Using reviews for deceiving book titles

Walking trough a bookstore I noticed a special discount on Plaskett's Could You Be A Tactical Genius? I flipped trough the book a bit but put it back. I don't really need other chess books at this moment [1] and I sure don't need chess books that I might not be able to use in the next six months.

As I found out with Nunn's Learn Chess Tactics, titles of chess books can be most deceiving. Dan Heisman suggests this book after his Back to Basics: Tactics as one of the last books in the intermediate section on his site.[2] Also the many books that refer to "kid" in the title can be of various levels and most are very instructive to the adult beginner or improver.

Six months ago I bought Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games, of course in descriptive notation; the only genuine version at the time. I won't be needing this book soon, but today I found out that in a couple of weeks Batsford will be publishing an algebraic edition of this book, but this time round they promise only to change the notation from descriptive to algebraic instead of the rape of the text that was committed earlier.

What I did do when I got home was consulting some reviews. In my opinion a good review (perhaps even a good chess book) should very clearly state who could use this book and even narrow it down to who would benefit most from it.

This is what I found:
Chessville (Leopold Lacrimosa): "Overall, I liked this book and would recommend it to students rated 700 - 1500 ELO"

Silman (Randy Bauer): "The author provides plenty of extras to make the book workable, but the exercises themselves will provide a challenge for just about every level of player."

Seagaard: "I would say the main readership is for intermediate players up to people with ELO 2000."

ChessCafé (Bill Kaleher): "GM Plaskett's book appears to be aimed more towards the intermediate player. AND In my opinion it is most suited to players rated below 2200 FIDE, although the more difficult problems would challenge even the most advanced players."

Most out of the mean seems the first one, but even the rest of them aren't very clear.

Now I can understand that it is hard for a chess writer, often a NM, FM, IM or GM to determine what level of student can understand material that is so far below there own level. Being in chess teaching an/or working with lower level players can obviously help here, but there might not be a universal agreement on what goes best with what level.

Also, on every aspect of the game (tactics, strategy, endgame, opening) there is a certain barrier that needs to be crossed before one can continue to the next level. On all levels these differences can be huge. Someone with a lot of opening knowledge might be less strong in tactics or endgame, otherwise he may be on a different level.

Thankfully with the Internet it is always possible to find more than one review and there are always articles on chess improvement where there are hints to be found on the book levels.

Also asking around to people who are also into chess, say chess bloggers, who are not as advanced as writers and reviewers and who may have a good view on the book searchers need can be of great help and motivation. They might even advice a better one!
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[1] At this moment the Steps Method books, TCT and Gillam's books are enough, after that there is LC and I'm also still doing CTS.

[2] http://danheisman.home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Events_Books/General_Book_Guide.htm

Additions to my chess library

I've had two orders with chess books coming in, adding the following titles to my small, but expanding chess library. In some posts I've mentioned some of the books, but not always stating that I had them already.

I think the books I have now should be able to take me a long way. I don't have a specific endgame book yet, but in the Steps Method there is some attention to basic endgames. Now I just have to come up with a study program for these books and then "just do the work".

Here are the two deliveries. The bold letters represent a shorthand to mention these books.

First these four:
LCT John Nunn, Learn Chess Tactics;
IYM Chris Ward, It's Your Move;
IYM.I Chris Ward, It's Your Move Improvers;
IYM.TP Chris Ward, It's Your move. Tough Puzzles.

These arrived a couple of weeks later:
MBC Graham Burgess, The Mammoth Book of Chess;
LC Irving Chernev, Logical Chess. Move by Move;
UC John Nunn, Understanding Chess. Move by Move.

Full information about these books and others can be found in the original and updated My Chess Library post.

A balanced approach

Chess blogs of (re)starting and improving players usually have (lack of) progress posts along a scale from "let's hear how much I rule..." to "... and now back to how much I suck". My last post may have been one of careful optimism, this one falls generously in the latter category, giving at least my chess blogging a balanced approach.

Besides CTS I did some exercises everyday, one day from Gillam's Simple Mates, the other day from his book on tactics. Today I found out that it's called Simple Chess Tactics for a good reason. Yes, the emphasis on "Simple" is mine.

A few months back I made it to Step 3 of the Stepsmethod, but got stuck in Chapter 10's exercises; those exercises deal with the material covered in Chapters 1 till 9. Yesterday I decided to give them another go, but to no avail. What was I to do next? Restarting Step 3 or while I was at it Step 1 seemed genuine options, I planned on going trough them from the start before or after Step 4 anyway.

The mailman however seemed to hand me an easy way out: It brought me Nunn's Learn Chess Tactics. While considering what to do in what order I would browse trough this books, with ease! Weren't the books of Gillam a piece of cake by now, this would be the same, but different.

After reading the the first chapter, on forks yesterday evening, I decided that I had an extra half hour, that would be more than enough to do all of Chapter 1's 46 exercises. Can you taste the hubris already?

A few exercises and the 46 were halved to only 23: Chapter 2 had only 27 exercises anyway, so it wasn't hard stepping down a bit. But after 23 exercises I was getting desperate, in about half those 23 exercises I either wasn't sure of my answer or couldn't come up with a single move altogether. And this is from the very first chapter in a book that states clearly that the only perquisite is to know the chess rules, and I am quite a bit above that.

I must however add on my behalf, that Chapter 1 covers more than plain and simple forks, it delves into sacrificial combinations and checks in preparation of the eventual fork as well.

Let's say it like this, especially for Chessloser, if Gillam's books are the prologue of tactics, than after finishing with Nunn I'll be wearing polka dots!

I'm not yet sure what to do next, I probably will give Nunn's LCT another go, if that fails I'll probably will restart the Steps: back to square one.

My Chess Library

This post will be used to list my growing collection of chess books and other tools I use in training.

Last update: January, 16, 2013.

Format:
abbreviation author, title. subtitle, publisher, year of publication, number of pages.

CTS Chess Tactics Server

DCO John Emms, Discovering Chess Openings. Building Opening Skills from Basic Principles, Everyman Chess, 2006, 248 pages.

IYM Chris Ward, It's Your Move, Everyman Chess, 2000, 143 pages.
IYM.I Chris Ward, It's Your Move Improvers, Everyman Chess, 2001, 144 pages.
IYM.TP Chris Ward, It's Your move. Tough Puzzles, Everyman Chess 2004, 160 pages.

LC Irving Chernev, Logical Chess. Move by Move, Batsford, (1957, 1998 First Algebraïc) 2000, 256 pages

LCT John Nunn, Learn Chess Tactics, Gambit, 2004, 160 pages

M60MG R.J. Fischer, My 60 Memorable Games, Faber and Faber, 1972 (or a later reprint), 384 pages

MBC Graham Burgess, The Mammoth Book of Chess, Robinson, (1997) 2000 2nd revised edition, 537 pages

S1 Brunia & Wijgerden, Lekker Schaken. Stap 1
S2 Brunia & Wijgerden, Lekker Schaken. Stap 2
S3 Brunia & Wijgerden, Lekker Schaken. Stap 3
S4 Brunia & Wijgerden, Lekker Schaken. Stap 4
S5 Brunia & Wijgerden, Lekker Schaken. Stap 5
(= Let's Play Chess. Step 1 etc.)

SC A.J. Gillam, Starting Chess, 1977/1978, 128 pages
SCT A.J. Gillam, Simple Chess Tactics, 1978, 136 pages
SCM A.J. Gillam, Simple Checkmates, 1978, 128 pages

TCT TASC Chess Tutor (Software programm using the Steps Method)

UC John Nunn, Understanding Chess. Move by Move, Gambit, (2001) 2007, 240 pages

Books to start with, books to begin with

People who want to improve their chess like buying books and at that I'm certainly no exception, I have to hold myself back from buying books anyway.

When I got tired of just reading chess blogs, that went largely beyond my comprehension anyway, when I was done doing some exercises on the Chess Tactics Server on an irregular base, and when I had had it with getting my ass handed to me with the very few games that I played I started thinking about getting a bit more serious about chess and improving myself. The natural response is obvious: start buying chess books!

So that's what I set out to do, but where to start. A friend of mine, we'll call him Jabba, lend me a copy of a Dutch translation of:
A.J. Gillam, Simple Chess Tactics, 1978.

Whilst working my way trough this book I wanted more, more exercises and a more thorough understanding of the basics based on a modern method. To start with the latter, thankfully I live in the Netherlands where there are several choices for books that are based on the infamous Steps Method. This is also the method where Tasc Chess Tutor is based on.

I got myself a complete series of five books so I had all Steps. ("Step" is the English translation of the Dutch word Stap.
Brunia & Wijgerden, Lekker Schaken. Stap 1
Brunia & Wijgerden, Lekker Schaken. Stap 2
Brunia & Wijgerden, Lekker Schaken. Stap 3
Brunia & Wijgerden, Lekker Schaken. Stap 4
Brunia & Wijgerden, Lekker Schaken. Stap 5
(= Let's Play Chess. Step 1 etc.)

Now I had the basics covered and got Dutch translations/editions of the first three of a four book series that would provide me with quite some exercises. I can't find proof of existence of that fourth one anywhere, although it is mentioned in at least one of those books. It's possible it wasn't published, or that at least there wasn't a Dutch edition of it.
A.J. Gillam, Starting Chess, 1977/1978, 128 pages (nice to have the first part of the series as well, however it's useless compared to the Steps!)
A.J. Gillam, Simple Chess Tactics, 1978, 136 pages
A.J. Gillam, Simple Checkmates, 1978, 128 pages

Then I got myself a birthday present and a motivational tool: Once I can understand this one, I'll know a thing or two about chess.
R.J. Fischer, My 60 Memorable Games, Faber and Faber, 1972 (or a later reprint), 384 pages

Currently I've ordered a few books, but I'll write about those once I've got them.