Winning chess

What Hacker News says

1. lcuffDec 2020
   My advice to beginners is to not stick with one opening, but to play them all. Include wild openings like the Kings Gambit and Danish Gambit, as well as strategic openings like the Queen's Gambit. You will be out of 'the book' very quickly, and that's actually good. You'll be learning to play, rather than recall.

   Another piece of advice: Study endgames before openings. Learn about K + P vs K, the elementary mates, (K + 2B vs K, and K + N + B vs K). Then keep going. I have had to 'finish off' opponents in tournament conditions with these combinations of pieces.

   Lastly: Best chess book ever: Winning Chess by Fred Reinfeld and Irving Chernev. Of the dozens of chess books I've owned, this one is head and shoulders above the rest. All about middle game tactics, and mating patterns.

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2. lcuffDec 2020
   As I mention in my own comment, Winning Chess by Fred Reinfeld and Irving Chernev. BEST book I've encountered by far of the dozens I've owned.
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3. Real_SMay 2019
   Books by Yasser Seirawan helped me when I was at a similar level. Winning Chess Brilliancies has some very good insight into some of the best grandmaster games.
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4. MisterOctoberApr 2019
   Great question! There are lots of great beginner books out there, but if I had to pick three:

   1) "A First Book of Morphy" by del Rosario -- takes the very well-considered principles of GM Reuben Fine and illustrates them with [mostly] Paul Morphy's games. Of all the books I've ingested on the subject of chess, this one has stuck with me most. Even my kid loves it!

   2) "Winning Chess Strategy for Kids" by Coakley -- it's not just for kids! And it's not just strategy! Covers fundamental tactical concerns such as pins, forks, etc in a straightforward way. Similar in some regards to Pandolfini's "Weapons of Chess" but pedagogically superior in my view.

   3) "Silman's Complete Endgame Course" by Silman -- the old saw that one should study the endgame first is pretty true -- Silman is the best at teaching it -- man, if I had a dollar for every game I was winning in the middlegame and then lost in the endgame, I'd have... well, a lot of dollars

   cheater extra: 3.5) "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess" -- the old standby -- this is a tactics book first and foremost, and the main value of it is that it gives you puzzles of gradually increasing complexity so that you can really feel your comprehension improving and say to your self, "I'm getting it!" Truth is that getting discouraged is the thing that stalls or scares off many / most novice chessplayers

   When you start getting up in the 1100-1300 range, pick up "My System" by Nimzowitsch and "How to Reassess your Chess" by Silman, "Soviet Middlegame Technique" by Romanovsky -- and after then, start learning openings in more detail. The biggest mistake most beginners make, including me, is building up a repertoire of openings before having a solid grasp of the fundamentals. Truth is, below 1300, most players are "off book" by the ~tenth move anyway, so learning the intricacies of the Nimzo-Indian isn't gonna do a person much good at that stage.

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