How to read Jacob’s books

I get a few emails/facebook messages every week, asking questions, coming with suggestions and so on. In general, I prefer to receive them on the blog, so my answers can be seen by anyone who is interested, so they can work out for themselves which direction is right for them.

A few days ago I got the following email, which is quite typical, as is my answer, even though I went into extra detail this time around. With permission I post it here for anyone who are interested…

Dear sir,

My name is xxx xxx, aged 1x years and my elo is 21xx. I have bought a couple of books this month authored by you.Β I want to know which book should I start reading first. The books are:

Excelling at technical chess

Excelling at chess

Excelling at chess calculation

Attacking manuals 1 and 2

Inside the chess mind

Grandmaster versus amateur

Practical chess defense

Grandmaster preparation series-

PositionalΒ play

Strategic play

Calculation

Regards,

xxx xxx

xxx, India.

My answer:

Dear xxx

First off, Inside the Chess Mind and Grandmaster vs. Amateur can be read for fun and totally out of sequence. The same goes to some extent for Excelling at Chess, which is mainly meant to inspire.

Excelling at Chess Calculation is the place I would start. Read it carefully. The exercises are not that great; I could skip them.

Then move on to Calculation. The chapters are created with more and more difficult exercises. Once you get stuck; go to the next chapter. The attitude in solving is important.Β Do it like it is important!

Once you are well into Calculation, you can start working on Positional Play as well. Work on them side by side. It does not matter which one you do most of, but do some of each. Calculation is later replaced by Practical Chess Defence and Positional Play by Strategic Play. Of all of these books, Calculation and Positional Play are the most important to really understand well.

You can read Attacking Manual 1 and 2 when your solving is getting steady. (If you do an hour a day, you will see rapid progress. Everyone who works with these books seriously have made big progress; including in India). Attacking Manual 1 works well together with Attack and Defence. Read AM1 and get A&D; but first go through the other books. You can always read Attacking Manual 1 more than once. Actually, I strongly recommend it.

Excelling at Technical Chess can be read later; it works well Endgame Play, which is also not on your list.

And please read Thinking Inside the Box when it comes out. It will tie all of the books together.

If you go through all of these books in the way I describe, you will have more effective training than most young chess players in the World. It is by no means easy and it requires a lot of effort. But I think the examples are aesthetically pleasing and the process SHOULD be fun and interesting. If it is not, please think about how you can make it more fun. To work with a friend is often a good way. Most progress for most people come when they are working in a group in one way or another.

I do plan on coming on a book tour of Asia in the spring, hopefully around mid-April. The main stop will obviously be India, where I have many friends and where a lot of people have expressed appreciation for my work. I hope to meet you at one of the lectures/training seminars I will be running giving then.

I also strongly recommend reading my two books written together with Boris Gelfand and published under his name. An Indian GM and friend of mine called the first one: β€œsomething truly special…” It is for others to decide if he is right. I definitely think it is worth reading… Also, if you go to our blog, you will find some videos I made together with Boris at the end of July this year. One of them shows how we created the books, the two others are Q&A.

I hope this was helpful.

Jacob

I should add to this that the Quality Chess Puzzle Book easily fits into the Grandmaster Preparation series. The exercises were collected and analysed by me and the book finished by John, so that the tone is his, but the structure and ideas are mine and the direction something John and I have always worked together on. Those wondering where the difference is between John and me (none I presume), should know that there is no real difference. We work together and our stuff is always a collaboration.

 

80 thoughts on “How to read Jacob’s books”

  1. Thanks for your great description, Jacob! I’m really looking forward to re-reading your books when I have finished the Yusupov-series which is super good too. Keep up with the good work πŸ™‚

  2. Jacob,

    Thanks for sharing that informative email with everyone here. I have asked for the Yusupov series for my birthday, so hope to have that soon. I intend to study it in its entirety, even if some material in the earlier books might be a bit below my level (~2100). Where would you slot the Yusupov books into the above training plan?

    Cheers,

    Will

  3. Could someone recall me where is the discussion about time studing opening compared to the total time according to the ELO?
    Thank’s

  4. Speaking for myself, Yusopov has complemented my studies with Aagaards books. I can tell that my thought process is changing and chess is getting simpler. I finally made it too book 7! Also the revision and exam is awesome. I like how hard those puzzles are. I hope to see more from Yusopov in the future.

  5. @Will
    On top! I actually recommend a lot of people to have the books lying on the toilet, if they are “easy” for them. You can read the articles in 1-2 sittings and solve the exercises in one.

  6. @FredPhil
    I cannot. But essentially I made it to GM without having great preparation. I did find that it helped a lot, when I surpassed 2350, but today I think it is enough to read a few good books and memorise the content. I have to be honest and say that openings were never my strong suit, but my general philosophy is that you have to be able to play well before you can explore good positions.

  7. Hi
    With all this fantastic material I so wish you would move into online/software training programs. The idea of course to have a responsive software feeding the user exactly the kind of material and exercises he/she would benefit mostly from. If you include the Yusupov material you would cover the marked from 1300 players to super GMs ;-). Monthly evaluations, mixed theory / exercises, monthly progress chart and evaluation of weaknesses/strength etc. With your brand (and the quality of material you would bring to the marked) everybody would sign up regardless of price. Im talking early retirement for you and the Team – you could quit work and start doing what you enjoy like writing chess books and stuff like that.

    regards,
    Larsen_fan

  8. I gather that the order you propose is:

    0. Yusupov books.
    1. Calculation + QC Puzzle book.
    1.5 Positional play (you start when you have point 1 well under way, and finish it all together.
    2. Practical chess defense + Strategic play.
    3. AM1 + A&D + AM2
    4. Excelling at technical play + Endgame play
    5. Gelfand books.
    6. Thinking inside the box.

  9. I thought Practical Chess Defense was significantly harder than the other ones, so I do not own it (yet!). The order I am following is:

    1. Positional play (already done twice, thinking on going over it for the third time).
    2. AM1 + Gelfand 1 (already done).
    3. QC Puzzle book (already done).
    4. Calculation + A&D (both under way).
    5. Strategic play.
    6. Endgame play. (I’ve done like 20% of it, but in the subway, so plan to go over it more seriously starting from the beginning).
    7. Thinking inside the box.

    And in between, I will mix material from other publishers too πŸ˜› But there are not that many puzzle books out there, specially if you do not count tactical puzzle books.

  10. Le Bruit Qui Qourt

    Jacob Aagaard :
    @FredPhil
    I cannot. But essentially I made it to GM without having great preparation. I did find that it helped a lot, when I surpassed 2350, but today I think it is enough to read a few good books and memorise the content. I have to be honest and say that openings were never my strong suit, but my general philosophy is that you have to be able to play well before you can explore good positions.

    I hope that all these worthy advices will be covered in GM Prep – Out of the box.

    Actually, I’m, really really fed up with general advices. Get to the point! How to improve!

  11. Jacob, you have a divine talent for writing, is indescribable the way which I admire your work, already said via email on one occasion, but I say again, my sincere congratulations!

  12. Mr. Aagaard,

    You have 2nd edition for Attacking Manual 1 ( 6 years ago ). I just wonder whether you have plans to have 2nd or 3rd editions for your other GM Prep books.

    1. The quick answer is no. The long answer is that whenever a book is reprinted, we always look to see if we know of any corrections that needs to be inserted. But a reworking of the books is not needed and will not happen.

  13. @Jacob Aagaard
    Jacob, the Yusupov books are really good. Where in the Yusupov series would you insert Chess tactics from scratch, Mating the castled king and Chess structures. Thanks for publishing such good and quality books!

    1. Thank you. The first two as parallel – they can be read whenever you feel like it. The latter I would put after, but again, reading it earlier would not damage you. On the contrary!

  14. Hi @jacob Aagard – as a weak (but improving!) player I found this thread fascinating. One of the key challenges we face as chess book buyers is knowing how new releases fit into the bigger picture of the resources available, and which ones will benefit us most at our stage of development.

    Have you though about expressing this visually, in a sort of book/learning roadmap, where you plot your library and future releases against both strength and learning theme? This would make your range both more accessible, and also help us to plot our development through your library. Just a thought!

    Keep up the great work πŸ™‚

    Matt

  15. @Matt
    Hi Matt,

    There are various reasons why I do not want to do this. Mainly, because I think that there are so many ways to do things that I do not want to give people the impression that “their way” is wrong. We do regularly make recommendations here on the blog and elsewhere, but we always stress that it is a recommendation. As it is very hard to get people to understand that a “provisional” publishing schedule is not final, we tend to think that qualifiers don’t work and thus do not want to limit the possible ways of doing things by suggesting what we think is useful in too formal a way.

  16. Hello, @Jacob Aagaard

    I know in the past, you did recommended GM Prep from Quality over your Excelling series from Everyman. To me, the GM Prep series are workbooks for Excelling series. The following are the orders I summarize from your comments (note: (2), (3), (4), (5) could start in parallel; (2) probably starts a little earlier than others)

    (1). Excelling at Chess
    (2). Excelling at Chess Calculation -> Calculation -> Practical Chess Defense
    (3). Excelling at Positional Chess -> Positional Play -> Strategic Play
    (4). Excelling at Technical Chess -> Endgame Play
    (5). Attacking Manuals 1 -> Attack and Defense -> Attacking Manuals 2
    (6). Thinking inside the Box

    I just wondering whether “Excelling at Combinational Play” fit into this – this is more like calculation, but focusing on Sicilian Defense tactics. Should this be part of ‘Calculation’ work?

  17. @Stephen Jiang
    You are trying to make too many connections. Only Exc. Calculation and Exc. Technical works this way from that series. Excelling at Positional Chess is a workbook itself, not a manual. But yes, Attacking Manual 1 and Attack and Defence definitely work together as a pair.
    I would also not put PCD in any sequence. But it is still a good book, of course.

  18. I’m banging my head with Attack & Defense… it is hard! Or I’m not such a good attacker… but you read AM1 and Gormally’s book and think it is really easy, but then the A&D book kicks you in the ass.

  19. Hello, @Jacob Aagaard

    One more question, do you have any plan to publish DVD or CD version of GP series? I remember you talked about typing in Averbakh’s endgame yourself during your own training. A lot of people here would save a lot of time if you have pgn or cbv version of your books (By the way, Everyman is saleing your 5 Excelling books in pgn/cbv format).

  20. Hello, @Jacob Aagaard

    I read your review in chesscafe on Mark Dvoretsky’s book. That was long time ago. Now Mr. Dvoretsky is RIP and we will miss any new books from him. I just wonder whether you have plan to update your review on his work (and maybe talk about how to use his work to combine with your work books, as you mentioned in multiple places, your work had a lot of influence from him).

  21. @Will
    Yes, you probably cannot do this nowadays. But the work done this way is not wasted as you will learn on the way and if it is really too much you could split the work amongst you and a friend for instance.

    I don’t see the need btw to digitalize the whole work book – in fact I prefer books and board for this type of training rather than screen. But I’m trying to do it with opening books – and often never finish πŸ˜‰ But it’s much easier to type into pgn from a book than it is from a stream.

  22. hello @jacob Aagard – while you’re looking at new book son Forward Chess, any chance of Yusupov’s series getting on there? That would be awesome…

    Matt

  23. @PaulH
    Yes, they can be used quite freely. I would add the newest (Prophylaxis) after or before Strategic Play. I would have Endgame Manual together with Endgame Play. The 9 old books I would read continuously, but if you have the English editions, I would check the solutions with an engine. Mark had 100s of corrections, but Olms were not that interested in putting them in. And (controversially), I would advice against using the Analytical Manual. I know of 2700+ players that found it unreadable. Just too difficult. Tragicomedy you can include whenever.

    It is all rather loose anyway. The main thing is to work on your game, and you will improve. I have yet to see it not working, although it is certainly no shortcut.

  24. The last book of Dvoretsky published in english is “Maneuvering: The Art of Piece Play”, and my guess that you are refering at “Recognizing Your Opponent’s Resources: Developing Preventive Thinking”, which is the previous book.

    In my opinion, the book on preventive thinking is quite difficult. I have not given “Strategic play” a shot yet, but comparing to ‘Calculation’ and ‘Attack and Defense’, I think it is more difficult (so it would make sense to study it afterwards, as you do).

    The book about piece play I’m reading together with ‘Attack and Defense’, for no special reason really. I have solved only 10 exercises of the ‘warming up’ chapter, so no definitive opinion yet, but up until now, I’m doing quite ok.

  25. Maybe I’m not a good preventive thinker… The easy part of the Dvoretsky book is that you need to find a line to refute and a line that you cannot refute. If you stumble unto the line you cannot refute first, it can drive you crazy, as you expect to refute it and then find something better… But I guess that knowing there are those things to find can make it easier.

    Around exercise 115 from chapter 1 I failed _a lot_, hence I felt it was time to move on, as there are 180 exercises in that chapter and things were bound to go worse from that point on.

    In calculation the last exercises of a chapter are hard (really hard), but I think I’m a little under the 50% mark overall, same thing happens in A&D. Maybe the differential factor is that you divide your work into a lot more chapters than Dvoretsky, hence the steep wall you find at the end of the chapter is not that frustrating in your case.

    For reference, I’m a little above 2200 (and that little bit has to be thanks to your books).

  26. I think it was in Jesper Hall’s “Budding Chess Champions” where he wrote a chapter Haven’t I Seen This Before. What I took from that was with all the theory that abounds, millions and millions of pages of GM analysis, millions of millions of PGN files in databases, most amateur players, like myself, still get lost in finding the most relevant aspect of the position. Sit around any game and the kibitzers will tell you you should have done this, you could have done that. The better players will comment on the structure, the tacticians will say you missed a good sacrifice, and the positional pundits will say you went bad many moves ago when you played h3/h6. But as Aagaard has mentioned in his GM series, paraphrasing, “before you can look you need to see.” And that’s where I hit the wall. I have mountains of ideas floating around in my head but which ones should come to the fore, and when? The art of evaluating a position and knowing what matters most, Soltis, is what separates the better players. While I am looking for a beautiful bishop and knight mating pattern, my opponent is just happy to push a passed pawn. The QC series of books are excellent. I own many. But I need something to help me with cutting the wheat from the chaff and not getting lost along the way. Thanks.

  27. @ Martin Dixon : Inside the chess mind which is JA book ( but not a QC one ) deals with this topic with different test positions submitted to average players and titled players . Could interest you .

  28. Hi Jacob,

    Where would Psakhis book ‘advanced chess tactics’ come into your list ?
    Before, after or together with your ‘attack & defence’ book ?

  29. @Jacob
    You mentioned in september that putting GP Series on forward chess is a serious option. My question is, when approximately can we expect this to happen?

  30. @Tim
    Going from being an option to giving a date is a long step. If so, it would be after Box is done so the whole series can be bought at a discount.

  31. I’m almost halfway through Smirin’s new book KIW. This could also be added to “How to read Jacob’s books”. Even though the book is only related to one opening, it is stuffed with tactics and it also contains quite a few exercises before each chapter starts. It is truly a fantastic book because you really feel Smirin’s dedication to chess and especially the KID.

  32. @pabstars
    Smirin’s energy and enthusiasm is amazing. I helped a bit with structuring the book. Ilya is a fantastic player and interesting personality, but of course he is not a natural writer, so a bit of assistance has hopefully made the book more accessible. Actually, I really love the book. We will see what else we put out before the summer, but to me, it is our first possible candidate for a book of the year nomination…

  33. Jacob, I have voted for it as the best opening book 2016 on chesspub.com, even though you can argue that it is at least as much a book on the middle game. It is true treasure!

  34. @Jacob Aagaard
    I agree, this is a superb book, and really a must for each KID player! He kept the option open for a second volume, so who knows… And indeed you can use this book also for training, because of the exercises at the start of each chapter.

  35. Hi Jacob, a question:

    I am a 1700-1800 player so maybe the GMP series is a bit avanced for me, but I am working with Calculation and Positional Play, which has been very useful and rewarding, But I still feel my calculation is quite disordered, unstructured, and randomized, (like A. Kotov describes in his Think Like a GM) specially in caothic positions.
    What advice would you give me in order to fix that?
    Thank you

  36. Dear Jacob,

    After finishing 300 exercise from Martin’s Chess Tactics from Scratch, which tactics exercise book should be next, Quality Chess Puzzle Book, Grandmaster Preparation: Calculation, or something else … ?

    Thanks,
    Leaf

  37. Hi Jacob,

    I have been hearing all the praise online around all of your chess books and I’m really excited to start my collection with your books.
    I currently have a rating of around 1500 on Chess.com and some people mentioned it is a requirement to be around 1800+ to understand your teachings from your books.
    Is this true or can I find one book of yours to really devote my time and dedication to and eventually grasp the knowledge they entail?
    I’ve seen some previews of some of your books like Positional Play and I really enjoy your writing style.

    I’ve noticed on Perpetualchesspodcast, almost every IM/GM guest they have on praise the work you have done for the Chess community. Thank you for your hard work and for helping all the Chess players to improve and to get more out of their chess enjoyment.

    I hope you will see this message.

    Thanks and regards,
    Des.

  38. @Des
    Hi Des,

    Yeah, they are probably a bit too difficult at this point. Thinking Inside the Box is meant to be more accessible, but honestly, it is still a difficult book.

    I do plan on writing some more accessible books over time, but at the moment I am still doing high level books.

    The ideal books for you are the Artur Yusupov series. On our front page, in the left column, you can find a link to a special page about these books.

    Thanks, Jacob

  39. Hi Jacob,
    I am a 1400 player, and I want to improve my Tactics and Endgame skills. What books would you recommend for this? I think the GM Prep series is supposed to be a bit advanced (2000 level). What books would you recommend for my level?

  40. First off, all the Quality Chess books are amazing and I especially appreciate Jacob’s books!
    @Jacob Aagaard, I have two questions for you.
    1. Given that Thinking Inside the Box was released a bit after this thread was started, I assume you would recommend players read it first, i.e. before this:

    “Excelling at Chess Calculation is the place I would start.”

    2. I understand your three questions were distilled down from the original list of nine questions. I would be very grateful if you would share the list of nine questions you (originally) started with.

    Thank you again for founding Quality Chess along w/ John!!

    Warm regards,
    Mike

  41. Hi Jacob,

    Since we’re discussing working through your books, I have several questions.

    In Excelling at Chess, chapter 8, the following advice is given for studying openings (will paraphrase it for brevity, but do let me know if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick here):
    Consider games > 2350 (be aware some games between masters don’t have ratings)
    [Question: how would one include those games without ending up with all really unrated ones too]
    Search for endgames only [Quesition: how without going through each manually or making a guess on the number of moves?] and study them
    Then go back to the middle game (100-150 games) [Question: choose these how?]
    Then look at the theory [Question: How to filter that theory depending on one’s level and time available]

    Let’s take the Alekhine to play against as White which is for most club players a 1 in 25 games or so. A database filter gives almost 19,000 games for one player over 2350. Selecting a smaller set, such as e4 Nf6 e5 Nd5 d4 d6 Nf3 which is still several thousand games. Even if both players are above 2350 (which loses some games vs unrated masters and no doubt some good demonstrations how strong players beat weaker ones), it’s still in the thousands.

    Question: How was this advice intended to work practically given that it’s impractical for any non-professional to sift thousands of games [worse too if on the board taking one’s time as per the advice]. If this was a more popular opening the numbers…

  42. Hi Jacob !
    “Thinking inside the box” is the last one to be published, but do we read it first as an introduction to the other books, or at the end to evaluate our knowledge ?
    Thank for the answer.
    Warm regards
    Django

  43. Igor faynshteyn

    Hello, I am an adult chess player (37) who in the last few years came back to playing chess after many years of layoff (I learned at around 7; was never committed to it; then played on and off throughout my teen years and 20s for short periods). I play only on chess.com today, and my blitz rating is in the 1500s, and puzzle solving rating usually in the 2300s.
    I have some couple of dozen chess books, including some of the best out there for my level – Silman, Nunn, Seirawan, Watson’s opening books, FCO, and some classic games collections, like by Fischer, Tal, Larsen, etc. I certainly haven’t gone through all these books, in fact many I haven’t even opened yet.
    What I am looking for is books/training material that has potential to systemically improve my game, through a sustained and systematic study, assuming I commit about 3-5 hours a week after work. I of course have many problem areas, but I would say I got substantially better at calculation as a result of doing thousands of puzzles on chess.com over the last 3 years, but I am considerably weaker in understanding positional play and strategy.
    I read many good things about the Yusupov series, but the entire 9 books course may be a bit pricey for me. Given my level, would you recommend I start at the Fundamentals (orange) books, or Beyond the Basics (blue)? Of course, I’d welcome recommendation of any other books, or training manuals.
    I would assume Dvoretsky and your books (JA) would be too difficult for my…

  44. @Igor faynshteyn

    Your message was cut off due to the character limit, but I got the gist of it. Yusupov’s books would seem perfect for the kind of systematic study you have in mind. Considering what you’ve said about your positional/strategic play, I imagine you’ll find the Fundamentals series to be ideal.

  45. Igor Faynshteyn

    @Andrew Greet thanks for your reply. I am assuming you recommend I start with orange books, rather than assuming I am too strong for them and going for blue? Also, are the orange books (like other colors) in ascending order of difficulty (i.e. build up, then boost, then evolution), or are they the same difficulty level but just different material coverage?

  46. Fundamentals = orange. All three orange books are the same approximate difficulty level.

    I can’t think of any special reason to work through the orange books in one order or another. Most people start with ‘build up’ as it was the first one published, but if you’re the type of rebellious miscreant who prefers to mix things up and start with one of the others, you’ll also do fine.

    And yes, definitely start with the orange series. Based on your own comments about your positional play, I think you’ll find this series to be of great value in elevating that side of your game. I guess you’ll rate higher on tactics – but even if those sections are somewhat easier for you, there’s no harm in reinforcing core tactical themes.

  47. Yusupov had organized remote training and divided his group in under 1500 (orange series by QC), 1800 (blue) and 2100 (green). That’s where this book series come from. Even with round about 1800 FIDE and in the 1700s on chess.com blitz i find some very challenging problems in the orange material and some chapters where i have big problems to reach the pass marks in the tests. I also think that the material from orange book one to orange book two is getting a bit more complicated and sometimes he refers to former chapters. Therefore i would suggest to use the order for anyone at my level or below. Much stronger players maybe know all that stuff and for review that order isn’t so important.

    btw: Chess.com puzzles rating are inflated, the top 50 all have 5000 Elo or more. My rating is also 2200+. I don’t guess i’m a good tactican.

  48. Yusupov’s rating guidelines are incredibly conservative. Even as a 2400+ IM, I’ve gone through some of the orange and blue books and occasionally been tripped up by certain exercises and encountered theoretical endgame positions which I didn’t know about.

  49. Igor Faynshteyn

    I agree with you Karl that chess.com puzzles are definitely inflated. My puzzles rating currently there is almost 2400, and occasionally I am able to solve puzzles rated at 2600+. I think they are some 500 pts inflated, in fact. Because when I do “lessons” there that are rated by the masters who designed them, like Silman, I am almost never able to fully solve 2100 puzzles.
    Based on all the responses, I am persuaded: I’ll get the first 1-2 orange books and see how it goes.
    A related books question: has anyone read Zenon Franco’s move by move books, from Everyman? Thanks again!

  50. @Igor Faynshteyn
    Is there something about Franco that you are looking to know specifically? Or the Move By Move books in general.

    I do not own any of Franco’s Move-by-Move books. I can speak for others in the series:

    Ruy Lopez – Neil McDonald – Decent if you are new to the Ruy – Too shallow for experienced Ruy players

    Sicilian Taimanov – John Emms – Excellent

    Caro-Kann – Cyrus Lakdawala – His BEST book!

    1…d6 – Lakdawala – Eh, ok at best

    Slav – Lakdawala – Some faulty analysis in the Central Variation

    Colle – Lakdawala – Decent

    Torre – Richard Palliser – Above average but not the best in the series

    Modern Defense – Lakdawala – One of his better ones, but Caro-Kann beats it.

    Stein – Engqvist – A must have!

  51. Oh, and the one on the Old Indian by Junior Tay was also good. His ideas with the Dark-Squared Bishop is interesting.

  52. It might not be that chique to promote every other publisher on this forum. And those books mentioned might be interesting(I can’t judge), but from what I have seen, in my honest opinion, it is not quality-chess material. Congrats to my youth-idol Jop on his upcoming collaboration with Jacob. Eagerly awaiting the material to compare it to steps.

  53. @Frank

    2 things Frank:

    1) Chique? What???? I even looked it up and it’s not in any English Dictionary. What are you talking about?

    2) Books by other publishers have been mentioned on this forum before, even by the publishers themselves. It’s not like we are advertising other sites, like “Hey everyone, such-and-such a publisher has this major sale for today only!” That would be a whole different story, and that should not be done here.

    Actually, I think Jacob once compared a New In Chess book to another book previously written and questioned the copyright legality! I don’t recall the name of the book. I seem to recall it being maybe a year or two ago, and it had a black cover.

  54. 1. Chess tactics from scratch ( + Learn chess the right way (5 vol) )
    2. Mating the castled king and Positional Chess Sacrifices( + Art of attack)
    3. Yusupov books ( + 100 endgames you must know)

    4. Chess structures ( + Pawn Structure Chess)

    5. Inside the Chess Mind
    6. Grandmaster vs. Amateur
    7. Excelling at Chess

    (5,6 and 7 for fun and to get inspired)

    8. Excelling at Chess Calculation
    9. Calculation + QC Puzzle book
    10. Positional play (you start when you have point 9 well under way, and finish it all together.
    11. Practical chess defense + Strategic play.
    12. AM1 + A&D + AM2
    13. Excelling at technical Chess + Endgame play ( + Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual)
    14. Gelfand books.
    15. Thinking inside the box.(14 and 15 parallel)

    What would you suggest for an 11 year old with 1300 FIDE rating is this a good curriculum.
    Thank you for all the good books by Quality Chess.

    Regards – Parth.

  55. Hi Jacob,
    can u suggest a book similar/good to your gradmaster series calculation.I have read it couple of times.
    thank you.

  56. I recently started reading “Excelling at Chess Calculation”. JA’s annotations are quite revealing and honest and I’m learning things from them that I haven’t come across elsewhere. When he annotates his own games he provides a lot of insight into how he thinks. I own numerous GM best games collections that don’t provide such insights.

    I thought all the analysis was computer checked, based on the many references to computer analysis, but apparently not so. I prefer that the author leave some room for error, otherwise the reader has little motivation to critically examine the annotations, since it’s hard for a human to refute a computer’s analysis. I decided to look at one of his games on my old Fritz12 program and I discovered the following.

    In the game Nataf vs Aagaard pg.44 after 24.Rc1? the comment is “…24.Qd3 was necessary in order to bring the Rook quickly to d1, and after 24…Nc5 25.Qd2 Black is clearly better, but nothing immediately conclusive strikes the eye.” Perhaps it should have read “..strikes the human eye” because Fritz claims that 25…Nxb3! then wins for Black.

    All in all, Excelling at Chess Calculation is proving to be a most interesting read.

    1. Thanks for the kind words. I am working on new books on Calculation that will be out in a year or two. Hopefully they will be better than this early work; but still have the magic you like.

      Did you remember to check it with 2003 engines and hardware?

      Anyway, these books were published by Everyman and has not much with Quality Chess to do, besides name recognition πŸ™‚

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