Sunday, April 20, 2008

Sweet Leaf--The Best Books

Hidden Leaf wrote up a very useful bibliography of the books that got B's and better in my reviews (that is, the stuff I'm keeping). One really nice feature is that at the end of each bibliography, he notes which video that review is in! Thanks a lot, Hidden Leaf. Seriously, you help make it feel worthwhile.

Code:
Grade/Author/Title/Publisher/Date/Year/Vid #

'NR' means 'not reviewed' in the videos, but good material I didn't have at hand when I did the videos.

The A Pile
A+ Silman, Jeremy; Silman's Complete Endgame Course. From Beginner to Master, Siles Press, 2007/01, 5
A+ Wolff, Patrick; The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess, Alpha, 2005/05, 7
A/A+ Cheng, Ray; Practical Chess Exercises. 600 Lessons from Tactics to Strategy, Wheatmark, 2007/05, 4
A/A+ CT-Art (Chess Tactics Art); Convekta (*, NR)
A Basman, Michael (Mike); Chess Openings, (Crowood Chess Library), Crowood Press, 1987/04, 3
A Chandler, Murray; How to Beat Your Dad at Chess, Gambit Publications, 1998/08, 7
A Chess Tactics for Beginners, Convetka, 3*

The B Pile
B Anderson, Ian; Chess Visualization Course, 3
B Buckley, Mark; Practical Chess Analysis, Thinkers' Press, 1987/06, 7
B Burgess, Graham; Winning with the Smith-Morra Gambit, (Batsford Chess Library), Henry Holt & Co, 1994/12, 4
B Chernev, Irving; Logical Chess. Move by Move. Every Move Explained, Batsford, 2003/06 algebraic, 6
B Collins, Sam; Understanding the Chess Openings, Gambit, 2005/07, 4
B Davies, Nigel; Gambiteer I. A Hard Hitting Opening Repetoire for White, Everyman Chess, 2007/05, 6
B Dzindzichashvili, Roman; Unbeatable Secret Weapons for Black; Roman's Lab volume 17: Sic Def, Scan Def, 4*
B Emms, John; Attacking with 1e4, Everyman Chess, 2001/08, 7
B Euwe, Max & Meiden; Walter, Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur, Dover Publications, 1994/03, 5
B Fischer, Bobby; Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, Bantam, 1992/07, 7
B Gilliam Simple Checkmates, Ballantine Books, 1996 (NR)
B Golombek, Harry; Capablanca's Best Games, Intl Chess Enterpr, 1997/02 8
B Grivas, Efstratios; Chess College 2: Pawn Play, Gambit Publications, 2006/06, 7
B Harding, Tim; The Total Marshall, 2*
B Heisman, Dan; Elements of Positional Evaluation. How Chess Pieces get their Power, Chess Enterprises, 1999/06 rev. ed., 6
B Heisman, Dan; Back to Basics: Tactics, (ChessCafe Back to Basics Chess), Russell Enterprises, 2007/09, 3
B Kasparov, Garry; On My Great Predecessors Part I, Everyman Chess, 2003/08, 7
B Kotov, Alexander; Think Like a Grandmaster, Batsford, 2003/06 algebraic, 6
B Littlewood, Paul; Chess Tactics, (Batsford Chess Book), Batsford, 2003/03, 6
B Maza, Michael de la; Rapid Chess Improvement, Everyman Chess, 2002/06, 6
B McDonald, Neil; Chess the Art of Logical Thinking. From the First Move to the Last, Batsford, 2004/09, 6
B McDonald, Neil; The Art of Planning in Chess. Move by Move, Batsford, 2006/08, 7
B McDonald, Neil; Queens Gambit Declined, (Starting Out), Everyman Chess, 2006/12, 2
B Müller & Lamprecht; Fundamental Chess Endings, Gambit Publications, 2001/10, 7
B Müller, Karsten; Fritz Endgame Trainer Vol 1, 1*
B Pandolfini, Bruce; Beginning Chess. 300 Elementary Problems for Players New to the Game, (Fireside Chess Library), Fireside, 1993/08, 3
B Pandolfini, Bruce; Russian Chess, (Fireside Chess Library), Fireside 1987/03, 8
B Pandolfini, Bruce; Weapons of Chess. An Omnibus of Chess Strategy; (Fireside Chess Library), Fireside, 1989/11, 6
B Renaud & Kahn; The Art of Checkmate, Dover Publications, 1962/06, 7
B Rosario, Frisco del; A First Book of Morphy, Trafford Publishing, 2004/10, 3
B Sawyer, Tim; Alapin French, Thinkers’ Press, 1995/06, 3
B Snyder, Robert M.; Unbeatable Chess Lessons for juniors; (McKay Chess Library for Kids), Random House, 2003/11, 2
B Stean, Michael; Simple Chess. New Algabraic Edition, Dover Publications, 2003/1, 6
B Tisdall, Jonathan; Improve your chess now, Everyman Chess, 1997/12, 7
B Ward, Chris; It's your move, Everyman Chess, 2004/01, 6
B Weeramantry & Eusebi; Best Lessons of a Chess Coach, (McKay Chess Library), Random House, 1994/02, 7
B Chessmaster 10th edition, Ubisoft, 2*
B Chess Tactics for Intermediate Players, Convetka, 4*
B Fritz 09, 1*

* = not a book

5 Comments:

Blogger Vincent said...

Hey there! Just want to say thanks for the videos/list of books. I just discovered your blog and have subscribed to your rss feed to make sure I don't miss any future update. Great stuff, good humor and overall goodness.

Thanks for the efforts!

Vincent (from Montreal, Canada)

4/20/2008 10:02:00 PM  
Blogger Blue Devil Knight said...

Thanks a lot Vincent. I won't be publishing a whole lot more (two or three posts then an extended break), but there's a couple of years' worth of stuff packed in here, my favorites in the Blog Highlites (which run up to about November of last year, and I'll be updating in the next week with anything since then that deserves a spot there).

4/20/2008 10:47:00 PM  
Blogger Vincent said...

Thanks for the response. I will certainly dig through the archives. Hope you enjoy the (extended) break. Sometimes we have to know when to let distractions (like blogging) go :)

Ciao ciao

4/21/2008 11:48:00 AM  
Blogger Sir Nemo said...

That is a pretty impressive list of books. I saw "Chess tactics for Beginners" by Convekta, but where's CT-ART?! ;]

4/21/2008 12:59:00 PM  
Blogger Blue Devil Knight said...

Nemo: Yeah, that would have been a definite A, if not A+. I should add it to the list. I lost the CD case so didn't review it when I ran through them. (Also a few other books I should add that were not in the big pile: most notably Polgar's brick and a nice little book 'Simple Checkmates.'

4/21/2008 02:23:00 PM  

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