Can I get some opinions on good middle game books for Beginners/Intermediate players to buy.

thanks

The two "classic" ones are: "The Art of the Middle Game" by Keres and Kotov and "Middlegame" by Euwe et al.

Also, How to Reasses Your Chess by Jeremy Silman isn't technically a middlegame book, but the imbalances he lists frequently in that book are useful especially in the middlegame.

Your goal should be to become an all around player with some knowledge of all phases of the game. Most beginners/intermediate players concentrate on fun stuff like tactics and openings. A lot because of hype by authors trying to sell books and that's what’s hot nowadays. Your lower rated opponents will make a lot of tactical mistakes and outright stupid blunders and you’ll have to know how to punish them, but there’s more to chess than that. Tactical awareness will only get you so far.

Jeremy Silman believes that everybody skips over the basics too quickly. The reason is because we all think, “Saw it before. Know it.” For that reason a review of the basics is a good place to start. From this point of view Everyone’s Second Chess Book is a good choice. It provides some good examples from beginner’s games and shows typical mistakes.

Next I think one has to become familiar with what makes one position good and another bad. To that end a book on strategy is essential. Many of these books are too complicated for beginner/intermediate players, but The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Chess covers positional elements in a very basic format.

One also must understand something of tactics. The book I’m familiar with is Reinfeld’s old 1001 Sacrifices and Combinations. I’m sure there are many others that are equally good.

Finally you should have a collection of games by a top player. I would avoid the more modern players and stick with older players who played during a simpler time. For me it was Reshevsky and Botvinnik, but games by Tarrasch, Capablanca, and maybe surprisingly, Frank Marshall. I learned a lot from his My Fifty Years of Chess and it was a great read about players of his day. By playing over these games you’ll learn a lot just by observation and seeing how they applied positional/tactical ideas.

Actually to that end, if you can find one, tournament books containing all the games played are good. Not just tournaments with super GM’s but tournaments with a mixed group. That way you can see how IM’s beat ordinary masters and GM’s beat IM’s. Most books just show you the well-played games not the ones where the losers played like crap. Years ago I was asked to proofread a book on one of the Lone Pine tmts.and I learned a lot from watching guys like Smyslov, Browne and Najdorf crush ordinary masters. I bought some old tmt. books on e-bay and it was informative seeing how Bisguier, Evans and Rossolimo did the same thing.

Finally, just about any book by CJS Purdy will help you understand more about chess. I’ve never seen an author who could break things down and verbalize concepts as well a Purdy.

I personally think The Art of the Middlegame is for intermediate/advanced players. As for Silman’s How To Reassess Your Chess I think it’s along the same lines of Pachman’s classic Modern Chess Strategy only better written. Rated about mid-1600's I learned a great deal from Pachman’s book and advanced quickly after studying it. My first tournament game after reading it found me bringing about a position where my B was superior to my opponent’s N. While trying to figure out how to utilize it I ignored his K-side attack and got mated. That in itself was a lesson I never forgot. Anyway one player told me Silman's book got him from class player to expert (2000+) so it may be more for intermediate/advanced players.

Hi palerider,
Two old books that I think deserve more attention are Max Euwe's The Road to Chess Mastery and Richard Reti's Masters of the Chess Board. Both books look at entire games and so you don't just get middle game theory you get the opening theory that led to the middle game. You also get some on endings but not enough for serious endgame study. These books are dated but I think that they are a pretty good place to start.

Interesting that you say to buy - I'm not sure you'll have much luck buying either of these - they are somewhat rare. You can find them online through ABE among others. I'd start with my local library though - you may be able to get them there (or through and inter-library loan).

Aside from that I'd point out that JacksonWShowalter has, as usual, offered some pretty good advice in his post.

Anything by Bruce Pandolfini is a good start. To get the maximum value of these books, before playing through the example, try to work out the best move yourself for a few minutes, covering the solution.

I would also recommend 'Mastering the Chess Openings' - whilst it is an opening book, it mostly focuses on the middlegames and plans arising from these openings.

i like the Chess Visualization Course. it has helped me develop my basic visualization skills that i can use in all kinds of situations -- tactical or positional middle games, endings, openings, you name it!

I wouldn't count on your library having those two books. My public library and the library at my high school have a combined two non-fiction books on chess! I have to go to Barnes and Noble to look at any decent chess books, and BN is a half-hour drive.

Check Amazon.com if you're looking to buy online. Best selection, best prices, and no delivery problems.

I said start at your library and stressed "may." It is a long shot as these books are pretty rare. I'd be shocked if you found either of these at Barnes and Noble or any other modern bookseller. I did see a print on demand option for the Reti book - I can't speak to that as a means of ordering though. Having said that I have found a couple of rare books I've hunting for at my local library and that saved me shelling out $50 (Euwe on amazon is $45) for a book I might not need/want to keep.

Ya you can go to amazon but the Reti book is twice the ABE(advanced book exchange $17.99 vs 9.40) price and the Euwe book is about 4 times the price($45 vs 11.47). If you don't like ABE you can try bibio or another of the large collections. I've never had a problem with the sellers who post on ABE but you may see things differently.

BP

I found a copy of Euwe's Road to Chess Mastery about six months ago at the bookseller's room at a recent Guelph tournament. This was one of my favourite books when I was in my teens. I got my hands on a copy at the local library and had it out a few times over the years. It is excellent for preparing lessons for the youngsters and I found it great for helping me choose an opening repertoire against d4.

I picked up Reti's Masters of the Chessboard a few days ago from one of Abe's books resellers. I was working on our website at work and looking at the stats and found that a significant number of the browsers were coming from a certain local website. On that website I found a listing for a local bookstore that I had probably driven by hundreds of times. It belongs to the Abes Books network and had an application on the website to search their local stock. I typed in chess and was shocked at the quality of books available. I had never seen anything like it in a non-chess specific bookstore.

They had a lot of titles that were identified in the various threads on chessforums.org as being good but out of print (Reuben Fine's "The Middlegame in Chess" is one example). They also had a number of books that I had recently added to my collection at half the price that I had paid. Fortunately they also had a number of books that I was planning to add to my collection. Most of the used books were in very good condition and looked new. I cleaned them out of most of the titles that I didn't already have. I had been eyeing the Opening According to Kramnik and Anand series by Khalifman and they had most of them. I think that I only need number 10 of the Anand series to complete the set though for some reason I thought that 11 might be out too.

Vladimir Drkulec