Chess Books Work

CheckRaiseMate's blog post entitled Why Chess Books Don't Work got me thinking. As a new adult learner (1.5 years into it) one of the first things I had done was to buy some chess books. I like books so I might have overdone it at first. I definitely bought some that were over my head but maybe someday they won't be.

I got to thinking about how I learn and what role books play in that process. People learn calculus in college, for example, in the following manner.

• Attend a lecture and take notes
• Apply what you were told and try to solve homework problems.
• Use your notes and textbook as resources to help solve the problems.
• Ask your instructor, tutoring lab, or friends for help.
• Lather, rinse, repeat as needed.

Your calculus book is part of a unified approach to learning calculus and your chess books should be part of a unified approach to learning chess. Just as reading mathematics books (for most people) is not the optimal way to learn math, reading chess books in isolation is not optimal.

As an example, a new chess book arrived yesterday. John Emms' First Steps: 1 e4 e5. I bought it as a supplement to Andras Toth's Chessable Course The Beginner’s 1. e4 Repertoire. He recommends the Evans Gambit. In my new book there's a chapter on the Evans Gambit and it goes over R. Fischer - R. Fine 1963, which goes like this.

This is the only Bobby Fischer game that I know but I can't help but think this is his opera game. He did the same things Paul Morphy did in that game. His opponent defended a square and the knight went there anyways. The clinching move in both games was a statement that said "Go ahead, take my queen because I'm mating you."

So what's this got to do with books? You need to use them in concert with other resources. I'm sure that someone has a video about this game. I can ask my coach about it. What did I learn? It reinforced the view that you need to develop your pieces and, if you can attack while developing, even better.

Reading a chess book worked, at least for me.