Simple Chess - One Of The Best Chess Books Of All Time?

[@seop1721]

I’m really enjoying Kraai’s commentary. He’s the Bill Burr of chess. :-)

[@michaelf8221]

That position explaining capacity available to fill space was super insightful. I also thought Perelshteyn's "Evaluate like a GM" did a good job exploring this idea in the quartet chapter. Just exchanging a few pieces really highlights how soothing a position that "lacks space" can actually be!

[@wreynolds1995]

Never touched Gelfand's book, but I've always loved Simple Chess. It's where I first saw Fischer vs Petrosian (7), and a bunch of other examples really stuck in my mind as well (Vogt vs Andersson is another good one for club players like myself to see). I've returned to it again and again and recommend it to everyone.

[@MrSupernova111]

I'll have to get this one! Thanks!

[@iakona23]

I read this book 15 years ago and I quite enjoyed going through it. Very enjoyable.

[@marciowinter]

I've always wondered if there were any "intro" books to positional play, because as a lowly player, I was only into combinatorial play. Many books, such as Pachman's, Nimzowitsch's, etc., do not deal with obviously complex themes in a simple way, but "Simple Chess" has proved to be a fantastic book with fascinating examples, showing that the positional game is not a "big monster with seven heads".

[@gregmartin3425]

I see this in a lot of chess books. They claim it is some new special system or approach, when it actually is just a collection of games, or a collection of tactical puzzles. I bought Charles Hertan's "Forcing Moves" book, which promised to be a type of system to not miss tactical shots, at least in the introductory chapters, but he gave no system, and the book immediately turned into a tactical puzzles book, without any particular order of difficulty, mixing two ply shots with 20 ply shots. One of Colin Crouch's books promised to teach some strategical system or ideas, and turned out to be a collection of games, heavily annotated with an engine.

[@bigredracingdog466]

I think players from 1500 to 2200 would find this book useful. I read it about 30 years ago and need to revisit it.

[@user-rp8ij8pm7l]

Your thoughts on the najdorf

[@bigredracingdog466]

@@user-rp8ij8pm7l I think the Najdorf is a Labyrinth no ball of twine will get you out of unless you're a titled player. White has many ways to steer this opening and I don't think the casual player has the time to learn them all. The player with the white pieces only needs to know his or her pet line against it. Black needs to know them all.

[@user-rp8ij8pm7l]

@@bigredracingdog466 that was very informative and insightful. Thank you so much 👍🏼🙏🏼

[@highgroundchess]

Great video. I did just pick up Simple Chess and looking forward to diving into that. Interesting concepts of space where Stein compared those two positions and how it looks and feels if you take two minors off the board. Fascinating stuff.

[@joeldick6871]

I think someone who gets a lot of credit for "rediscovering" this book is Fred Wilson from New York.

[@davidblue819]

In Nigel Short on Chess, Nigel says, "Good books on positional elements are rather hard to find but two stand out in my opinion. The Art of the Middlegame by Keres and Kotov, and Simple Chess by Michael Stean." Nigel's own books and videos are not very systematic, but they are based on his experience of what's simple and what worked for him. He seems to like the "box of hammers and screwdrivers" approach to chess thinking, rather than anything philosophical. If you like how Nigel thinks (which I do) and you want to go a bit deeper in that direction than what he says in his books and videos, it seems to me his recommendations make sense.

[@zalannemeth7957]

Is there any book on positional chess that you would recommend for a new 2300 player :)?

[@theinacircleoftheancientpu492]

You seem to be recommending the contents of my bookcase right now. 🤣

[@IB4theAIB]

The “Fischer Endgame” a concept from another English author - Leonard Barden

[@SamAsakaChess]

Liked what was said about engines and the space advantage. Having grown up with engines I can definitely see how that has shaped my view of space.

[@paulcarpenter6470]

Excellent discussion of advanced chess thinking. Many thanks

[@KidsLearnHTML]

Believe it or not, the fourth page of this book ALMOST MADE ME QUIT CHESS. T(his is when I was 8 years old and it was exactly 1978 -when the book first came out! Our local library was very small and only this book and Fred Reinfeld's "The Complete Chessplayer" were of any substance.) The game in question was Botvinnik - Szilagyi Amsterdam 1966 and the move in question was 15...c5 with its double question mark addition. As a kid who loved tactics and combinations , it made zero sense to me. It took me almost 10 years to get even a half way understanding to what GM Stean was saying.

[@zerothehero2579]

One of my top chess books. It gave me the tools to play positionally.

[@ChessDojo]

Great book!

[@gmpillo604]

Hey BAUZ!!! Aggressive Black repertoire for Chessable later right? Classical Dutch + French? Or maybe Sicilian + Nimzo Indian? Or maybe Sicilian + Tarrasch? Or maybe Sicilian + Benko? Come on man!

[@juhonieminen4219]

"I don't agree, but I was happy he said it... (in the podcast)". I wish more people would be happy to disagree about things.

[@MrSupernova111]

Pretty cool! I'll have to check this one out.

[@PepperChess]

A title of my play style…..I shall pick it up.

[@felixhinz3804]

will you also review "pump up your rating"?

[@ChessDojo]

It's in the lineup

[@diego0014]

Nice find

[@milankotevski1663]

Its a great book indeed.

[@FredPlanatia]

quote from someone who dedicated his professional life to a game (the game of kings admittedly) "We don't have dissertations because we're not as dumb as academics".

[@ChessDojo]

wrote a dissertation before I became a GM :-)

[@blindknitter]

​@@ChessDojoWhat in?

[@TheRealRussell]

I had actually just watched the previous video where you guys ranked your books, and I was honestly somewhat surprised that Ben was the only one that mentioned this book. I don't know, maybe I like it because it's just easy to digest and leaves a lot of room for my own thought. It doesn't overwhelm me in variations which can be burdensome to play through while going through a book. But the fact that none of the titled players in the podcast mentioned the video was a bit disheartening to me. It makes me feel like I've overrated the book and that my time was better spent elsewhere.

[@mcronrn]

Will this help me beat the Penguin at bullet? 😳

[@mcronrn]

@Noah Gault this Penguin is faster than a bullet 😳😳🐧🐧

[@benedictineonchessable]

Simple Chess definitely deserves repeated reading. Great book.