Alias wrote on 07/14/10 at 07:05:31:



What level is Chess Strategy for Club players for? I haven't really heard much of it, but the reviews for it seem good.

Since 2000 I really liked.

1. The (Auto)biography Of Benko, with Silman Watson et al.

2. San Luis 2005 about the "world championship" Topalov won

3. Rowson's Chess for Zebras

4 Yermolinsky's book Road to chess improvement

5Korchnoi's Chessbase DVD Volume 1 My Life for Chess. 

thibdb13 wrote on 07/14/10 at 11:06:36:

That book " Vladimir Bagirov: Defense Alekhine " was my inspiration 25+ years ago when I start playing the opening without even understanding anything from text but the quality of the notation was awesome!

couple days ago I decide after all these years to update my knowledge by purchasing the new book Alekhine Alert by Taylor

Some of the books that I spend some time and "bend" them more than others are:

Pal Benko: My Life, Games, and Compositions by Pal Benko, Jeremy Silman, John Watson
Understanding Chess Move by Move by John Nunn
My Great Predecessors (all) by Garry Kasparov
Art of Attack in Chess by Vladimir Vukovic
The Ultimate Colle by Gary Lane
The Philidor Files: Detailed Coverage of a Dynamic Opening by Christian Bauer
Black Knights' Tango by Georgi Orlov

Art of defence-Soltis
Plan like a grandmaster - Suetin
I also like the series of Dvoretsky

Robin Smith: Modern Chess Analysis

Gives a lot of knowledge about the adequate use of engines, is an excellent read with and without a chessboard. Reading it without board will give you 100 till 200 rating points in correspondence chess if you had no systematic knowledge about how to use programs.

chezzter wrote on 07/12/10 at 10:20:25:

What are Your Favorite Modern Chess Books?
...
Be it strategy, annotated GM games, openings, endings, combination or tactics.

Most effective is to list the best chess books *within genre*.

CHESS PHILOSOPHY:
John Watson: "Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy"
Jonathan Rowson: "Chess for Zebras"
(Probaby the breakthough ideas of W.Steinitz.)

TACTICS:
CT-Art 3.0 (apparently better than 4.0)
Charles Hertan: "Forcing Chess Moves"
Fred Reinfeld: "1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations" (although the book needs to be converted to long algebraic, layed out a little better with answers closer to puzzle diagrams, and printed better and with larger diagrams)

Not a bad book, but suitable only for player rated 2000 or higher, is "John Nunn's Chess Puzzle Book", which are not tactical puzzles in the usual sense.

OPENINGS:
D.King & P.Ponzetto: "Mastering the Spanish" (for innovating approach, and for exceptionally good verbiage to explain variations, but needed a better move tree index)

ENDINGS:
G.Levenfish & V.Smyslov: "Rook Endings" (a fantastic book, surprisingly suitable for both strong and weak players)

and so on

Strategy:  I Sokolov, Winning Chess Middlegames

Endings:  Van Perlo's Endgame Tactics

Annotated GM Games:  Kasparov's My Great Predecessors and Modern Chess Series 

Tournament Book:  San Luis 2005