Be candid about your chess books.

@Noflaps said in #1:
> Have you ever read an entire chess book and played through all its games? Really?

Nope. Reading a whole chess book seems impossible.

@Noflaps said in #1:

> By "finished" I carefully mean: read every single word AND actually played through, thoughtfully, every included game. Every. Game.

> If you have actually "finished" a chess book (in the sense defined above), which was it (or which were they)? Which chess books could you (based upon actual, honest personal experience) recommend to "finish" ?

One book that I've finished, playing through every move with a wooden board, was "How to win in the chess openings" by Horowitz. It was the best thing I ever did. The book is really dated now, but my rating from starting the book to finishing it went up by 200 points in the longer time controls.

I feel that any book you actually can play through all the moves, will dramatically increase your game, not because the book is good, which it may or may not be, but because you are actively applying the time and thinking critically about chess.

Though my top rating is only 2000 elo in correspondence, and 1800 in rapid, so I'm no expert.

However, now that I have 5 kids, it is really hard to find the time to do it anymore.

Just my 2 cents.

@alaskalinuxuser I've got that book by Horowitz, and I think I have read it (parts of it over and over) I've had it so long. He's got this funny nomenclature he uses. When he's ready to show you a game he calls it a chess movie. It never caught on, so it's pretty unique. It's not long, makes me feel like looking at it again.

@MrPushwood has "read" (in my sense) many books. And he has "NM" before his title,which I assume means "national master."

Perhaps that's not a coincidence. Although it also presents a bit of a chicken-or-an-egg problem. Do people become unusually skilled by reading .... or is it that unusually skilled people manage to completely read.

I'm going to gamble upon the former interpretation (secretly fearing, all the while, that the latter interpretation is likely more accurate), and I'm going to become determined. I WILL finish a damned chess book, starting today. This minute. Or, rather, starting about three minutes from now,

I will be the "little engine that could" even though I'm actually somewhat large. I think I can! I think I can! I think I can! etc.

Despite the many good suggestions furnished above, I'm going to stick with the combined "My System & Chess Praxis: His Landmark Classics In One Edition" book which I own electronically (which apparently uses Robert Sherwood's valued translation from the German). Why? Because I've tried this one so many times that it feels like its sticking its tongue out at me at this point: plus, I can't help agreeing with the marketing blurb that if I don't read it my "chess education cannot be complete."

When I read through Nimzowitsch I will try to be mindful of, and to revisit, what I've read ABOUT advances since Nimzowitsh discussed in Watson's famous "Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy." Indeed, I'll probably end up trying to "read" that, too. Which means I've got a lot of work to do. Probably more than a year's worth (although I've already read parts of both books, sometimes repeatedly, in the past).

Can I exercise the discipline to actually do this? Well, I won't live forever so I guess it's now or never. Perhaps at some point I'll make another post in this string, and then edit it from time to time to declare progress, as a way to hold myself accountable.

I wonder if this string of posts will inspire anybody else to resolve to actually "read" (in the comprehensive sense) their first chess book. If so, I hope they, too, make note of their newfound resolve. Misery loves company, after all.

@LDog11 said in #23:
> @alaskalinuxuser I've got that book by Horowitz, and I think I have read it (parts of it over and over) I've had it so long. He's got this funny nomenclature he uses. When he's ready to show you a game he calls it a chess movie. It never caught on, so it's pretty unique. It's not long, makes me feel like looking at it again.

Yes, he uses Descriptive Chess Notation, which was retired from chess use a long time ago. (50 years ago?) I also have a Rubenstein book with that notation that I used for opening lines, even though not born in those years, I know that chess notation well from these old books, and struggle with the modern chess notation! :)

I kind of liked the "scenes" or acts, like from a play. The stage is set, then... action!

Modern Ideas in the Chess Openings was a sequel by Horowitz.
www.amazon.com/Modern-ideas-chess-openings-Horowitz/dp/B0007DSPBQ

Completely I only played through an endgame book of Yuri Averbakh (a rather thin book with less than 100 pages).

I did it in the late 1980s before the internet when there was a lot more time to kill, including at my third-shift concierge job.

Lately the only two books I do this with are Kasparyan's Dominataion in 2,545 Endgame studies (which I digitized), and the 3,001 ECM middlegame problems (which I bought as a PGN). Very useful. Otherwise, I turn my training material into books and upload them to a zip on Google Docs if anyone would rather play like me than like themselves :-)

@verylate said in #12:
> @SixtySecondsOfHell: good for you. I wish I could accomplish as much. But "if wishes were horses...", as my mother used to say.
>
> One book that I have been playing with ("working on" is just flat out the wrong phrase) is John Watson's Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy. Yeah, I know. any book with the word "secrets" in the title needs a new title. I digress. It is arguably my favourite bathroom book, and has been since I bought it, nearly a quarter century ago. Yes, I would no doubt gain much more from the book if I were to actually sit down with it for an hour or more each day and go through it carefully. but it is just so easy to use it as a bed-time book or bathroom book! I love to sit flip through the book, find a page I have bookmarked for further consideration, and work on one of the many examples he uses. Even though I'm just going through it in my head, just any one example gives me quite a lot to think about. (My family complains vociferously about the time I spend in there. Especially my teenage daughter)

my chessbooks fill up 2 full shelves and part of a third on a bookcase, and not I have not read through one yet and played through all the games. Maybe today's the day, though! or tomorrow maybe, depending.

now, I've browsed through all my books, looking at unusual positions, sometimes playing over games. except for the endgame books, i'm saving those. a lot of books are good bedtime books, but these days, instead of reading for 30 minutes, i conk out almost immediately.