Bronstein has so much wit and warmth in his annotations and makes you feel part of the game.

MY LIFE AND GAMES by Mikhail Tal: This is the best best best chess autobiography ever written. In the midst of his almost unfathomable, beautiful games, he gives you a wonderful, witty tour of his life in the chess world and the characters who surrounded him, making you feel like you know him as a friend. Highly recommended, even if you never fully understand his wild play.

TAL-BOTVINNIK 1960 by Mikhail Tal: Tal's account of his World Championship victory of Mikhail Botvinnik. This is the best, in my opinion, book of a world championship match ever written. Tal's inimitable wit shines through as he explores not only the thinking over the board, but the mood and events between rounds.

ESSENTIAL CHESS ENDINGS, MOVE BY MOVE by Jeremy Silman: This book makes endgames accessible and less intimidating.

Well, those are my favorites, but there are many, many more worthwhile books out there. The best ones will be those that improve your chess. Good luck!