What book would you recommend for an adult beginner? This guy knows how the pieces move, but not much else.
Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess
“Chess For Dummies”, by James Eade
Is the person dedicated, or do they just wish to casually get better?
Pandolfini, Beginning Chess and Heisman, Back to Basics: Tactics
I have given Chandler’s How to Beat Your Dad at Chess to a couple adult beginners. As a book of mating patterns, it’s actually more advanced than the title suggests.
The big L. Polgar book is a great deal: it’s a bit unwieldy, however. (I love the mate in one section in that book, but have never used it for anything else.)
There is something to be said for reading TEN beginners’ books (ideally at the public library or trading copies with friends). Different “beginners’ books” are pitched to different audiences. Even if you know 95% of the material in a given beginners’ book, learning the 5% that you don’t know is time well spent. And rehearsal of things you already know gives you more mastery of basics. I still learn a lot from beginners’ books!
He appears to have caught the chess bug. I would say dedicated.
With the new information that said adult beginner is “dedicated” I would now recommend “Chess For Dedicated Dummies.”
Agree. Excellent book that was once, I think, published in some form under a USCF imprint.
Capablanca’s Chess Fundamentals.
All of Capablanca’s books are pretty good, and often overlooked. That said I would also recommend some of the old classics like 1001 chess combinations and 1001 checkmates. both books do give a little away as they are organized on specific themes, which can help to solve the problems.
Larry S. Cohen
+1
That was the first chess book I read, about age 11. It’s basically filled with easy chess mates and puzzles. As long as your comfortable knowing how the pieces moves, it will show you some basic, common mates and other tactics that will gently open your mind on how the pieces work together.
It was the first time I realized that there really was more than just pushing wood around the board. The nice thing about the book Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess is that you don’t really need a chess board to do the book. Just look at the diagrams and try to figure out the problems. Even if you don’t get the correct answer, you can look up the answer to see how it all works.
Regardless if you guess correctly or have to peek at the answers occasionally, you’ll get familiar with some of the most basic tactics that even season veterans use over and over.
I’m sure there are plenty of other great books for beginners out there, but I think the way it’s set up, it gives rank beginners a really good way to sink their teeth into some tactics without being asked to digest too much, while allowing beginners their first taste into how pieces can work together, and of course, take advantage of your opponent’s weaknesses.
I don’t recall how long it took for me to go through the book, but I know it wasn’t too long. It’s not an end all book by any reason. It doesn’t propose to teach anything more than the most basic mating patterns and some other excellent and easy tactics, but by the time you get to the end of it, you should be able reason out the game board much better than just looking at it and pushing wood.
After that book, I’d recommend a book on openings for beginners. The kind that only delves into the first few moves with a bit of instructions about what those moves intend to do. Stay away from anything more comprehensive, especially any opening book that delves into a single opening. As a beginner, your first priority is to to just get out the gate without being crushed. As your explore various openings, you’ll get a feel for the types of openings and defenses that suit your playing style. For example, after many many years of my playing safe opening, I only forced myself to learn The Sicilian Defense. More out of the mental challenge rather than any particular need. I just felt it was time to try something new. I still get crushed often in that, but at the same time, I often have satisfying wins in it.
For me, the Sicilian Defense (playing as black), was kind of a mountain for me to climb, but I’m sure other players find that line is something they might play as a beginner. Everybody has their own strengths and weaknesses and styles of play.
As far as end games, I’d recommend something like Pandolfini’s Endgame Course. Bruce Pandolfini writes a lot of books for beginners. I wouldn’t tackle that first though. Get a feel for basic mates and tactics and explore some opening, but don’t delve too many moves into opening at first. Just get a feel for what openings and positions seem to suit your playing style.
I would say, Irving Chernev’s book, “Logical Chess, Move By Move” would be an excellent start as well.
Respectfully Submitted,
David A. Cole, USCF Life Member, Franklin, NJ
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How to Beat Your Kids at Chess, 2nd ed., by David McEnulty A gentle introduction to chess for the adult beginner. Even if the player knows how the pieces move, this book is a good review of rules and basics.
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Weapons of Chess, by Bruce Pandolfini The description of elements allows an adult reader to learn without needing a board in front of him. Many step by step examples.
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Common Sense in Chess, by Emanuel Lasker Based on a series of lectures to amateur adults.
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Genesis of Power Chess, by Leslie Ault. 700 diagrams/puzzles to help the player develop technique in the middle game and endgame. Based on programmatic instruction that went into the development of “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess.” The answers are below the diagrams making it easier to learn without flipping back and forth in the book.
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The Modern Chess Self Tutor, by David Bronstein. This explanatory text is pitched toward adult amateurs who know how the pieces move and are seeking a little more of a direction of where to go from there.
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My System, by Aron Nimzovich. This book is designed for adult amateurs to lead them deeper into understanding the elements of a chess game.
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The Game of Chess, by Siegbert Tarrasch. A course in chess for adult amateurs. Many example of combinations, how to win endgames, and explanations of opening moves.
One has to remember that many of the older books were written for adults, not kids. In those times, kids were rarely invited to chess clubs or participated in the tournaments of the time. Literature on chess was designed for adult instruction and entertainment.
Good point.
My favorite was “The Collier Quick and Easy Guide to Chess” by Richard Roberts.
First edition was 1962; I had the 1971 5th printing.
One drawback is that like other older books it’s in English Descriptive notation, but on the other hand the used-book copies haven’t been up-priced as well.
Thanks for the ideas, but some of these are too advanced for a true beginner. My System is WAY beyond this fellow’s understanding. I’m not at all sure that I understand it, and I’m a Class A player.
The book I learned from, which was very good (reading it cover to cover got me to about 1000 or even 1200), is unfortunately long out of print: Chess Made Simple, by Milton Hanauer. Looking at Amazon, I see that you can still get used copies.
I remember another beginner’s book that I looked at at the time, An Invitation to Chess by Chernev and Harkness. This was very successful in its day (over 100,000 copies printed according to one blurb), and so it might still be in print, I don’t know. By the time I read it I had already “graduated” from that level, so I am not sure how good it would have been for me, but it looked OK.
" I’m not at all sure that I understand it, and I’m a Class A player," writes the class A/B player who placed his pieces in a carpetbag and moved down South decades ago. I must hand it to the gentleman from Wisconsin as it is something to become a class A player without being able to understand My System.
The Hanauer book is wonderful!
This is a very interesting list!
All of MacEnulty’s books are great. I used a couple chapters of his kids’ checkmate book in a class yesterday.
The Lasker book is wonderful and should be read more frequently. Ditto Tarrasch. Chess Fundamentals (Everyman edition recommended) is often cited by strong players as the first book they learned from. I think this is funny, given Capa’s laconic style, but I know that the Dover edition of Last Lectures (even more laconic and with a couple famous errors) influenced my play quite a bit as a teenager.
I learned that the Ra1 was already well-placed from Bronstein!
I don’t know Ault.
But one should read Tarrasch before Nimzo, no? For one thing, one does not appreciate the power of My System unless one knows what Nimzo was rebelling against. (As I’ve said more than once, the book that reminds me the most of My System is Marx’s The German Ideology.) Some strong players swear by My System; others swear at it. For all its idiosyncrasy, it’s important because Nimzowitsch, like Steinitz, was a “founder of discursivity” in chess. (See of course Watson, who wrote an entire book making this point among others.) In other words, even the folks who disagree with Nimzo use Nimzo’s vocabulary.
Ken Smith had interesting advice for reading My System. Read Part I (The Elements) first, then read Part II (Positional Play) six months or a year later. The point is that Tarrasch would have had little argument with Part I (aside perhaps from the final chapter on pawn chains), while the radical stuff is in Part II. Even for an adult like me who never “gets good” at chess, reading all this is a good entertainment.
One can get pretty darn strong without understanding Nimzo. Stockfish doesn’t, e.g. And Larsen (in his interview with Keene in A Reppraisal) suggested that Euwe never really understood Nimzo.
The New in Chess (Sherwood trans.) of My System is far & away the best IMO. And you get Chess Praxis to boot!
Finally, there are free and/or cheap editions of several of these books for your favorite e-reader.
Some years ago, I recommended the Reinfeld 1001 books to a high school friend whose adult son was doing three months in the county jail on drug charges. The typical adult beginner has a job and family and might find the Reinfeld books a bit daunting. (They are great: they require more energy than the average beginner’s book. And if I am rated above 2000 and I can’t solve 95% of the problems correctly on sight, are these books really beginners’ books?) Even How to Beat Your Dad at Chess (easier than Reinfeld), a great book on mating patters, is not for the absolute beginner.