Thursday, April 06, 2006

Favorite Chess Books, Part II

(Part I here, but to reiterate, the first five were:

1. Grandmaster of Chess, Paul Keres (80 selected games)

2. My 60 Memorable Games, Bobby Fischer

3. How Not to Play Chess, Eugene Znosko-Borovsky

4. Capablanca, Edward Winter

5. Aron Nimzovich, A Reappraisal, Raymond Keene)

And now to complete the list of 11, The Sage in the Tower's favorite number (and here is his list, which inspired mine)--

6. Tal-Botvinnik, World Chess Championship 1960, Mikhail Tal,

7. The Test of Time, Gary Kasparov,

8. The Chess Struggle in Practice (Zurich Candidates Tournament 1953), David Bronstein

9. My Best Games of Chess 1905-1954, Savielly Tartakover

10. Uncompromising Chess, Alexander Belyavsky

11. 300 Games of Chess, Siegbert Tarrasch, (I like Dreihundert Schachpartien better, because this translation isn't very good, but the chess content is great in any language. I need a copy of the original!)

Ah, looking through the shelves there are so many other fine volumes, Alekhine, other Kasparov, more Winter, Pachman. Watson, books on endings, opening books, etc., but I think you could be a fantastic player if you just understood the material in these 11 alone.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

And I was thinking you forgot...Silly me! Eric

Unknown said...

Hi Robert, I have #11 but have yet to look at it as I recently got it at the last big tournament I went to: The U.S. Open. I've been so busy, I haven't been able to even glance at it yet. After Beliavsky, it seems like a good time! Eric