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Hot Topic (More than 10 Replies) IM's and GM's Favorite Books/Chess Mastery Secrets (Read 14164 times)
nimzo5
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Re: IM's and GM's Favorite Books/Chess Mastery Secrets
Reply #20 - 10/06/10 at 18:08:24
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Trw- Interesting, I study with IM Young in Chicago. We typically pull problems out of "Think like a Grandmaster" by Kotov and analyze the problems to conclusion.

  
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trw
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Re: IM's and GM's Favorite Books/Chess Mastery Secrets
Reply #19 - 10/06/10 at 17:33:00
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The aagaard book was Excelling at your Chess Calculation. It was first mentioned to me by Yury Shulman but later Gurevich, Mitkov, Lenderman and Akobian.

RE: why not recent games?

Several answers.
1) I was summing up common answers that I heard ALOT from multiple titled players. Many titled players mentioned one particular book that I heard from no others.
2) Alex Lenderman did in fact recommend to me the Kasparov series for all the other players you mentioned.
3) Many of the players felt that books on recent players were a waste of time as they were mostly computer analyzed and poor. They suggested that you go through the games yourself.
4) Many of them recommended specific games instead of specific books to cover recent players.
5) Some mentioned Dvoretsky book (I think 2 in total) but most said it was better to spend all your time on rook endgames instead like Levenfish was a book mentioned alot that I didn't put in the list.

Though its interesting, because the question specifically asked for IM/GM opinions. However, I've long asked all titled players their opinions on this if they will give it. If you add FM to the list, what books float to the top 15 changes rapidly as nearly every FM mentions Karsten Mueller, Dvoretsky and Botvinnik while non of them mention Bronstein, Vukovic or Fischer. 

I would also stress if you want instead of common answers just individual answers that they were almost always games collections.
Gelfand's best games.
Shirov's Fire on Board.
  
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chezzter
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Re: IM's and GM's Favorite Books/Chess Mastery Secrets
Reply #18 - 10/06/10 at 15:38:54
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@ Stigma, Wow! That's a lot of links. Will check them out!
  
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Re: IM's and GM's Favorite Books/Chess Mastery Secrets
Reply #17 - 10/06/10 at 13:21:19
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HoemberChess wrote on 10/06/10 at 12:17:32:
Alias wrote on 10/06/10 at 09:00:50:
In John Watson's weekly show on chess.fm, he always asks the guests about their favourite books. Some common answers:

  • Zürich 1953 by Bronstein (or in spanish by Najdorf)
  • Dvoretsky's endgame manual
  • The three books on his own games by Botvinnik
  • My System
  • My 60 memorable games


John Donaldson raved about the 2nd Piatigorsky cup.



I, too, have listened a few of those interviews. And I have not heard about a book that is not listed at the link given by whatteaux... Smiley


The 2nd Piatigorsky cup and the Najdorf Zürich 1953 book were new to me. (They're not on the fide lists.) I got the Piatigorsky book after listening to the show. It's quite interesting to see notes from both players of the games.
  
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HoemberChess
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Re: IM's and GM's Favorite Books/Chess Mastery Secrets
Reply #16 - 10/06/10 at 12:17:32
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Alias wrote on 10/06/10 at 09:00:50:
In John Watson's weekly show on chess.fm, he always asks the guests about their favourite books. Some common answers:

  • Zürich 1953 by Bronstein (or in spanish by Najdorf)
  • Dvoretsky's endgame manual
  • The three books on his own games by Botvinnik
  • My System
  • My 60 memorable games


John Donaldson raved about the 2nd Piatigorsky cup.



I, too, have listened a few of those interviews. And I have not heard about a book that is not listed at the link given by whatteaux... Smiley
  
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Stigma
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Re: IM's and GM's Favorite Books/Chess Mastery Secrets
Reply #15 - 10/06/10 at 12:15:39
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chezzter wrote on 10/06/10 at 02:47:28:
Stigma wrote on 10/06/10 at 02:31:24:

And btw. some of Krogius' ideas on chess psychology are outdated by now. I would supplement it with books by Avni (The Grandmaster's Mind, Danger in Chess) and maybe some academic papers by Gobet, Ericsson, Holding, Saariluoma, Charness etc..


Hi, May I know where to find the academic papers? Any links?

Thanks!


Try http://scholar.google.com and search for chess + <author>. If there is a freely available version somewhere on the internet, a link will turn up (usually to a pdf, occasionally doc, html etc.).

Of course if you have access to a university network with good journal access you can get all published papers the last 40 or so years.

Some of my favorites:

http://www.saladehistoria.com/fotoblog/Training_in_chess.pdf

http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/825/1/Gobet_Search_ICGA.pdf

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.117.8670&rep=rep1&type=...

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.95.8659&rep=rep1&type=p...

http://psych-www.colorado.edu/ics/techpubs/pdf/94-01.pdf
(A long and famous paper on memory; chess is discussed on pp. 40-42)

http://www.ida.liu.se/~nilda/Anders_Ericsson/Ericsson_delib_pract.pdf

http://matt.colorado.edu/teaching/highcog/fall8/cs73.pdf

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.18.5701&rep=rep1&type=p...

http://www.utm.toronto.edu/uploads/tx_researcherprofile/TheRoleOfDeliberatePract...

I could go on and on, really.
  
Improvement begins at the edge of your comfort zone. -Jonathan Rowson
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chezzter
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Re: IM's and GM's Favorite Books/Chess Mastery Secrets
Reply #14 - 10/06/10 at 11:40:23
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whatteaux wrote on 10/06/10 at 04:43:00:
There's also some good lists here:
http://trainers.fide.com/recommended-books.html
(arranged by language)


Thanks a lot! 

A lot of these are the latest and upto date!
  
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Re: IM's and GM's Favorite Books/Chess Mastery Secrets
Reply #13 - 10/06/10 at 09:00:50
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In John Watson's weekly show on chess.fm, he always asks the guests about their favourite books. Some common answers:

  • Zürich 1953 by Bronstein (or in spanish by Najdorf)
  • Dvoretsky's endgame manual
  • The three books on his own games by Botvinnik
  • My System
  • My 60 memorable games


John Donaldson raved about the 2nd Piatigorsky cup.

  
Don't check me with no lightweight stuff.
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whatteaux
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Re: IM's and GM's Favorite Books/Chess Mastery Secrets
Reply #12 - 10/06/10 at 04:43:00
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There's also some good lists here:
http://trainers.fide.com/recommended-books.html
(arranged by language)
  
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chezzter
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Re: IM's and GM's Favorite Books/Chess Mastery Secrets
Reply #11 - 10/06/10 at 02:47:28
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Stigma wrote on 10/06/10 at 02:31:24:

And btw. some of Krogius' ideas on chess psychology are outdated by now. I would supplement it with books by Avni (The Grandmaster's Mind, Danger in Chess) and maybe some academic papers by Gobet, Ericsson, Holding, Saariluoma, Charness etc..


Hi, May I know where to find the academic papers? Any links?

Thanks!
  
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Stigma
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Re: IM's and GM's Favorite Books/Chess Mastery Secrets
Reply #10 - 10/06/10 at 02:31:24
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@trw: Surprised Dvoretsky's books did not appear on your list! But then Malakhov also admits to not studying Dvoretsky's books, so maybe they're not as essential as I have thought.

The games of Alekhine, Fischer and the 1953 candidates tournament are recommended... OK, I realize these are some of the established "classics", but isn't it equally important to study players closer to our time (Karpov, Kasparov) and currently active ones (Anand, Kramnik, Carlsen, Topalov, Shirov, Gelfand etc. etc.)?

And btw. some of Krogius' ideas on chess psychology are outdated by now. I would supplement it with books by Avni (The Grandmaster's Mind, Danger in Chess) and maybe some academic papers by Gobet, Ericsson, Holding, Saariluoma, Charness etc. Of course there's a lot of good psychology in Kotov's, Aagaard's and Dvoretsky's books too.
  
Improvement begins at the edge of your comfort zone. -Jonathan Rowson
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chezzter
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Re: IM's and GM's Favorite Books/Chess Mastery Secrets
Reply #9 - 10/05/10 at 19:22:04
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JEH wrote on 10/05/10 at 19:10:40:
Nice list of pre '85 books from GM Kevin Spraggett here plus other interesting stuff on the rest of the site...

http://canchess.tripod.com/favorite.htm




Thanks for the link! 
  
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chezzter
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Re: IM's and GM's Favorite Books/Chess Mastery Secrets
Reply #8 - 10/05/10 at 19:14:12
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I just had a chat with IM friend of mine (FIDE rated at about 2450). He says that playing many games is equally important.

He added that his favorites are ALL of Dvoretsky, shereshevsky, and he's not even read much else. He'd read like only 15 books so far.
  
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JEH
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Re: IM's and GM's Favorite Books/Chess Mastery Secrets
Reply #7 - 10/05/10 at 19:10:40
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Nice list of pre '85 books from GM Kevin Spraggett here plus other interesting stuff on the rest of the site...

http://canchess.tripod.com/favorite.htm


  
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chezzter
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Re: IM's and GM's Favorite Books/Chess Mastery Secrets
Reply #6 - 10/05/10 at 19:09:16
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trw wrote on 10/05/10 at 18:57:53:
I've had this conversation with alot of local IMs and GMs in the Chicago (including GM Nikola Mitkov, GM Dmitry Gurevich, GM Yury Shulman, GM Mesgen Amanov, IM Florin Felecan, IM Angelo Young, IM Mehmed Pasalic, IM Emory Tate, IM Arjun Vishnuvardhan, IM Jan van Mortel and I've also talked to GM Varuzhan Akobian & GM Alex Lenderman).

Of course since i'm summing up their opinions ... if any of you great players happens to read this, any one of these books might not have been recommended to me by you.

I noticed several books kept coming to the top of all the lists.
1. 1953 Zurich by Bronstein
2. Art of Attack by Vukovic
3. Imagination in Chess by Gaprind
4. GM-RAM by Rashid Zaitinov
5. Alekhines best games
6.Seven Deadly Sins by Rowson
7. Road to chess improvement by Yermolinsky
8. My 60 Memorables games by Robert Fischer
9. My System by Nimozwitsch
10. All the Fred Reinfeld classics.
11. Think Like A Grandmaster by Alexander Kotov
12. One of aagaard's excelling at books (I can't remember off the top of my head which one but several GMs mentioned it).
13. smyslov endgame virtuoso
14. Endgame Challenge by John Nunn
15. Chess Psychology by Krogius

I would say that two books I would add is definitely 100 endgames you must know and Essential Chess Endings by Howell but none of the title players I've talked to have even heard of these.

Yes that Malakhov interview is very surprising and completely worth a full read: http://www.chessintranslation.com/2010/09/vladimir-malakhov-chess-player-nuclear...

for anyone that missed it.



A lot of those books sound familiar. If only I'd find time to get around to reading them. Smiley 

There are few exceptions though. Never heard of "GM RAM", "Endgame Challenge". Will check these out, as well the last two that you recommended. 


  
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