Hello All:

I would think that Watson's books are too difficult for an advanced beginner? Especially if they are like his strategy double.

I couldn't understand strategy until I read Silman's Reassess Your Chess which I highly recommend. He also has that endgame book that is organized by class level.

Take care,

Gerry

drkodos wrote on 12/02/07 at 22:46:41:

JonHecht wrote on 12/02/07 at 23:47:49:


I guess that's why it really best to study whole games, yes?  Seems to be not just the flavor-of-the-month, but also practical.  I always felt that endgame study was somewhat overpreached and underpracticed by many (perhaps not Mr. Josh W ). No doubt, the endgame technique's primacy in winning long-term is nay unarguable, but, removing distilled remnants and subjecting them to rigorous understanding only pays off if you reach the endgame~!  I argue that the vast majority of all chess games are won/lost in the opening and middlegame stages, so that all the endgame technique in the world is oft left untapped!  So, studying the endgames that result from mostly typical middlegames that stem from the openings one has in a repertoire would seem to make the most sense.

Even more Nakamurian is to study openings in a disproportioned relationship to endgames because of their inherrant import in determinning said endgame landscape.  This seems to have a nice pay-off at higher levels, so I see no reason why its application would not be as successful at all levels since games reaching evenly battled endgames go down in proportianate number as we travel down the food-chain.

Good Luck!

Bronstein:  Zurich 1953 Tournament Book
Keres & Kotov:  Art of the Middlegame
Nunn:  Grandmaster Chess Move by Move  (and his others)
Vukovich:  Art of the Attack
Mednis:  From the Middle to the Endgame
Watson:  Mastering the Chess Openings Vol I & II


Get these under you belt and you should see some improvements in middlegame understanding, planning and results.

There are many others, but I believe these are hard to argue against.


Remember:  Before the Endgame, the universe has placed the Middlegame.