Vade mecum for complete beginner -- suggestions

[Patrick Gray]

I have taught myself both descriptive and algebraic notation. An old and therefore cheap book preferred -- Staunton is the author I know of, but other recommendations eagerly sought. As comprehensive as possible, bearing in mind I live in a very remote area and when I play an actual opponent it will have to be by correspondence, so capable for study by a lone player.

[Matt Mackenzie]

There have been quite a few decent "beginners guides to chess" published down the years - those by D B Pritchard and Golombek come to mind.

[Adam Raoof]

get Hartston's Teach Yourself Chess - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Teach-Yourself ... 0340670398 - but Matt is right, there are a lot of good beginners books.

[JustinHorton]

What there's a lot less of is books for people who've got just past that stage.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Actually, that is one thing that Hartston's couple of books - Teach Yourself Chess/Better Chess - are good for IMO.

[John Townsend]

Perhaps you should consider David Pritchard's The right way to play chess, revised and updated by Richard James (Right Way, 2008).

The content is attractively presented and should be easy to assimilate. The original edition dates back to 1950.

[Tim Harding]

Simple Chess by Michael Stean - if you can find it.

[Andy Ward]

I have taught myself both descriptive and algebraic notation. An old and therefore cheap book preferred -- Staunton is the author I know of, but other recommendations eagerly sought. As comprehensive as possible, bearing in mind I live in a very remote area and when I play an actual opponent it will have to be by correspondence, so capable for study by a lone player.

It is a good 15 years since it came out but one of the first books I had was 'How to become a deadly chess tactician' by David LeMoir. It introduces you to basic and slightly more advanced tactical themes and on how to use your imagination when approaching positions. It is selling for about £7 on Amazon if you're interested.

[John Clarke]

As Justin indicates, the true difficulty is getting from knowing the moves and basic stratagems - pins, skewers, etc - to being able to conduct a whole game in even a minimally competent fashion. Neither of the Golombek "primers" in my possession, to my mind, really manage this satisfactorily. One minute he's explaining the basics of the knight-fork, the next you're into highly complex tactical sequences with little or no guidance to what's going on. (Somebody once referred to this sudden transition as the "continental shelf".)

One book I did find tremendously helpful for my development was Further Chess Ideas by John Hodgkins and John F Love, published c1964 and of course long since out of print. The authors built on an earlier work of theirs called Chess Ideas for Young Players which took a rather eccentric approach to the subject that made it a far less useful guide to the game. (And yet, strangely enough, this did not prevent CIFYP being reissued under another title many years later. I wish they'd do that for its successor volume.)