The Ten Greatest Chess Books Ever Written

by AJ Goldsby
www.geocities.com.lifemasteraj

1) THE ART OF CHESS ANALYSIS by GM Jan Timman
In my opinion, this is the greatest chess book ever written. Not only was it the best analysis I had ever seen, the variations were beautiful.

2) MY SYSTEM by Aaron Nimzovich
This is the book that makes average players into Masters, and turns Masters into GM's. Not only did this book explain many of the "new" ideas of the hyper moderns, it also teach the basics of strategy and planning. This book was a landmark in the chess world and easily one of the most important books from the standpoint of chess history.


3) THINK LIKE A GRANDMASTER by Alexander Kotov
Not only a great book, but a masterpiece of training methods.

4) THE CHESS STRUGGLE IN PRACTICE by GM David Bronstein
As one of the competitors, GM Bronstein offers a unique and valuable insight into the ideas and the psychology of what must have been going through the players minds' at the time of the game. He does not drown the player with a sea of variations, but instead offers much verbiage and explanation.

5) MY 60 MEMORABLE GAMES by Robert Fischer
Anyone who spends some serious time in this book MUST improve.

6) THE WORLD'S GREATEST CHESS GAMES by GM John Nunn, GM John Emms, and FM Graham Burgess.
This book is one of the best instructional and analytical books I have seen in my entire chess career.

7) THE MOST INSTRUCTIVE GAMES OF CHESS EVER PLAYED [62 Masterpieces of Chess Strategy]; by Irving Chernev.
It contains 62 true masterpieces of chess by various different players. (Masters such as Fischer, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tal, etc.) Each game is carefully and lovingly annotated.

8) THE LIFE AND GAMES OF MIKHAIL TAL by GM M. Tal. This is one of the greatest works of love of all time that are in print.

9) MASTERS OF THE CHESS BOARD by GM Richard Reti. Here the dynamic young genius of the hyper-modern revolution goes through all the masters that had played chess up to that point. Reti rates "The Older Masters," in Part I. (Anderssen, Morphy, Steinitz, Tarrasch, Lasker, Schlecter, and H.N. Pillsbury. Apparently Reti felt this group of players had covered all the basics of chess and showed several distinctive styles.) In Part Two, Reti rates many of the more modern masters of that time. (Such as Maroczy, Marshall, Rubinstein, Capablanca, Alekhine, etc.)

10) 500 MASTER GAMES OF CHESS by GM Savielly Tartakower and J. Du Mont.
Easily a truly great book and a monumental work. Every single opening is represented.