Chess books for advanced players

Secrets of Grandmaster Chess
(New American Batsford Chess Library)
by John Nunn

A must have book for the diligent player
Reviewer: John K. from Honolulu, Hawaii USA

    I thought my opinion on this book, although favorable, would not change. I was pleasantly surprised by the depth and quality the changes that were made from the earlier edition. I feel that chess books ideally should have the following characteristics; honesty, quality annotations, good explanations in prose, useful topics and a well thought out layout. This book has all of these qualities and more. This book is most useful for those player who already study a lot and love to study. What John Nunn gives you is how Grandmasters look at positions and the amount they calculate before making their moves. It takes an ambious and diligent player to go over even one game. This book is very rare indeed.

The Italian Gambit (and) A Guiding Repertoire For White: E4!
by Jude Acers, George Laven

Italian Gambit -awesome book
Reviewer: John O. from Houma, Louisiana

   Jude Acers has written an awesome book ! I love the graphics, the chess stories, the chess analysis, and Jude's commentary. Jude brings to life many American chess players, who played the game with great heart and spirit. Jude's prose is filled with the fighting spirit of Bobby Fischer and Ken Smith. Jude's passion for the game comes out in his lively prose.
    His chess stories remind me of the oral history style put to prose by the great Studs Terkel. This book is a must read for anyone interested in chess, or the history of its players, including many great American chess players who are not known that well. Honor is due Jude ACERS on his outstanding book ! I hope his book will spark a new American renaissance in chess!

Complete Book of Chess Strategy: Grandmaster Techniques from A to Z
by Jeremy Silman

A good reference book for chess strategy elements
Reviewer: Matthew K M. from Spotsylvania, VA

   I bought this book after buying Silman's "Reassess Your Chess" and "The Amateur's Mind", both of which have been very helpful to me. This book bills itself as a strategy guide.

   This book covers a lot of ground and hits upon a lot of fundamental ideas that a good chess player needs. I am hardly a beginner, but some of the tactical ideas in chess are new to me as I have either never encountered them or I never had them shown to me. This book does a lot to shed light on some of them. It covers such topics as x-rays, windmills, double attacks, pins, forks, etc.

   An extremely useful section of this book, to which I have found nothing comparable in other books, is a description of common opening systems and what they try to accomplish. The assessment Silman gives is related directly to his system of imbalances (see his other books for more detailed information on that), and each opening system is picked apart and explained. This is beyond helpful, this is absolutely critical. For this reason alone I bought this book.

   The book reads like an encyclopedia -- not exploring each subject exhaustively, but including it and summarizing. This intent is spelled out in the introduction. This is an important point to note -- this book was not intended to be exhaustive.

   This is a good book. What prevents it from being a great book is not what is has, but what it doesn't have -- it needs more examples. Each subject after the coverage of openings gets a page or two on average, including one or two examples. I would have liked to have seen more examples to further convey the concepts. This does not mean a student should expect to pick up this book and gain instant mastery, but there should be good "proof of concept" for each idea the author presents. Also, I would have preferred to see coverage of a few more opening systems and/or variations.

  As a tournament preparation guide, as the introduction suggests, this book is a very valuable resource.