Ranking the Most Influential Chess Books | Dojo Talks

GM Jesse Kraai, IM David Pruess, and IM Kostya Kavutskiy discuss and rate the most influential chess books in today's episode of Dojo Talks, the ChessDojo podcast!

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#chess #chessbook

CHAPTERS
0:00 Ranking the 5 Most Influential Chess Books
3:38 Jesse's No. 5 Pick
8:20 David's No. 5 Pick
13:24 Kostya's No.5 Pick
17:08 Kostya's No. 4 Pick
22:40 David's No. 4 Pick
25:37 Jesse's No. 4 Pick
26:50 Jesse's No. 3 Pick
29:43 David's No. 3 Pick
32:00 Kostya's No. 3 Pick
35:03 Kostya's No. 2 Pick
39:16 David's No. 2 Pick
44:14 Jesse's No. 2 Pick
48:39 Jesse's No. 1 Pick
51:45 David's No. 1 Pick
57:57 Kostya's No. 1 Pick
1:00:01 Reflecting on the List
1:02:10 Honorable Mentions
1:09:14 Final Rankings

[spiderzlatan]

I love these book lists' videos you guys do.

[Sitbear]

Always love David’s hot takes. I can look forward to them just as much as Jesse’s rants at Magnus and Hikaru.

[daramurphy]

Most original chess books would be interesting too.

[JasonStoneking]

Great show! It was fascinating to hear which books were most influential in each of your estimations. When I started playing in the early 90s there were some books that everyone I met was either reading or recommending, Like Art of Attack, or Pawn Power in Chess (which I hardly hear mentioned now). It's funny to think about some of these books coming in and out of fashion, either because of their style or because of evolutions in approach.

[fundhund]

I think the influence of Tarrasch's work can hardly be overestimated. He essentially started the whole genre of instructive game collections. Whoever came after him, Nimzowitsch, Alekhine, Keres.. they all took it from him. And it's no coincidence that Fischer in MSMG quotes Tarrasch repeatedly. And even if some of his analysis may be outdated, his teaching gift cannot be denied.

[paulgottlieb]

There are some books where the number sold greatly exceeds the number actually read! Dvoretsky's books are good example

[odysseas]

Before listening to this, here is my list:

5. My great predecessors, Kasparov
This is a bit of a cheat since it is not a single book. But I have never met a chess player in tournaments, in my club or online, who doesn't know of these books. Most chess players have read portions or have, unknowingly, seen Kasparov's annotation in chess databases. There are also very important as a collection of stories about chess from over 200 years.

4. Logical chess move by move, Chernev
Weird choice and pretty "easy book". My rational is that is has influenced the way chess books are written for beginners enormously. Everyman chess has a whole series of books based on the concept of move by move explanations. I was torn between this and "most instructive games of chess" but I believe this own better exemplifies what a true beginner book should look like.

3. Zurich 1953, Bronstein
Much like logical chess, I think this book has had a tremendous impact on chess thinking and the way intermediate books do annotations. I think Zurich 1953 is the epitome of the chess tournament book and everyone after that has been trying to reach its heights. I was also torn here between this and New York 1924 but I think Zurich is more influential. It also sparked tremendous interest about the King's Indian which, to this day, is one of the most used openings in club level chess.

2. The game of chess, Tarrasch
This was one of the first chess books I read and the reason I learned descriptive notation (it is not sold in algebraic in my country). Basically, half the time you see a "chess quote" it originated in this book. For example: Rooks behind passed pawns. It think it is the first try from a top player to explain chess as a whole and make up rules and foundation upon which you can learn it.

1. My system, Nimzowitsch
I believe this book has shaped chess thinking like nothing else. I am not going ro try to explain it. I suggest, if you are interested, ti read it and see how much if the "conventional wisdom" you have heard from other chess players, read online or been taught at a chess club comes from this book.

Honourable mentions:
My 60 memorable games: not revolutionary but Fischer is Fischer and a lot of people read this book before anything else.
Think like a grandmaster: to this day people are debating the variation tree
New york 1924: mentioned above
My life and games by Tal: Tal is an electric players and his love for the game shines through the pages
The art of Sacrifice in chess and The art of Attack in chess: I cannot choose between those two. These are the first attacking manuals and you will be shocked by how many attacking ideas and concepts (like counting the attackers and defenders to evaluate an attack) originated here.
Dvoretsky's endgame manual: every titled player I know has read this. Evidently, every titled player on the planet has, at one point, tried to tackle this book. It is not very influential in terms of the general public but if every top player has read it and praises it to this day it has surely influenced titlied encounters.

Honoured mention: The Informator
People don't realize how much of chess annotations come from the informator. The popularization of algebraic, the exclamation and question marks for evaluations and the analysis of top players. All could be found in there. It had shaped chess thinking for half a century before chess databases and engines became so good.

[b-b]

Just a few ideas, roughly one for each quarter century, and respecting several genres and chess cultures:

1. Nimzovich - My System (1925-27) - the original book that changed 20-th cent. chess strategy. No doubt extraordinarily influencial. Just a sidenote: the title was probably inspired by the namesake book of the Danish self-help author J.P. Müller.

2. Rueben Fine - Basic Chess Endings (1941) The first real book about endgame theory in one tome. Redone by Benko, but studied by many excellent players., despite its errors.

3. Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings (1974). The Chess informant changed chess opening theory in a fundamental way. Its condensation in book form was the ECO. There are many predecessors, such as Euwe's multi-volume series, but none had the impact of the ECO.

4. Botvinnik - Analititsheskije i krititsheskije raboty (1984-87). No other person embodied Soviet chess as much as Botvinnik. Kasparov was a product of his school. Dvoretsky was a product of his school. Botvinnik's various writings, and this one is maybe the most important compilation, ties together this school of thought in a comprehensive way.

5. Sadler - Game Changer (2019). Nothing has probably changed chess as much as chess engines. Sadler's book condenses the lessons of the play of the new generation of engines in a single, accessible volume. Top players read this stuff, and it probably influences their play. Gukesh mentioned it in a video, and Magnus referred to Sadler's companion volume in another video [Silicon Road].

[lastsonofkrypton]

Russell Enterprises has their 21st Century Edition version of Alekhine's My Best Games consolidated into one algebraic volume which includes cross tables of all his tournament results.

[jimd]

New in Chess has published a collection of three Botvinnik matches that includes his notes about match preparation and his thoughts on his opponents strngths and weaknesses.

[thorsthunder]

Great video as always. Proud of myself for predicting David's top pick.

[ishaanrohmetra]

you should have invited coach rameshbabu.
that would have added a spectrum of different books from asia to europe.
btw nice video.

[geoffreyevans]

I have a reprint by Olmsted of the book by Steinitz. His annotations were very terse. To buy the book you needed to have a subscription. Also Howard Staunton had previously wrote a book on the London 1851 chess tournament.

[briankaren]

Cecil Purdys books were very close to being Silman before Sliman.

[bluefin.]

Tried to read My System once. Couldn't hack it. Still assumed it would be number 1 on this list. Silman makes sense near the top as well. Never tried to read it, but in discussing it and referring to imbalances, John Watson talked about Silman and "his theory", so I'd guess that he was the one to systematize the concept.

[PocketFilms]

I think Richard Reti's Modern Ideas in Chess should have been in there. He was the first to talk about style in chess, both as a concept for the individual and for an epoch.

[paulgottlieb]

A book light Tarrasch's 300 games may not be widely read today, but it was very widely read by the people who wrote the books that are widely read. It's part of the chess DNA

[MrSupernova]

Good list! I haven't heard of the Tarrasch book. David is making stuff up as he goes along.

[davidblue]

Nobody did books of selected endings of a single player before Irving Chernev did a book of Capablanca's endings. That became a genre. Smyslov's Endgame Virtuoso belongs to this genre.

[jimd]

Fischer's analysis has held up incredibly well in the engine era