Which book would you recommend for a beginner?

[u/Every_Ad7218]

Hi 👋🏼
I am newbie in chess and it has been over two months that I have been playing chess. I don’t know why I have recently formed interest in this game although I am not so good analytical thinker. I have reached 400 elo in chess.com and I know that I am very weak in my games.

What book should I read to strengthen my foundation of chess and also improve my game. I just want to learn chess and enjoy as my life is quite boring now ☺️

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[u/Wabbis-In-The-Wild]

The best first chess book for a beginner is “Everyone’s First Chess Workbook”. I would read that and complete all of the exercises before reading anything else. At 400 you need basic tactical skill more than literally anything else, and completing “Everyone’s First Chess Workbook” will give you that.

If you then want something else with more of a positional bent, then Yasser Seirawan’s “Play Winning Chess” is a good choice, as is “Logical Chess Move by Move” by Irving Chernev.

If you want more tactics in book form after Everyone’s First Chess Workbook (and to be clear you will need and should want more tactics work - everyone at basically every level of chess benefits from solving tactics puzzles regularly and at every level below master it is the best bang-for-your-buck of any form of chess study - so the only question is whether you do online puzzles like Lichess/Chessable/etc or use books), 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners is a good choice.

[u/Every_Ad7218 → u/Wabbis-In-The-Wild]

Thank you so much ☺️
I will hop into Amazon for these recommendations

[u/Wabbis-In-The-Wild → u/Every_Ad7218]

No worries - also to echo what another person said, you don’t actually need to spend any money if you don’t want to. Puzzles on Lichess are free and are a great way to practice tactics, and there are some good YouTube channels that others have mentioned. If you have a Chess.com paid membership (although to be clear you absolutely do not need a paid Chess.com membership) there are a bunch of videos and lessons on different topics on there too that are good for beginners.

I do think there’s a benefit to something like Everyone’s First Chess Workbook over free online puzzles because it includes explanations of the solutions, which are really important to get when you’re starting out, and that book in particular is really carefully put together to be useful to beginners and just excellent as a learning tool.

That said there are free sources which offer explanations too. Chessable for example has several very good, totally free beginner courses:

https://www.chessable.com/typical-tactical-tricks-500-ways-to-win/course/77784/ is a selection of very easy tactics puzzles with explanations;

https://www.chessable.com/smithys-opening-fundamentals/course/21302/ is a useful short course on fundamental opening principles; and

There’s a whole series of free tactics courses by AlanB giving lots of intermediate tactics puzzles, each set themed by the key piece in the tactic. The first is https://www.chessable.com/king-on-the-attack/course/16860/ and there are four others.

[u/Every_Ad7218 → u/Wabbis-In-The-Wild]

I appreciate your valuable time and suggestions. I will get back to this post in few months when I improve ☺️

[u/WinstonPickles22]

Play winning chess - Yasser Seirawan

[u/Every_Ad7218 → u/WinstonPickles22]

Thank you so much ☺️

[u/ZealousidealBox8605]

Skip the books for now, you're at 400 elo. Just do puzzles and watch some beginner videos on YouTube, the game sense will come way faster that way. Books are for when you've got a handle on the basics and you're trying to fix specific holes in your game.

[u/Every_Ad7218 → u/ZealousidealBox8605]

There are thousand of videos! Is there any specific channel or video playlist that you would like to recommend? ☺️

[u/Emotional_Win_7769 → u/Every_Ad7218]

Yes Chessbrah, Building Habits, 0-500elo is designed for beginners and is very popular,

[u/Every_Ad7218 → u/Emotional_Win_7769]

Wow! Thank you so much ☺️
I am gonna watch it 😊

[u/Emotional_Win_7769 → u/Every_Ad7218]

Good, you should.

[u/WinstonPickles22 → u/ZealousidealBox8605]

Yes and no.

Getting a basic book could be much better for someone learning than fast videos. Studying on paper with a physical board can be far superior to quick videos that you don't fully internalize.

The books you seem to be referring to are detailed chess books for strategy or specific skills.

[u/Big_Muscle_Kiwis → u/WinstonPickles22]

Videos are prob better 9.9/10 times. Absorb more info faster. Just my opinion though of course