Secondhand chess books

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Two questions related to chess books I saw the other day in a secondhand bookshop.

They were marked up at £25 and £10 respectively, and I passed on those, instead acquiring a £3 booklet on the 3rd World Students' Chess Championship in Uppsala in 1956 (possibly more on that later).

My question is whether the books were priced reasonably?

(i) 'Catastrophe in the Opening' by Iakov Neishtadt (Pergamon International Library edition, translation by Kenneth P. Neat, 1980) - £25

(ii) 'Bishop Endings' by Yuri Averbakh (Batsford translation, 1977) - £10

Charity shops would have priced them lower, I think.

The rest of the pile of 20-30 books were all opening theory publications, which held zero interest for me. Well, a few books about the Bobby Fischer match as well. And some newspaper clippings inside the books, which made me think they might have been from a house clearance of a recently deceased chess player in the area. Which is a bit of a morbid thought.

Anyway, would you pay £25 for a secondhand chess book? I don't think it is even particularly rare.

[Matt Mackenzie]

I will have paid less for the Neishtadt book (which is quite good admittedly) when I bought it first hand in the mid-80s!

[Colin Patterson]

I imagine these are largely analytical books, and am therefore reminded of Daniil Dubov's WCC commentary the other day when he opined that chess books are mostly useless, as modern engines would demonstrate numerous flaws in the text. That comment aside, I too would have passed on those at those prices. I doubt the £25 book would cost much more than £10 if you located it on eBay.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Thank you. I had not heard of Neishtadt before:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Neishtadt

Interesting wartime service history.

Scary coincidence that he only died last month (23 March 2023)!

[Nick Ivell]

Those prices sound like a total rip off.

[Roland Kensdale]

My question is whether the books were priced reasonably?

(i) 'Catastrophe in the Opening' by Iakov Neishtadt (Pergamon International Library edition, translation by Kenneth P. Neat, 1980) - £25

(ii) 'Bishop Endings' by Yuri Averbakh (Batsford translation, 1977) - £10

Charity shops would have priced them lower, I think.

Anyway, would you pay £25 for a secondhand chess book? I don't think it is even particularly rare.

Think booksellers use a number of factors in setting price, I'm sure they check online prices.

Neishtadt wrote some puzzle books which are probably worth looking at if reasonably priced. (Run the solution through an engine for the ultimate truth of the position).

Yuri Averbakh wrote highly valued guides to all endgame types, before the digital age. Possible someone still collects these, but they could only be used with a lot of heavy checking, making them of little practical use. Anyone interested in a lecture on the history of the analysis of Bishop endgames?

As a recovering chess book addict, I look at them differently to others. Dubov was saying that Fischer's 60 Memorable Games had 'many errors'. Hard to believe, I remember 2-3 famous corrections to his analysis. In the past we might have looked in it for the definitive analysis of positions. Now we look in it to see how a unique talent approached his games, to get an insight into his approach.

It would be difficult to admit to not caring if analysis and games have major blunders, or at least are misleading. For those of us who have to accept our limited ability, we can still try and enjoy flawed masterpieces. 'Chess will be master of us all' as a famous composer of spurious games once wrote.

[John Upham]

I have been starting all of my eBay sales at 99p regardless of the typical perceived value.

I've sold close to 500 titles in the last year: most of them opening books.

Persons offering the same titles at algorithm computed prices tend to keep them in stock for months paying 36p per 10 days to keep them there.

The point of using 99p is that is attracts buyers into the auction at an early stage.

I have regretted a few good titles going for 99p but that's life as Cyril Fletcher used to say.

Another tranche added today to

https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/jeupham

[Nick Ivell]

Fischer was analysing before the computer age. Of course his book has mistakes.

I think Lasker said, in his book of the 1909 tournament, that 'this is a book in which the analysis is accurate'.

I doubt it very much. However, this does not invalidate the entire book.

[John Moore]

As a regular seller on EBay - and obviously EBay sellers don't have to have a bricks and mortar shop - I would add the following. The Students Olympiad booklet is an excellent buy at that price. Neishtadt's book is now quite scarce but a tenner (not £25) would be a fair price for that. The Averbakh endgame books are very collectable and are remarkably free of serious errors in analysis and £10 is a reasonable price for that - but check John Upham's current E Bay sale.

There are few second hand booksellers these days who actually have a shop and those that do rarely carry chess books. The result is that they use AbeBooks prices plus a percentage to cover their overheads.