What are some good books on positional chess?

[stwils]

I have no idea my rating, but below 1000 I am sure. Can any of you suggest a good book to study on positional chess?

Thanks.

S.

[swami]

I have no idea my rating, but below 1000 I am sure. Can any of you suggest a good book to study on positional chess?

Thanks.

S.

I have read some of them, although not fully, but these are obviously probable picks:

Winning chess strategies by Yasser Seirawan

Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy by John Watson

Basic Principles of Chess Strategy by Alexei Bartashnikov

Remember the saying, Chess is 99% tactics.

[JuLieN]

Hello Susan. Those two classics are my suggestions :
- My System (Aaron Nimzowitch)
- Pawn Power in Chess (Hans Kmoch)

Any serious chess player have read them.

[jdart]

If you are really below 1000, or even 1500, then you will probably find many books on this topic too difficult. One beginner level book on this topic is Bruce Pandolfini's "Weapons of Chess".

--Jon

[stwils]

Thank you. I have seen that on Amazon. Not too hard?

S.

[Uri Blass]

I have no idea my rating, but below 1000 I am sure. Can any of you suggest a good book to study on positional chess?

Thanks.

S.

If you are below 1000 then I believe that your main problem is tactics and books about positional chess are not going to help you much to improve.

My fide rating is 2049 and I believe that even for me tactics is the key for improvement and not positional chess.

I could avoid many losses if I only knew to avoid tactical mistakes that chess programs avoid by searching to at most 4 plies.

Uri

[swami]

Thank you. I have seen that on Amazon. Not too hard?

S.

You're welcome.

If you want an easiest one, You could read this one:



My suggestion is

- Read any strategy books first (first step for those who are beginners). Go with the easier one, such as the one above.

- Read commented games.

- Last but not least - Learn Tactics, that's the quickest way to make progress.

Although I have only read some but Yasser's and Sunil's book both pretty much cover a lot of positional ideas.

[swami]

I have no idea my rating, but below 1000 I am sure. Can any of you suggest a good book to study on positional chess?

Thanks.

S.

If you are below 1000 then I believe that your main problem is tactics and books about positional chess are not going to help you much to improve.

My fide rating is 2049 and I believe that even for me tactics is the key for improvement and not positional chess.

I could avoid many losses if I only knew to avoid tactical mistakes that chess programs avoid by searching to at most 4 plies.

Uri

But for beginners, Positional chess is essential, atleast some important positional knowledge. Like development, Piece Values, understanding, avoiding blunders etc.

Tactics is mostly only for players >1500.

[rjgibert]

All the books by Seirawan are very readable. He explains things very well. The book by Watson will be too advanced for you if you are under 1000. It's fine to spend a little time learning about positional play, but your main emphasis should be books on tactics. Solving tactical quiz problems by the hundreds is your best bet to improve.

I haven't read any of the Seirawan beginner books, because these books weren't around when I was starting out, but Seirawan is quite a good author.

I did look through his book on Winning Chess Openings (http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Chess-Ope ... pd_sim_b_2) and was very impressed. He does something that I found delightful. He used his own games in this book. The ones he himself had played as a beginner!

Evidently, he never discarded a scoresheet of any of his games. In so doing, he kept a record of his own progress from the almost the very beginning. Using these as base material in his book is a wonderful idea. I liked this so much, I was even tempted to buy the book myself even though I'm rated 2234.

If his book on strategy is anything like this, I'm sure you couldn't go wrong.

Here is another well regarded book to consider:



For ten bucks, how can you lose?

[ozziejoe]

I agree that tactics are the critical thing. I would strongly recommend the program CT-ART. It has many different levels of problem and provides nice visual hints if you are struggling with a problem

best
J