If you want to learn chess strategy,there's one excellent book, "my system" by aaron nimzowitsch. I can really recommend that book, it will be interesting for every stage in your chess career - even GMs read it regulary!

Yes a great book!

Thanks for the quick feedback, I did look at "my system" and will most likely buy this book in a couple days, I guess it got many 5 star reviews on the internet as well, as for improveyourchess.com it seems pretty nice (I'll have to buy Rybka 3 before I subscribe though )

> Anyway, if you really tried hard to improve your chess, i.e. played a lot of games and read chess books, and still play at 1300 level, it may be a sign that your chess "talent" is not that big - then reading books won't help much

NOT TRUE.  All chess is is basically pattern recognition.  Basically since so many millions of games have been played now, it just comes down to who can remember the best opening lines that one in certain games.  I would say that chess is a game very similar to "memory" with cards, but on a far more advanced level.

to continue with some good books:

-Star chess by Paul Motwani - an entertaining book with a lot of ideas and interesting positions. It's good for tactics and openings and you can read it easily without getting bored.
-Dworedzkij's endgame manual - the best book for studying endgames, excellent examples, good methods, but it's quite some work to read it.
-Test your chess fantasy by Jan Przewoznik - no text and just minatures, but nice selection of some classics and crazy positions that is really hard to solve.

I was stuck a little under 1300 for about 4-5 months of studying and playing a lot but then I jumped 300 points while moving from G/30 tournaments to time controls at least 3 times as long.

No, this book is bad. GM Hickl says that Euwe gave his good name and it's mainly written by walter meiden, who was not a that strong player. There seem to be a lot of mistakes in those books.
Btw., it's similar too "bobby fischer teaches chess"- the books has not much to do with Fischer, who just gave his name for the book.

>which qives move by move analysis of 25 games master v pupil.

I'm sure that the local library had a book called "Chess Master versus Chess Amateur" back when I young. This is listed as being by Euwe and Meiden, so I guess it's the same.

I am very surprised that people actually recommend How to Reassess Your Chess. I read this book and it was terrible. His step by step method is something that he must have developed just to get kids to think in terms of strategy when they weren't able to do so at all before. NO good player thinks this way. One of the steps is to determine what part of the board to play on and he stresses that you must do this before calculating. So you must determine that you're playing on the queenside before you can look at variations? What if you want to calculate on all parts of the board. Also, the method doesn't say anything about tactics. Furthermore, the analysis in the book is terrible. Anyways, I read this book when I was about 1600 and all it did was make me worse. My rating went down to about 1450. Then I improved again once I got back to studying tactics and openings. If you want a book on strategy and you're 1300 or lower, then Pachman's Modern Chess Strategy is amazing for this. It doesn't try to make the game seem simple and he gives you strategy with examples from all angles. Instead of trying to just show you a general principle, he'll show you a game that illustrates how to play against a certain pawn structure, then show you another example where it was needed to play against it in a different way. As for more advanced strategy, I think Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy by John Watson is amazing. I haven't read My System but the first half of Watson's book covers these ideas. Also, as anybody will tell you, studying tactics is very important. The newer puzzle books are best for this since they are more accurate as a result of having been checked by engines. 600 Practical Chess Exercises by Ray Cheng is a great one to start with because the puzzles involve strategy and tactics. It also mixes the difficulty levels up so you don't have any clues about what type of move you're looking for. It imitates a game situation. The only problem that I have with this book is that it sometimes seems too easy to me. Also CT-Art 3.0 is a great program to do puzzles on your computer. It saves you a lot of time because the pieces are already set up and you don't have to set them up on a board and play out the moves when it's too tough for you to do in your head (like you would with a book). Sharpen Your Tactics and Ultimate Chess Puzzle Book are also good. As for Think Like a Grandmaster, just like Silman, he describes a method that no good player uses. For one thing, Kotov says that you should determine what your candidate moves are and then analyze each in succession. He says that going back and forth between them is unforgivable and something no good player would do. This is complete nonsense and completely untrue. I had to read The Inner Game of Chess by Andrew Soltis to learn how good players actually calculate. I really can't understand the appeal of recommending books that describe thinking methods that simply are not used. Regarding opening study: for some openings, it is very important to know your lines. The last thing you want to do is play into the dragon or botvinnik variation and think that all you need to know is how to get your pieces out and castle. If you don't want to study much theory, you should at least know what kinds of openings to head for. And then, you at least want to know your basic plans. There is no reason not to study openings. You are learning strategy and tactics in the exact opening variations that you play. I would say that the single most important thing to know about chess is the tactics in your own openings. Tactics are important in general, and what is better than knowing that ones that are most likely to occur in your own games? This knowledge can help you win right out of the opening or prevent you from losing. I don't think that Capablanca is a good example when we say that he didn't study openings and he just studied endgames. For one, we don't know how much he studied openings. He was already at a very high level by the time he supposedly got to this point that he wasn't studying openings. Sure if you are 2700 strength and your understanding of tactics and strategy is already amazing, and you are head and shoulders better than any other player around, you can feel safe at getting through the opening without studying any variations. But this is not the case for most of it. And most good players do know their openings quite well. Even the ones that say they don't study openings have looked at them enough to get through them quite well. As for endgames, these get more important as you become better at chess. You don't need in depth endgame knowledge at the 1500 level, when most of your games are basically over before the endgame even starts. However, Silman's Complete Endgame Course is amazing for endgames because it gives you all the knowledge you need to know at a certain level. It's also a fun read. About playing, the most important thing is definitely to play a lot of slow games and analyze them. Programs help a lot. Also spend a little time seeing if you played the opening well. And definitely avoid bullet. Bullet does not involve deep calculation. Even most bullet games won by good players just go to somebody running out of time, even if they were losing. 5-minute is OK because you learn tactics and openings but slower time controls are the best.

The chess books I still read in no particular order are:

Lasker's Manual of Chess - E. Lasker

This book is Lasker talking to you. Telling you about stuff. The important things like how to sit on your hands, fighting back, never get relaxed in a winning position - that sort of thing. If you can absorb the philosophies of his chess thinking in this book you will be very strong and a hard person to beat. Plus game examples of course and how visualize positions correctly. I consider it the holy bible of chess books.

Capablanca's Hundred Best Games of Chess - H. Golombek

Then there's Capablanca. Capablanca is the one player that makes chess look easy. Like most chess books of the pre-microcomputer era the annotations are somewhat out of date, but I highly regard this book because it shows the great Capablanca style in an instructive way. Beware though, you may become a Capablanca fanatic after studying the games in this book.

One Hundred Selected Games - M. Botvinnik

Another dog-eared book in my collection. Of all the chess books I have read, I am surprised this one is not celebrated more. Botvinnik is a great teacher and his methods show through in this book. Kasparov learned chess from the Botvinnik school and this book is so instructive, that I see my own handnotes scattered all over the place in it. I am impressed with Botvinnik and you will be too. Study this book and you will wonder why you need any other chess book.
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These books are the most dog-eared in my chess library. They are also in descriptive notation - at least my copies are. I think descriptive notation is something the young chessplayer should know and not be put off by, because you can find many fine instructive chessbooks at your local flea market that are in this notation. Remember that Fischer himself hated algebraic notation and fought to have his book "60 Memorable Games" published in no other way but descriptive notation. Some may scoff that this was only because of his Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. But I think it goes beyond that, descriptive notation is less 'synthetic' and gives more drama to a chess move somehow.