Chess Books Still A Great Study Resource

 I admit it. I love chess books. However I find them hard to follow. So I really like the Everyman Chess books. You can buy and download a book as an ebook, Kindle book, Chessbase format, and PGN file. This gives you options to view the material and have a board to move through the variations. The ability to go off on variations and jump back to the main line. Also you can check the evaluation of a line with a chess engine. Here is a link to Everyman's guide to the various formats.

There is just one problem. They don't actually sell the hard copy of the books any more. So I wanted a couple of books to work on an opening repertoire. I found them at Thriftbooks.com and Abebooks.com. 

So now I have these two books in every format. Here are some screen shots of the books in various viewers.

Kindle Book

Chessbase

As a pgn file in SCID vs PC a free chess database program.

I hope this helps you rediscover chess books and using them to study. Let me know if I can provide any additional information. 

Aimchess The Computer As Coach!

 Aimchess Review

A data driven Chess Coach. My favorite feature is Aimchess will pull your games from Chess.com and/or Lichess.com and use them to develop study plans for you. Find your weak moves and pose them in the form of a puzzle.

You can have Aimchess pull games from as far back as you want. It will analyze them and give you data driven charts on your weaknesses and strengths.    

Then Aimchess develops a daily study exercise plan to improve your play.

Their video is wild but buried in there is the info they want to share.

Check it out at Aimchess.com. I think this is a game changer (pun).

The analysis board has tabs that link to Videos and Courses as well as the Notation. They appear to be geared to the position on the board. Nice!

Chessquid

I decided to get a refund for now. Chessquid is promising but largely in development. In my opinion they shouldn't be offering it for sale yet.    

I recently purchased Chessquid Pro. It's in development. I hope they get more of the database features working soon. I'll edit this post to include a review of the software soon. Here is a quick game I played against the program. It does have a big selection of opponents tuned to different playing levels.

Chess In The Times

 I am a New York Times subscriber. Recently I found a really fun and educational chess feature. Chess Puzzles. It allows you to play a puzzle position from a famous players game. It does cost $1.25 a week extra. I did a trial example. It appears to be well done. Do you know of other places where chess is a feature? 

  Click this link https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/chess-puzzles.

Finding The Best Move

 What goes into making the best chess move? Well it's not just the move. It has to be part of a plan. I decided to try to mind map the process. Strongly influenced by the book "How to Reassess Your Chess" by Jeremy Silman.   What do you think? Did I miss anything? Click the picture to make it bigger. If you like the content be sure to comment and follow.

Chess Class

I taught a basic class on how to play chess. It took the students from beginner to an introduction to advanced ideas. I created a mindmap to organize my thoughts while creating the class. I'm posting it here in case it can help someone. Also I'm thinking of creating a new mindmap of how to approach the game.

Chess Lessons Part 2 lichess & Chess24

 After Chess.com (see Chess Lessons Part 1) lichess is another all in one chess site. It has a vast array of tools to play and study chess. Including structured lessons. 

Chess basics are divided into Chess Pieces, Fundamentals, Intermediate, Advanced, and What's Next.

Practice contains Checkmates, Basic Tactics, Intermediate Tactics, & Pawn Endgames. This is where many will discover the beauty of the game. If you already know how to play I would highly recommend this section.

 

Another mega chess site is Chess24. They too have lessons.

Under courses the lessons are grouped into three sections. Each section becomes available as to complete the previous one.

Likewise you can progress through the lessons as you complete them.

So I've given you 3 very good resources to begin your road to improvement. I'm sure there are others out there. I'm going to stop here and try to put together a post on advanced learning options. If you like the content please consider following the blog. Have something to add? Be sure to leave a comment below. Thanks again.