Strategy and Positional Chess Books
April 25, 2009
Dr.Vishaal Bhat
Desicritics.org
One of the common questions asked by a budding chess player is, which books must he chose to develop his positional and strategic skills? Often it is easier to find books , which focus on tactics, but to search for material on the most relevant strategy chess book is often difficult. I have made a small list of books which might be useful to develop positional skills.
Books by Kotov and (Susan) Polgar focus more on tactics. Some of the easier to find books on strategy are by Lasker and Yasser Sairawan and by Bronstein. For some authors, such as Pachman, I have listed all available books even though I have gone through only a few pages from his book, Modern Chess Strategy. If his other books are any where near the quality of of those pages, then they too are worth studying. Positional play can’t be divorced from tactics, so I have listed some books for that.
One of the often asked questions is – “Is studying Nimzovitsch relevant today? “.
My answer to that would be, yes, somewhere along the line, Nimzovitsch must be read. But not right away. Start slowly and build yourself from the bottom. Study the games of the great Masters. Start with the great Rubeinstein.
Source: http://desicritics.org/
Are you planning to come out with more books?
For tactics, read Fred Reinfeld – very accessible.
One grandmaster, Kevin Spraggett, thinks that Nimzovitsch is not worth studying. Quote:
“he almost never achieved in his tournament practice (i.e. his games) what he makes you believe he did in his books. It is really hard to find a game played from move 1 to the end where he even followed his own ‘system’ ! On top of this, his books are filled with many tactical oversights, and simply bad judgment. “
See http://www.kevinspraggett.com/Nonimzo.htm