Does anyone have any recommendations on chess books for an intermediate player?

Answer 1

First, I would recommend what is widely agreed to be one of the best chess books ever written, and the one that was most beneficial to me in my development, which is How to Reassess Your Chess by Silman. It touches on all areas of basic chess strategy, and introduces a very good analyzing technique. The accompanying Reassess Your Chess Workbook contains more examples along the same lines and is a great reinforcer.

In order to get good, you absolutely must study tactics. The positional understanding you get from Silman's books will fail in the end if you can't back your positions up with tactics - plus, recognizing tactical mistakes your opponent makes will generate a lot of wins from equal or worse positions and will finish off won positions easily. I recommend Combination Challenge!. It has over 1100 problems. The first half to two-thirds is grouped by theme, so you can understand each of the tactical processes well. The last part is all kinds thrown together, so you don't have the hint from the title of the chapter helping you. Once you get those finished, John Emms' The Ultimate Chess Puzzle Book is also very good.

You should also have an understanding of basic endgames. There is an endgame book by Silman (he lists it in his Reassess Your Chess book. I couldn't find it on Amazon so I couldn't link it) that is good. There are a lot of other basic endings books out there.

As you start to get more advanced, study of master level games is very beneficial. I recommend two books of the best players of the past, Alekhine's Best Games and Capablanca's Best Games. Make sure to get the editions edited by John Nunn. In his book Silman outlines a process of studying these games. Basically, you go through the game until the opening is about over. Then you cover up the next move of the "hero" (Capablanca, Alekhine, Tal, etc) and then write down your plan, and whatever other observations (including tactical) that you have. Then reveal the next move and read what comments the author has. Obviously, this can take a lot of time. If you have only limited time, you might just skip this step and go on to the next book.

Next is Understanding Chess Move by Move by John Nunn, and then his two books of his best games. Careful study of these books is very beneficial (If you haven't noticed, I'm a big Nunn fan - he is regarded as one of the best chess writers today).

At this level you should start to study openings. Nunn's Chess Openings is a good reference text, but you should spend most of your time with opening-specific texts. It is probably best to stick with somewhat mainstream opening lines because you will learn the most from playing them. Don't worry about studying openings too deeply, even if your opponent knows a couple more opening moves than you, it doesn't mean that they're going to play well the rest of the game.

Endings are important too. This book, Endgame Strategy by Shereshevsky is outstanding. He gives countless examples of how to play different positions occuring after most of the pieces have been taken off. Just understanding how to play in these positions will also help your maneuvering ability in more complicated middlegames. You'll also have more confidence in the middle game that you can "trade into" endgames that you feel very comfortable playing.

I would recommend against anything by Schiller.

Answer 2

BEGINNING CHESS by Bruce Pandolfini
If you ever saw the movie Searching For Bobby Fischer, Bruce Pandolfini was a real life character in the film portrayed by Ben Kingsley. (You should definitely see this movie if you haven't already!)

BEGINNING CHESS is an excellent easy to follow book which teaches all the moves and how to look for the best ones. It gives you tests that you can work on without the need of a chessboard. It helped me a lot with my game. Most chess books are complicated and hard to follow, but you will like this one! Another good way to learn the game in a fun way is with the PC software, MAJESTIC CHESS. It lets you jump right in and play a game, or you can play the adventure mode. The adventure mode is the funnest way to learn chess that I've ever seen. It teaches you one peice at a time. Then challenges you with a little game using just that piece. If you win, you earn a new peice to play with and ultimately you are building your chess set piece by piece. It's an EXCELLENT way to learn! Chess is a great game! Good luck! I hope this helps.

Answer 3

Your moms a chess book ! haha jk