Depends on how much time you have. An hour a day 3 or 4 games. If you don’t have a life then you can spend all day sitting in your room playing over chess games. I would try to do a little every day or two though.

I wonder if it's true that all people who play chess to get better have no life.

Thanks for all your help. Now that that's settled, and since I don't feel like making a new thread for this question, would you say that the effort in chess comes before the game with your study, or is the effort in chess during the game itself?

These are great books


The best lessons of a chess coach
The Art of Attack
How to reassess your chess
The Idea behind chess opening
Pawn structure chess
Improve your Chess now
Secrets of Practical play
Ending book of Jeremey siliman (I have forgotten the title)

Books I really enjoyed and learned from:

Winning Chess Tactics by Seirawan/Silman

A great basic vocabulary of chess tactics

Winning Chess Strategies by Seirawan/Silman

A very effective introduction to chess strategy. The chapter entitled "Understanding Where The Pieces Go" made a big impression on me.

Winning Chess Brilliancies by Seirawan

Twelve (okay, eleven - I didn't much care for Karpov-Korchnoi 1978) brilliant games that are a joy to play through with great annotations provided by Yasser Seirawan. The lengthy analysis of Ivanchuk's error against Yusupov (25 Nce7?? IIRC) is well-worth playing every note.

Learn From The Grandmasters by various authors - ed. Ray Keene

This book is highly underrated. Dvoretsky's analysis of Yusupov-van der Wiel 1982 is inspiring, as is Hodgson's analysis of Keene-Miles 1973 and Oll-Hodgson 1993; as is Seirawan's analysis of Fischer-Petrosian 1971; as is Day's analysis of Benko-Suttles 1964. This book is loaded with great stuff - oh, and there's also material from Tal, Larsen, Korchnoi, and Speelman among others. Fantastic book.

The Inner Game of Chess by Soltis

Beautiful ideas abound in this one. You will learn something, no doubt.

The Most Instructive Chess Games of all Time by Chernev

Very important material is reviewed in this book and most of the games are fun to play through. Chernev is an engaging author.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Bronstein/Furstenburg

David Bronstein was one of the true individuals in chess, a real maverick. He was full of great ideas on and off the board - I honestly think this book has even more value as a snapshot of the man's personality than his games!

I know I'm forgetting something, but this is a pretty good account of my favorites.