The Best 10 Chess Books of the 20th Century

[Wayne Komer]

The Best 10 Chess Books of the 20th Century

On the Quality Chess Blog site, Jacob Aagaard and John Shaw give their list of the best ten books of the 20th century.

http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/blog/?...#comment-98281

They are in order of quality.

Two rules:

The same writer cannot be repeated

The books should be relevant today

At the bottom, other books seriously considered for the list.


1. Mikhail Tal: The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal
2. Bent Larsen: 50 Selected Games
3. Bobby Fischer: My 60 Memorable Games
4. John Nunn: Secret of Practical Chess
5. Isaak Lipnitsky: Questions of Modern Chess Theory
6. Mark Dvoretsky: Secrets of Chess Training (now School of Chess Excellence 1)
7. Alexander Alekhine: Best Games
8. Mikhail Botvinnik: Best Games
9. Aron Nimzowitsch: My System
10. David Bronstein: Zurich 1953


Other books seriously considered were: Practical Chess Endings (Keres), Secrets of Pawn Endings (Mueller/Lambrecht), The Art of the Middlegame (Keres/Kotov), Simple Chess (Michael Stean), Endgame Strategy (Shereshevsky), Modern Ideas in Chess (Reti), Zurich 1953 (Najdorf), Three Matches (Kasparov), Karpov’s Best Games (written by Razuvaev, but published as if written by Karpov).

_______________

They have put the three books of Alekhine’s games as one; Botvinnik’s 100 Selected Games is not given its proper title. Dvoretsky’s book is OK on the list because it was published in 1991. I am glad to see that Shereshevsky’s book is there – some swear by it but to most it seems unknown!

[John Upper]

Re: The Best 10 Chess Books of the 20th Century

The Best 10 Chess Books of the 20th Century

I thought it was a terrible oversight that they didn't even mention 1001 Sacrifices and Combinations or 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate, both by Reinfeld. So many people learned from these books, and so many later authors ripped off his examples.
I'd prefer not to speculate about why they didn't include them on the list, so I posted on their Comments section and wait for a reply.


Interestingly (and reasonably) their list doesn’t mention any opening books.

That ought to seem strange because there must be far more of them published these days than all other sorts of chess books combined. OTOH, when I ask people what their favourite chess book is, nobody ever names an opening book. :p

[Hans Jung]

Re: The Best 10 Chess Books of the 20th Century

All the books above are awesome, legendary if you will. Its hard to choose amongst all the great books. Almost like choosing the 10 best games. Chess has such a wealth of excellence and resources - its such a big world. The 1001 books were vital for many and many owe their thanks for them but they cant be listed as top 10. Yes they served a vital function but they were narrow in their scope and also contained many errors. The best they can be viewed as is basic chess skills building material.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Re: The Best 10 Chess Books of the 20th Century

7. Alexander Alekhine: Best Games
8. Mikhail Botvinnik: Best Games

At least Alekhine is a two volume book
Botvinnik - hmm. Which ones? Russian 4 volumes? Baturinsky version? etc?

I would remove Lipnitsky (I assume it is only in the list as the Quality book) and put Chernev Logical Chess Move by move. Recently it became a trend to release books in this fashion.

The list without Kasparov's writings Test of time or Two matches looks old fashioned.

The advanced chess player must have (or had) more than 10 books.

[Wayne Komer]

Re: The Best 10 Chess Books of the 20th Century

I recently had a visitor who has a collection well in excess of 10,000 chess books and he said that his first best book was Botvinnik’s 100 Selected Games in Dover.

He said also that he feels that Chernev and Reinfeld are undervalued and he just loves their books.

For myself - the Lipnitsky, don’t dismiss it because it was only available in Russian until the English translation of 2008.

This appreciation of it, with reservations:

http://www.chess.com/article/view/ho...chess-openings

"So how did I start playing (the Ragozin Defense)? It all started with the Soviet classical book "Questions of Modern Chess Theory" by Isaac Lipnitsky. This is one of the most influential books ever written. It is enough to mention that a certain Robert James Fischer (who learned Russian to be able to read Russian chess books and magazines!) quoted this book in his own classic "My 60 Memorable Games", and one of the World's best coaches, Mark Dvoretsky highly praised this book. The book written in 1956 consisted of two parts. In the first part Lipnitsky explained methods and philosophy of modern chess in simple and clear language, using very instructive examples.

The second part of the book was devoted to the Ragozin Defense. Here the author showed how to apply the principles described in the first part of the book to a particular opening. I read the book and got hooked! Even though many lines recommended by Lipnitsky were already obsolete, he managed to share the spirit of the opening. It is almost like when you look at pictures of strangers, trying to not miss any single detail of their faces, sometimes you start thinking that you know them and probably even saw them somewhere.

I had the same feeling after I finished the Book. I felt like the Ragozin Defense was the opening I used to play a long time ago, but somehow forgot about it. Many years later I was happy to learn that in 2008 Quality Chess decided to translate this classic into English and make it available to the huge English-speaking community . But when the book was actually published I was severely disappointed. The second part of the book devoted to the Ragozin defense was simply thrown away! Apparently somebody decided that there was no point to print an opening analysis from 1956. I can only quote Julia Roberts from "Pretty Woman" : "Big mistake! Big! Huge!" Leaving aside the ethical part (after all you don't throw away Mona Lisa from the Louvre because being 500 years old she is... well kinda outdated), I just think it was a huge disservice to the readers.
..........

In conclusion I would like to reiterate my deep belief that the best way to learn openings is to analyze good games played by great chess players. This way not only will you improve your general level of chess, but also learn specific opening ideas. And this is something the publishers of the English translation of the "Questions of Modern Chess Theory" didn't take into account."

Some particular variations can become obsolete or get refuted, but the opening ideas are eternal! GM Bent Larsen said it best in his book of selected games. Describing one of his biggest chess achievements (Amsterdam 1964), he mentioned that most of the participants were preparing for the tournament researching the latest novelties of GM Boleslavsky (who was one of the best theoreticians of that time), meanwhile Larsen himself was studying games of Greco and Philidor!