Best Chess Books for Improving at Chess (Survey) 📚
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This week, I need your help to identify the books/courses that have helped you the most on your chess journey. As you may know, I'm talking with FM
about launching an online chess training community. To create an evidence-based training program, gathering insights from fellow chess players is important.I'd appreciate it if you could take a moment to complete the short survey, listing your top 3 chess books/courses. I've included "courses" to ensure you can mention any you've taken on platforms like Chessable. Remember, it is not enjoyable reads but resources that have genuinely helped you improve you are asked to rank.
I will share the results in a couple of days.
Update on book projects
I have been working on the next Tactics Ladder book for 1200 FIDE. So far I have compiled all the puzzles and I now need to turn them into a real book. From experience, this takes some time.
However, I have discovered that Chessable is having its 3rd Annual Create Your Own Course Contest. For me, it seems like a good opportunity to finally become a Chessable author. I have therefore started on a course covering missed moves through chess history. I have made a Python script that has crawled through the old master’s games and found moments where they missed a golden opportunity. I will then select the best positions and annotate them for the course.
The reader will then get the challenge to find the missed move. The deadline is already on the 30th of November, so I will focus on this project before finishing the Tactics Ladder book 📕
/Martin
Note that your course idea is somewhat similar to this existing course:
https://www.chessable.com/world-champion-calculation-training-part-1-steinitz-lasker-capablanca-alekhine/course/67775/ by GM Oleksiyenko. (There are parts 2 & 3 too, covering later world champions).
This course (https://www.chessable.com/don-t-panic-a-chess-master-s-guide-to-calculation/course/81621/) also features the (very) old masters but I think a lot of is composed puzzles so probably less relevant.
To make it super clear that there is no crossover you could simply avoid games by those 4 players covered by Oleksiyenko. There should still be more than enough source material from the old masters.
Another point of difference would be to organise your puzzles by theme as opposed to organising by player as Oleksiyenko does. I feel quite strongly that solving puzzles organised by theme is the best way to build pattern recognition which is what most adult improvers need. The more specific the themes, the better.
Best of luck with creating your course!
Great idea for a Chessable course Martin!