@chgreg Bigger isn't always better lol..
Maybe I just know the 3rd edition so well that when I tried reading the 4th I was out of my comfort zone?
I'm sure the 4th is great, it just seemed to me that the 3rd edition was 'tighter', more to the point. But that's just me.
@BobC , thanks for link - I'll read it soon.
@CafeMorphy , I didn't write that bigger is always better. However thanks for your remarks.
I guess Silman's Complete Endgame Course is also worth reading ?
@chgreg Yes Silman's Endgame book is excellent! Reassess Your Chess is about strategy in the middle game... you combine that with his Endgame book and you've got everything you need.
Study of specific opening lines can come after. The old Soviet school of chess would teach endgames first (and NO blitz until the student reached 2000!)
"The old Soviet school of chess would teach endgames first"
"In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before everything else. For whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middle game and opening must be studied in relation to the end game."
-- Jose Raul Capablanca
@ #44
"..old Soviet school...endgames first"
Not really. From the table of contents of "The Soviet Chess Primer" by Ilya Maizelis:
1. The Game Explained
2. Aim Of The Game
3. Tactics And Strategy
4. Techniques Of Calculation
5. Combination
6. Positional Play
7. How To Begin A Game
8. The Endgame
9. The Middlegame
10.The Foundations Of Opening Theory
See
http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/2/231/the_soviet_chess_primer_by_ilya_maizelis/Currently on page 386 of Silman's Complete Endgame Manual.
Further recommended reading: "The Long Goodbye" by Raymond Chandler:
"She hung up and I set out the chessboard. I filled a pipe, paraded the chessmen and inspected them for French shaves and loose buttons, and played a championship tournament game between Gortchakoff and Meninkin, seventy-two moves to a draw, a prize specimen of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object, a battle without armor, a war without blood, and as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an advertising agency."
The how is more important than that!
You should practice foresight rather than hindsight, what makes the player great is his ability to anticipate the events on the chess board.
@PetarBosnjak Yes, Johnathan Rowson's Chess For Zebras is exactly about this.
Like I said in another thread, don't just read a chess book (knowledge in hindsight) but cover up the moves and figure out the next move, calculating as if you were playing yourself (the skill of foresight).