Life In 19x19

Babelardus wrote:Hi

In Chess, there's a Dutch series called the "Steps Method", which has been translated to many different languages

I ordered the first step - first time in a while I bought a physical book on Amazon, too bad there aren't Kindle versions.

joellercoaster wrote:Babelardus: between us, we're probably a pretty decent Go player

Heh. It's possible that my reading ability comes from the time I've played Chess. The one thing that often still confuses me is fighting with captures/recaptures and ko.

LifeIn9x9 wrote:

Babelardus wrote:Hi

In Chess, there's a Dutch series called the "Steps Method", which has been translated to many different languages

I ordered the first step - first time in a while I bought a physical book on Amazon, too bad there aren't Kindle versions.

I've bought the Jump Level Up and some other books in paper as well. As soon as I have to study something, or refer back and forth, I still favor paper books. I read all my novels on the Kindle, though.

Babelardus wrote:Hi

In Chess, there's a Dutch series called the "Steps Method", which has been translated to many different languages. After following these books, a complete beginner in Chess will end up at playing between 2000 and 2100 ELO after step 6.

Now, i'm just a chess amateur, but i'm pretty sure in order to get 2100 ELO you need (apart from all the studying) to play countless games, analyze games, follow the chess scence etc. When i say studying, i mean know in depth hundreds of openings, endgame positions etc. so unless these books are at least 5000 pages that statement seems like bs.

1/7,000,000,000 wrote:Now, i'm just a chess amateur, but i'm pretty sure in order to get 2100 ELO you need (apart from all the studying) to play countless games, analyze games, follow the chess scence etc. When i say studying, i mean know in depth hundreds of openings, endgame positions etc. so unless these books are at least 5000 pages that statement seems like bs.

Indeed. The information in those books is necessary but not sufficient. Still, it is nice to have it all laid out and presented nicely. I haven't read the Steps books, but a 9-book series from GM Artur Yusupov that is similar in some ways helped get me from 1800 to 2000 (and I still have 4 books to go!). In general I am a fan of "curriculum books" like these, as long as people don't get to the end and say "OK, now I should be 1 kyu!" or whatever.

As OtakuViking points out, no books will take you from one level to another. They act as a source of knowledge to steer your choices when playing and enhance your evaluation when reviewing. But playing and reviewing are the key activities for conscious learning. Without review, the learning may still happen but rather unconsciously and without playing ... well.

Many books have had an impact on my game, if alone as a matter of inspiration and motivation. But there is one I could and should reread yearly: Attack & Defence.

In our era, new things arise like youtube channels. I found Dwyrin's channel very inspiring and I've changed the way I play since I've been watching it. One thing he says is that the amount of actual reading required to play like a 1d is surprisingly low.