Hello All

After quite a few years of dabbling in chess, I am trying to improve my
understanding by reading a couple of books I have found (William
Hartston's "Improve Your Chess" and Graham Burgess' "The Mammoth Book Of
Chess".

One thing that puzzles me is that so many chess books show a diagram
followed by 15 or more moves, with the occasional comment. Unfortunately
I am unable to envisage what the board would look like after more than
three or four moves.

The obvious answer would seem to be that one would have an e-book that
showed the board after every move, or provided a PGN file so that one
could step through the game on a computer screen while reading the book.

However, none of the books I have found so far do this. Does anyone know
why not, and whether there is somewhere I can go to find such books.

Chris Gordon-Smith
www.simsoup.info

On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 12:12:42 PM UTC-8, Chris Gordon-Smith wrote:


Everyman publishes most of their books in both paper and a playable eBook format. http://www.everymanchess.com/

If you look around on the internet, there are sites which have PGN-only
collections from some of the older chess books that you can download
into your UCI and avoid having to enter them from the book. Personally,
I like to enter the games or positions into my UCI and then study them.
By doing that, I get a feel for the flow of the game by just entering
the moves, then I can return to the analysis and go through them in more
detail. You can then save the game as a PGN with or without annotation
or analysis as you like, or you can send them to a chess engine for a
second opinion.

Two sites to check are gambitchess.com and G. Ossimitz's Chess Page
site. Gambitchess requires an exchange, so you need to send them a PGN
collection from a book they do not already have in exchange for download
privileges.

On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 3:12:42 PM UTC-5, Chris Gordon-Smith wrote:
Hello All



After quite a few years of dabbling in chess, I am trying to improve my

understanding by reading a couple of books I have found (William

Hartston's "Improve Your Chess" and Graham Burgess' "The Mammoth Book Of

Chess".



One thing that puzzles me is that so many chess books show a diagram

followed by 15 or more moves, with the occasional comment. Unfortunately

I am unable to envisage what the board would look like after more than

three or four moves.



The obvious answer would seem to be that one would have an e-book that

showed the board after every move, or provided a PGN file so that one

could step through the game on a computer screen while reading the book.



However, none of the books I have found so far do this. Does anyone know

why not, and whether there is somewhere I can go to find such books.



Chris Gordon-Smith

www.simsoup.info

I have a friend michael Raphael who has made some openings e-books that you may find interesting with multiple diagrams per game.

On Mar 5, 3:12*pm, Chris Gordon-Smith .

One thing that puzzles me is that so many chess books show a diagram
followed by 15 or more moves, with the occasional comment. Unfortunately
I am unable to envisage what the board would look like after more than
three or four moves.

The obvious answer would seem to be that one would have an e-book that
showed the board after every move, or provided a PGN file so that one
could step through the game on a computer screen while reading the book.

Most chess book were written and typeset decades ago, before ebooks
existed. It will be a long time, if ever, before the classics are all
available in such a format. Even longer before they're available
without dozens of extra errors.

If you want to read chess books without a chess set to follow the
moves, try endgame books. With fewer pieces on the board you will
find it easier to get from diagram to diagram. And with practice you
will be able to do this more easily - like many unpleasant things,
it's good for you.

I don't use a board any more because I am just too lazy. I convince
myself that I am following the course of the game and annotations
reasonably well. Whether this is true or not is open to question.


William Hyde

On Tue, 05 Mar 2013 20:12:42 +0000, Chris Gordon-Smith wrote:

Hello All

After quite a few years of dabbling in chess, I am trying to improve my
understanding by reading a couple of books I have found (William
Hartston's "Improve Your Chess" and Graham Burgess' "The Mammoth Book Of
Chess".

One thing that puzzles me is that so many chess books show a diagram
followed by 15 or more moves, with the occasional comment. Unfortunately
I am unable to envisage what the board would look like after more than
three or four moves.

The obvious answer would seem to be that one would have an e-book that
showed the board after every move, or provided a PGN file so that one
could step through the game on a computer screen while reading the book.

However, none of the books I have found so far do this. Does anyone know
why not, and whether there is somewhere I can go to find such books.

Chris Gordon-Smith
www.simsoup.info

Thanks to everyone for your answers. The Everyman books look good. I
downloaded one of the free samples. Works well with my viewer (SCID).

G. Ossimitz's Chess Page looks interesting. There is a Chessbase file
with Nimzowitch's My System. I'll see if I can convert it to PGN.

Regarding: "I don't use a board any more because I am just too lazy. I
convince myself that I am following the course of the game and
annotations reasonably well. Whether this is true or not is open to
question."

I'm also too lazy, but I cannot convince even myself that I can follow
the game from the annotations only.

I agree that there is something to be said for entering moves from a book
into a program (SCID in my case), and I have been doing this so far.

Chris Gordon-Smith
www.simsoup.info