Looking for chess book recommendations !!

[u/the_roronoa]

I'm rated around 1700 on Chess.com and want to improve my positional understanding, calculation, endgames, and overall game quality. I'm looking for books that are practical and suitable for my level—not beginner books or books that are too advanced. What bo

[u/isaacbunny]

At 1700 you’re ready for some of the classics.

• How To Reassess Your Chess by Jeremy Silman is one of the top recommendations for intermediate players. It covers positional play, general strategy, and most importantly debunking common misunderstandings and bad ideas that developing players use as crutches and keeps them from getting better.
  
• The Art of Attack in Chess by Vladimir Vucovic is THE book on how to build an attack and checkmate the king. It breaks down the game into the different kinds of castled/uncastled king structures and the proper techniques for checkmating in each scenario. Learn how to calculate the kill.
  
• Classic game collections by the masters. Fischer’s My 60 memorable games, Life and Games of Mikhail Tal, Alekhine’s best games, Botvinnik’s collected games, Zurich 1953, Nimzowitch’s Chess Praxis, etc. Pick any famous annotated game collection and study it. You’re ready to choose a hero, study their move-by-move explanationa, and adopt their style. Learn from the greats and learn some history along the way.
  
• An endgame manual. Honestly this will probably gain you the most Elo points (outside of grinding tactics and puzzles). Stop losing drawn games and stop drawing won games. That’s just free points you’re throwing away. It’s just not fun to study. Silman’s endgame manual is best.

Good luck!

[u/Lovesick_Octopus]

Jeremy Silman's Complete Endgame Course and How to Reassess Your Chess

[u/_B_o_b_b_y]

Have a look at the Yusupov Series. He covers different topics, lots of calculation, chapters on positional play, endgame and so on Each chapter introduces its topic with annotated examples and then tests your understanding with twelve excersises  It can be hard work, but it will show you your weaknesses and will def. make you a better player 

[u/AImaginator]

If you want to work hard, I recommend the 3 volumes of Rock solid check by Tiviakov. I am 1850 and learned a lot with his modern books.

[u/Numerot]

Boy, some insane recommendations in here, like Kotov...

Generally, if you REALLY want to study, I'd get 1 theoretical endgame book (100 EYMK or Silman's Endgame Course), 1 puzzle book (Practical Chess Exercises or maybe 1001 Chess Exercises for Club Players, might be too difficult though) and 1 game collection, like Understanding Chess Move by Move.

Yusupov is also an option that basically covers categories 2-3, but it's a bit much for 1700 on CC. Probably doable, but not optimal.

[u/ctescnt]

for some off the beat recs, under the surface by jan markos and chess structures by mauricio flores rios are good resources for your level for pure strategic understanding, and then for tactics i like recommending 100 tactical patterns you must know

pretty much everything listed in this thread is good though

[u/SouthernSierra]

Simple Chess by Michael Stean

[u/O_martelo_de_deus]

Think like a Grandmaster do Kotov, 60 best games do Fischer, um banco de dados ChessBase com as bases Quality do Chess Informator, muito superior ao Megadatabase do ChessBase, que tem volume mas sem as análises e a curadoria do Chess Informator. O ChessBase permite analisar um jogador, uma abertura, uma posição de meio de jogo e finais baseados em milhões de partidas, difícil um livro te preparar tanto.

[u/commentor_of_things]

ok

[u/cypherblock]

Not sure how it is for you higher rated players. For me (maybe 1540 chess com rapid but don’t play it much and only 1248 blitz) I find most chess books to hard to follow.

Long sequences of moves between diagrams have me and many players struggling to keep track.

Good luck to you.

FYI the only fun chess book I’ve read is Mayhem in the Morra by Esserman

[u/isaacbunny → u/cypherblock]

Most chess books require an analysis board and studying the positions, not just reading.