Here's a subject which everyone may say has been done to death, but it
really hasn't been 'done' in the past few years. So everyone belly-up
to the bar and give us your opinion of the ten best chess books ever
written (or in your collection at least)...

Here's mine, starting with the best, #1:

1) "The Test of Time", Garry Kasparov. A superb book, a collection of
Kasparov's best games, annotated and then later updated with more
"mature" analysis. English copyright is 1986 -- this must be the last
time the greatest player ever gave an honest assessment of his chess
games.

2) "Smyslov's 125 Selected Games", Vasily Smyslov. Covers the period
1935-1981. Smyslov won the 1953 Candidates tournament in Zurich to
earn the right to battle Botvinnik for the championship... and then in
1984 he made it to the finals of the Candidates Tournament only to be
defeated by Kasparov. Smyslov provides excellent notes to 125 of his
games, showing why he was one of the best ever. Spassky was given the
title of the "universal chess player", but he may have claimed that
trophy from Smyslov...

3) "One Hundred Selected Games", Mikhail Botvinnik. Many say his
games were all about scientific, iron logic chess -- I can only say
his games were beautiful. If you want to see how f7 can become a
deadly weakness in the Queen's Gambit you need not look further than
this book.

4) "Guide to the Chess Openings", Leonard Barden & Tim Harding (1976).
A delightful book with insightful coverage of the major openings.
Generally including an attacking and positional response to each
opening, the authors create a masterpiece which the study of will do
most players miles more good than memorizing dizzying lines and
variations. Barden and Harding try to include some solid lines off
the beaten track so the reader can slide a game into their own
territory.

5) "Zurich International Chess Tournament 1953", David Bronstein.
Well, what can I say about this? It's the first chess book I ever
bought, and you can guess it -- the first opening I ever played on a
regular basis was the King's Indian! A true labour of love, and
unfortunately(?), 100 times better than Bronstein's work on his own
selected games "The Sorceror's Apprentice". Nonetheless, so many
different types of games and ideas occur during Zurich 1953, and in
this book they are all wonderfully revealed and disected.

6) "My Best Games of Chess 1908-1937", Alexander Alekhine. An
enourmous work by the incredible Alekhine. Bobby Fischer describes
Alekhine by saying "He played gigantic conceptions, full of outrageous
and unprecedented ideas" and certainly those outrageous conceptions
and ideas are all contained in this 550+ page monster. Certainly an
appropiate subtitle would be "What You Never Saw Coming".

7) "San Antonio 72", by the players and Bent Larsen and David Levy.
This was Karpov's first appearence in the US, and he tied for first in
this strong tournament with Petrosian and Portisch. At 271 pages, a
lot of exciting and interesting chess is packed into this book. There
are 118 games and 31 are Sicilians(!) in what was surely a fertile
time for the opening. An added bonus is the interesting games of the
young Henrique Mecking.

8) "How Karpov Wins", Edmar Mednis. Perhaps Mednis' greatest book,
certainly much better than Karpov's own "My Best Games". This book
contains brilliantly annotated games of every Karpov win starting in
1971 and finshing with the Candidates tournmament in 1974. The
greatest plus is that as all his wins in this period are given, and
many of these games are your average tournmant wins -- not every game
is the recipiant of a brilliancy prize. This is helpful to the chess
player who wants to learn, as he is not going to enter a tournament
and play a "brillancy prize" game in every game. Nonetheless, an
argument could me made that every Karpov win is brilliant!

9)"Rubenstein's Chess Masterpieces", Hans Kmoch. In my opinion
Rubenstein was the player who most defined the term "chess artist".
His games are simply beautiful and crystal clear -- even more so than
Capablanca. It is true this book may be sparing in times with
annotations, but this is not a problem as Rubenstein's plans are so
logical and evident that one does not need to be told what is
occuring. Rubenstein gets my nod as the strongest player never to
become world champion.

10) "Uncompromising Chess", Alexander Belyavsky. Of all the recent
books from top notch players (including Kramink, Anand, and Shirov)
this is easily the best. OK, so Belyavsky is no longer among the
elite, but his book is head and shoulders above the rest. The games
are wonderfully annotated, with special emphasis being given to the
openings. In practically every game he searches out the latest try or
two in the opening and gives detailed analysis. And the games are
wonderful too -- many times Belyavsky is up a pawn or two with the
better position and I am certain his next move will be to offer a
trade of queens etc to go into an ending... but no! he offers to sac
pawns or pieces to continue on with his initiative! If you want a
book on modern chess, this is the one to get.

Here's my top ten:

1. 500 Master Games of Chess. The absolute best book for helping a
beginner understand how the best players play.

2. ECO. The ultimate opening weapon.

3. ECM. The ultimate middlegame weapon. Tactical themes broken down and
analyzed very thoroughly.

4. Alekhine's Best Games 1907-1945 (title?). The collection annotated by
Alekhine himself shows the mind of one of the greatest players of all time.

5. Najdorf For The Tournament Player, by John Nunn. Excellent format for
the booked-up player, and indispensable for anyone who would try the opening
from either side in a tournament game.

6. Domination In 2,545 Endgame Studies. This book shows how to trap pieces
by "dominating" the lines on which they move.

7. Pawn Power In Chess, by Hans Kmoch. Another brilliantly innovative book
that will help you understand pawn play.

8. My 60 Memorable Games, by Bobby Fischer. The legendary chess genius
reveals the thoughts behind his brilliant moves.

9. Zurich 1953: Lessons From The Candidates' Matches, by David Bronstein.
One of the strongest players never to become champion details one of the
strongest tournaments of the 20th century. The book could also have been
subtitled "How World Championship Candidates Play The King's Indian
Defense." One-third of the games in the matches were KIDs.

10. My System, by Aron Nimzovich. The father of hypermodern positional
play lays the groundwork for the most popular style of chess in the 21st
Century.


--
Everything you need to know about women. FREE!

http://www.cybersheet.com/library.html
The Seduction Library

http://www.cybersheet.com/hotties.html
Why Hotties Choose Losers


"Mike McG." wrote in message
om...
Here's a subject which everyone may say has been done to death, but it
really hasn't been 'done' in the past few years. So everyone belly-up
to the bar and give us your opinion of the ten best chess books ever
written (or in your collection at least)...

Here's mine, starting with the best, #1:

1) "The Test of Time", Garry Kasparov. A superb book, a collection of
Kasparov's best games, annotated and then later updated with more
"mature" analysis. English copyright is 1986 -- this must be the last
time the greatest player ever gave an honest assessment of his chess
games.

2) "Smyslov's 125 Selected Games", Vasily Smyslov. Covers the period
1935-1981. Smyslov won the 1953 Candidates tournament in Zurich to
earn the right to battle Botvinnik for the championship... and then in
1984 he made it to the finals of the Candidates Tournament only to be
defeated by Kasparov. Smyslov provides excellent notes to 125 of his
games, showing why he was one of the best ever. Spassky was given the
title of the "universal chess player", but he may have claimed that
trophy from Smyslov...

3) "One Hundred Selected Games", Mikhail Botvinnik. Many say his
games were all about scientific, iron logic chess -- I can only say
his games were beautiful. If you want to see how f7 can become a
deadly weakness in the Queen's Gambit you need not look further than
this book.

4) "Guide to the Chess Openings", Leonard Barden & Tim Harding (1976).
A delightful book with insightful coverage of the major openings.
Generally including an attacking and positional response to each
opening, the authors create a masterpiece which the study of will do
most players miles more good than memorizing dizzying lines and
variations. Barden and Harding try to include some solid lines off
the beaten track so the reader can slide a game into their own
territory.

5) "Zurich International Chess Tournament 1953", David Bronstein.
Well, what can I say about this? It's the first chess book I ever
bought, and you can guess it -- the first opening I ever played on a
regular basis was the King's Indian! A true labour of love, and
unfortunately(?), 100 times better than Bronstein's work on his own
selected games "The Sorceror's Apprentice". Nonetheless, so many
different types of games and ideas occur during Zurich 1953, and in
this book they are all wonderfully revealed and disected.

6) "My Best Games of Chess 1908-1937", Alexander Alekhine. An
enourmous work by the incredible Alekhine. Bobby Fischer describes
Alekhine by saying "He played gigantic conceptions, full of outrageous
and unprecedented ideas" and certainly those outrageous conceptions
and ideas are all contained in this 550+ page monster. Certainly an
appropiate subtitle would be "What You Never Saw Coming".

7) "San Antonio 72", by the players and Bent Larsen and David Levy.
This was Karpov's first appearence in the US, and he tied for first in
this strong tournament with Petrosian and Portisch. At 271 pages, a
lot of exciting and interesting chess is packed into this book. There
are 118 games and 31 are Sicilians(!) in what was surely a fertile
time for the opening. An added bonus is the interesting games of the
young Henrique Mecking.

8) "How Karpov Wins", Edmar Mednis. Perhaps Mednis' greatest book,
certainly much better than Karpov's own "My Best Games". This book
contains brilliantly annotated games of every Karpov win starting in
1971 and finshing with the Candidates tournmament in 1974. The
greatest plus is that as all his wins in this period are given, and
many of these games are your average tournmant wins -- not every game
is the recipiant of a brilliancy prize. This is helpful to the chess
player who wants to learn, as he is not going to enter a tournament
and play a "brillancy prize" game in every game. Nonetheless, an
argument could me made that every Karpov win is brilliant!

9)"Rubenstein's Chess Masterpieces", Hans Kmoch. In my opinion
Rubenstein was the player who most defined the term "chess artist".
His games are simply beautiful and crystal clear -- even more so than
Capablanca. It is true this book may be sparing in times with
annotations, but this is not a problem as Rubenstein's plans are so
logical and evident that one does not need to be told what is
occuring. Rubenstein gets my nod as the strongest player never to
become world champion.

10) "Uncompromising Chess", Alexander Belyavsky. Of all the recent
books from top notch players (including Kramink, Anand, and Shirov)
this is easily the best. OK, so Belyavsky is no longer among the
elite, but his book is head and shoulders above the rest. The games
are wonderfully annotated, with special emphasis being given to the
openings. In practically every game he searches out the latest try or
two in the opening and gives detailed analysis. And the games are
wonderful too -- many times Belyavsky is up a pawn or two with the
better position and I am certain his next move will be to offer a
trade of queens etc to go into an ending... but no! he offers to sac
pawns or pieces to continue on with his initiative! If you want a
book on modern chess, this is the one to get.

Today there are no 10 best chess books. A way to list your picks for the
'best' would be the books you would feel you absolutely need to grace your
library. There is no way I could pick a top ten from my collection without
flipping a coin. Just as an example, if I say these certain five books are
tied for the best, and these twenty books tied for second--I have already
gone over the '10' mark. The more chess books considered, the larger the
number as the 'best'.


"Mike McG." wrote in message
om...
Here's a subject which everyone may say has been done to death, but it
really hasn't been 'done' in the past few years. So everyone belly-up
to the bar and give us your opinion of the ten best chess books ever
written (or in your collection at least)...

big snip

Newsgroups and ignorance in action

http://www.pakchess.com/

I'm so sad when I read chess newsgroups like rec.games.chess.politics and
rec.games.chess.misc. It seems that mainly people who are more aggressive
and lower cultural level rested active on it. These people who are clearly
cowards in really life became very aggressive "authors" of shameful
pamphlets and distasteful allusion (but they are hidden under nicknames).
They use vulgar words, sometimes with first and last letter, and aster in
the middle, but more often all the letters. These people attack certain
chess giants. They blaspheme world chess champions (current and former, man
and woman). Who are these people? Are they representatives of West culture?
Or West ignorance? Or they are representatives of the inefficiency of the
West to eliminate tare? Maybe, it's too late to do it. The weed extruded and
muffled each (or almost each) progressive, positive and creative persons.
But, there is something more. Their ignorance and the knowledge of chess
history is more dangerous. By the way, it's on the level of their knowledge
of general world history and culture.

I could specify more examples for any of my words. But It could be noticed
that some of these "authors" miss the will to learn something, to upraise
their spirit. How could you explain the speculation one member of these
newsgroups who named his top ten books. I cite a part of his post:

--------------------------------------------------------

10 best chess books?

Here's my top ten:
.......

2. ECO. The ultimate opening weapon.

3. ECM. The ultimate middlegame weapon. Tactical themes broken down and
analyzed very thoroughly.
.......

8. My 60 Memorable Games, by Bobby Fischer. The legendary chess genius
reveals the thoughts behind his brilliant moves.

9. Zurich 1953: Lessons From The Candidates' Matches, by David Bronstein.
One of the strongest players never to become champion details one of the
strongest tournaments of the 20th century. The book could also have been
subtitled "How World Championship Candidates Play The King's Indian
Defense." One-third of the games in the matches were KIDs.

10. My System, by Aron Nimzovich. The father of hypermodern positional
play lays the groundwork for the most popular style of chess in the 21st
Century.

-----------------------------------------------------


I think it's prevalent consideration in the West. So, you could understand
that practical and pragmatic approach to the chess who is on the 2.nd and
3.rd place, ahead of really worth books, is standard for ordinary life.
Isn't it more logical inversed sequence? It could be more acceptable if the
list starts with Fischer's, Bronstein's and Nimzowitch's books. By the way,
I don't like that word weapon and solution of some chess (and other)
problems by weapon. It would be better to use some creativity, originality,
intelligence and obligate humanity.

I cite famous poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.

Goran Tomic

"Goran Tomic" wrote in message
...
Newsgroups and ignorance in action

You sure drove that point home.

Dear Goran,

the 'article' is now public.

And it is very interesting to follow your comments...

"Goran Tomic" wrote in message
...
Newsgroups and ignorance in action

http://www.pakchess.com/

I'm so sad when I read chess newsgroups like rec.games.chess.politics and
rec.games.chess.misc. It seems that mainly people who are more aggressive
and lower cultural level rested active on it. These people who are clearly
cowards in really life became very aggressive "authors" of shameful
pamphlets and distasteful allusion (but they are hidden under nicknames).
They use vulgar words, sometimes with first and last letter, and aster in
the middle, but more often all the letters. These people attack certain
chess giants. They blaspheme world chess champions (current and former,
man
and woman). Who are these people? Are they representatives of West
culture?
Or West ignorance? Or they are representatives of the inefficiency of the
West to eliminate tare? Maybe, it's too late to do it. The weed extruded
and
muffled each (or almost each) progressive, positive and creative persons.
But, there is something more. Their ignorance and the knowledge of chess
history is more dangerous. By the way, it's on the level of their
knowledge
of general world history and culture.

O! such a great post!!

How strange it is in the West, with the freedom to write anything at all
without consequence, that people choose to write trash, rubbish material.
Look to yourself and your own country Goran, and do not emulate this!

I could specify more examples for any of my words. But It could be noticed
that some of these "authors" miss the will to learn something,

Yes, that's it! How bizarre that we, as men, should not wish to learn from
each other, and look to find no 'uncles' or wise older folks in the
community.

The idiot level of many posts is an indicator of how people behave in real
life, and vote (!) and I must inform you of a sociological reality he
Many people have no father who is present to them. Also, they cannot relate
to other men older than themsleves. You witness the absence of these
influences, and, although it is not conscious, a screaming demand for trust
in other men's opinion is evident, no?

\

Look to yourself Goran! Do not look at this American poster's scenario as
all there is: it is is no indicator of what is best in this culture, but an
opposite.

Of Americans particularly, those who have travelled and understood
situations in other parts of the world are, in my opinion, perhaps the most
generous and educated people there are on this planet.

What is represented on these newsgroups by loutish [low, aggressive] opinion
is a confusion of freedom and licence. So beware of us my friend! We are
both the best and the worst. Look to your own soul and culture to find where
you should proceed. I think its not on HBO.

to upraise
their spirit. How could you explain the speculation one member of these
newsgroups who named his top ten books. I cite a part of his post:

snip


I think it's prevalent consideration in the West. So, you could understand
that practical and pragmatic approach to the chess who is on the 2.nd and
3.rd place, ahead of really worth books, is standard for ordinary life.
Isn't it more logical inversed sequence? It could be more acceptable if
the
list starts with Fischer's, Bronstein's and Nimzowitch's books. By the
way,
I don't like that word weapon and solution of some chess (and other)
problems by weapon. It would be better to use some creativity,
originality,
intelligence and obligate humanity.

This is the WORD: humanity.

I cite famous poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

as mentioned, see

http://www.chessville.com/LessonsLearned/2004Mar.htm

to read a brave man's comments on chess conflict. It had to do with Mr.
Fischer, and is written in a way that I felt compelled to write to its
author; should there be medals, this deserves one for bravery in front of
anything that happened recently in Linares

Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.

Ay.

Phil Innes

Goran Tomic

snip
I'm so sad when I read chess newsgroups like rec.games.chess.politics and
rec.games.chess.misc. It seems that mainly people who are more aggressive
and lower cultural level rested active on it. These people who are clearly
cowards in really life became very aggressive "authors" of shameful
pamphlets and distasteful allusion (but they are hidden under nicknames).
snip
It's lunatics like you that make me sad to read the chess newsgroups. What
a waste of my time reading your complaints rather than contributions.
snip
It would be better to use some creativity, originality,
intelligence and obligate humanity.
snip
No. The truth is it would be better if you'd give us your opinion of the 10
best chess books instead of just complaining about another man's choices.
Truly sad.

I agree it's difficult to assess the top ten and this approach is more to
the point:

I would say there are 3 game collections I feel reassured of having:

The life and games of Mikhail Tal: The best about him I think

Selected games by Mikhail Botvinnik: Great learning

Taimanov's best games: Different approach but great at explaining ideas.


"2100USCF" escribió en el mensaje
news:5qj7c.27455$272.17179@lakeread03...
Today there are no 10 best chess books. A way to list your picks for the
'best' would be the books you would feel you absolutely need to grace your
library. There is no way I could pick a top ten from my collection without
flipping a coin. Just as an example, if I say these certain five books are
tied for the best, and these twenty books tied for second--I have already
gone over the '10' mark. The more chess books considered, the larger the
number as the 'best'.


"Mike McG." wrote in message
om...
Here's a subject which everyone may say has been done to death, but it
really hasn't been 'done' in the past few years. So everyone belly-up
to the bar and give us your opinion of the ten best chess books ever
written (or in your collection at least)...

big snip

No. The truth is it would be better if you'd give us your opinion of the
10
best chess books instead of just complaining about another man's choices.
Truly sad.

I played my first rated game in January 1987.

My rating hit 2000 in October 1989.

Those books were the reason.

(Mike McG.) wrote in message . com...
Here's a subject which everyone may say has been done to death, but it
really hasn't been 'done' in the past few years. So everyone belly-up
to the bar and give us your opinion of the ten best chess books ever
written (or in your collection at least)...

Here's mine, starting with the best, #1:

Read your list. They are all good books. Here's one I found extremely
useful.

Chess Tactics by Kotov. Unfortunately, not available anymore. Terrific
book that gives a lot of examples on Chess Combinations, sacrifices,
and also some interesting studies.

Regards,

Chessplayer

1) "The Test of Time", Garry Kasparov. A superb book, a collection of
Kasparov's best games, annotated and then later updated with more
"mature" analysis. English copyright is 1986 -- this must be the last
time the greatest player ever gave an honest assessment of his chess
games.

2) "Smyslov's 125 Selected Games", Vasily Smyslov. Covers the period
1935-1981. Smyslov won the 1953 Candidates tournament in Zurich to
earn the right to battle Botvinnik for the championship... and then in
1984 he made it to the finals of the Candidates Tournament only to be
defeated by Kasparov. Smyslov provides excellent notes to 125 of his
games, showing why he was one of the best ever. Spassky was given the
title of the "universal chess player", but he may have claimed that
trophy from Smyslov...

3) "One Hundred Selected Games", Mikhail Botvinnik. Many say his
games were all about scientific, iron logic chess -- I can only say
his games were beautiful. If you want to see how f7 can become a
deadly weakness in the Queen's Gambit you need not look further than
this book.

4) "Guide to the Chess Openings", Leonard Barden & Tim Harding (1976).
A delightful book with insightful coverage of the major openings.
Generally including an attacking and positional response to each
opening, the authors create a masterpiece which the study of will do
most players miles more good than memorizing dizzying lines and
variations. Barden and Harding try to include some solid lines off
the beaten track so the reader can slide a game into their own
territory.

5) "Zurich International Chess Tournament 1953", David Bronstein.
Well, what can I say about this? It's the first chess book I ever
bought, and you can guess it -- the first opening I ever played on a
regular basis was the King's Indian! A true labour of love, and
unfortunately(?), 100 times better than Bronstein's work on his own
selected games "The Sorceror's Apprentice". Nonetheless, so many
different types of games and ideas occur during Zurich 1953, and in
this book they are all wonderfully revealed and disected.

6) "My Best Games of Chess 1908-1937", Alexander Alekhine. An
enourmous work by the incredible Alekhine. Bobby Fischer describes
Alekhine by saying "He played gigantic conceptions, full of outrageous
and unprecedented ideas" and certainly those outrageous conceptions
and ideas are all contained in this 550+ page monster. Certainly an
appropiate subtitle would be "What You Never Saw Coming".

7) "San Antonio 72", by the players and Bent Larsen and David Levy.
This was Karpov's first appearence in the US, and he tied for first in
this strong tournament with Petrosian and Portisch. At 271 pages, a
lot of exciting and interesting chess is packed into this book. There
are 118 games and 31 are Sicilians(!) in what was surely a fertile
time for the opening. An added bonus is the interesting games of the
young Henrique Mecking.

8) "How Karpov Wins", Edmar Mednis. Perhaps Mednis' greatest book,
certainly much better than Karpov's own "My Best Games". This book
contains brilliantly annotated games of every Karpov win starting in
1971 and finshing with the Candidates tournmament in 1974. The
greatest plus is that as all his wins in this period are given, and
many of these games are your average tournmant wins -- not every game
is the recipiant of a brilliancy prize. This is helpful to the chess
player who wants to learn, as he is not going to enter a tournament
and play a "brillancy prize" game in every game. Nonetheless, an
argument could me made that every Karpov win is brilliant!

9)"Rubenstein's Chess Masterpieces", Hans Kmoch. In my opinion
Rubenstein was the player who most defined the term "chess artist".
His games are simply beautiful and crystal clear -- even more so than
Capablanca. It is true this book may be sparing in times with
annotations, but this is not a problem as Rubenstein's plans are so
logical and evident that one does not need to be told what is
occuring. Rubenstein gets my nod as the strongest player never to
become world champion.

10) "Uncompromising Chess", Alexander Belyavsky. Of all the recent
books from top notch players (including Kramink, Anand, and Shirov)
this is easily the best. OK, so Belyavsky is no longer among the
elite, but his book is head and shoulders above the rest. The games
are wonderfully annotated, with special emphasis being given to the
openings. In practically every game he searches out the latest try or
two in the opening and gives detailed analysis. And the games are
wonderful too -- many times Belyavsky is up a pawn or two with the
better position and I am certain his next move will be to offer a
trade of queens etc to go into an ending... but no! he offers to sac
pawns or pieces to continue on with his initiative! If you want a
book on modern chess, this is the one to get.