Books for Chess Players

There are many kinds of books available for chess players. In this blog, I will not write about chess books written for those who are just learning to play the game, that is the rules of the game. I will rather concentrate on the books that should be useful for my level of playing. One reason for this is, that I'll have to buy the books I'll review and I don't plan to buy any chess books that I cannot consider useful for me. So  don't expect to find here any reviews of  books for newbies!

My collection of chess books grows constantly. Most of the  chess books I own are written either in English or German, so I intend to review mostly chess books written in these two languages.  Unfortunately, my Spanish is not yet fluent enough for being able to read any chess books. But maybe in the future not too far away...

The chess books I usually read can be divided in several categories according to the central theme of the book:

• Opening books
• Games collections
• Tournament books
• Endgames
• Tactics and combinations

Like most of the chess enthusiast, I enjoy reading books about chess openings. It is probably not the most efficient way to become a better chess player - the time would be better spent studying any other kind of chess books, but it seems that reading about different chess openings provides more enjoyment than studying the intricacies of pawn and rook endgames. So it should not come as a big surprise to anyone, that my collection of chess books has all too many opening guides.

Some of the most enjoyable books I have read are games collections of certain master players. In fact, the first chess book I ever bought was a games collection of the then world champion Anatoly Karpov. Even now, twenty-five years later, I every now and then return to this collection of his games.

During the last years, I have tried to study chess endgames. Unfortunately, I never seem to have enough time for endgames. Now that I have a couple of great endgame books, there is no real excuse for not studying this interesting part of the game. Moreover, writing this blog might give me yet another incentive for at least trying to study some of the best endgame guides I have.