The 10 Best Chess Books For Intermediate Players

One of the most reliable ways to improve at chess is to study high-quality chess books. For relatively little money, you can learn from the masters of the game.

The problem is: where to start? There are literally thousands of chess books, so the task of choosing the right chess book for you can seem daunting.

In this article, we share our top book recommendations for intermediate chess players. Though there is no universal definition for what constitutes an “intermediate” chess player, when compiling this list, we had in mind those who have a chess elo rating of between 1200 and 1800.

If you add these chess books to your shelf and work your way through them, we are pretty confident that you will soon graduate to the advanced level!

Opening Chess Books

Intermediate players need to start forming an opening repertoire. It can be basic if you are around the 1200 level, but as you push up towards 1800+, you will encounter more opponents who take this aspect of the game seriously - and so must you.

Many opening theory manuals go into excruciating detail about particular opening lines. However, intermediate players are better served by pursuing titles that offer a more comprehensive overview of opening play. Below, we recommend two chess theory primers: one for each color.

Keep It Simple For Black

Keep It Simple for Black is a single volume that provides everything needed to play the opening strongly with the Black pieces. Taught by the popular author Christof Sielecki, you will get a repertoire that is easy to remember and low-maintenance.

Against 1. d4, 1. c4, and 1. Nf3 the book teaches the Queen’s Gambit Declined. This rock-solid option ensures a strong start to the game for Black.

Against 1. e4, you will learn the Caro-Kann Defense. This should lead to interesting middlegames with good winning chances.

The book focuses on plans and ideas rather than intensive move-by-move memorization. It makes it an excellent choice for the busy intermediate chess player.

Chess Openings For White, Explained - Winning With 1. e4

For the White side of your opening repertoire, we suggest Chess Openings for White, Explained. It proposes a repertoire based on 1. e4.

The great American champion Bobby Fischer once called 1. e4 “best by test”. Of course, if you prefer playing 1. d4, then that is also perfectly valid. However, intermediate chess players often find 1. e4 easier to understand. The King’s Pawn Opening tends to lead to more rapid piece development and more fighting, dynamic middlegames.

In this book, you will learn:

• The Scotch Gambit against 1. …e5, 2. Nf3 Nc6.
• The Grand Prix Attack against the Sicilian Defense.
• The Classical Variation against the French Defense.
• The Exchange Variation against the Caro-Kann Defense.

Black’s other options are also covered. For example, Petrov’s Defense, Alekine’s Defense, the Scandinavian Defense, the Pirc Defense, etc…

Once you have finished reading, you will be ready for whatever Black can throw at you.

Tactics

Most games at the intermediate level are won or lost by tactics. Therefore, a key to unlocking significant improvement is consistent tactics training.

Training tactics has two major benefits. 

• You will become more adept at identifying tactical opportunities and effectively capitalizing on them.
• You will also offer fewer such opportunities to your opponents - i.e., fewer blunders.

Here are our top tactics chess books for intermediate players:

Improve Your Chess Tactics

Of all the tactical puzzles compendiums, Improve Your Chess Tactics is one of the best.

• It contains a superb mixture of different combinations.
• There is also a nice variety of difficulty, suitable for intermediate chess players.

Another feature of this title is that, unlike many puzzle-solving exercise books, all of the exercises are drawn from tournament play. Rest assured, these are not contrived positions - these are real chess tactics that helped decide real games.

After you have been through the chapters covering the different tactical motifs (eliminating defenders, interference, deflection, etc), you will then move on to the “examination” section, where there are no hints as to what the theme of the exercise may be. This mirrors the challenge you must face when trying to find tactics in tournament play.

If you take the time to consistently solve the tactical exercises contained in this book, you will soon become a tactics assassin.

100 Tactical Patterns You Must Know

Frank Erwich’s book 100 Tactical Patterns You Must Know has quickly become a favorite among intermediate chess players.

As the title suggests, this book showcases a hundred of the most useful tactical patterns. One reason for its popularity is the intense focus it places on ingraining these patterns into your mind.

One of the secrets to improving at chess tactics is that the ability to calculate deeply is only one part of the equation. It is just as important, if not more so, to be able to quickly recognize potential tactical patterns within a given position in the first place.

Many of the patterns contained within these pages have been given names to aid in memorization. For example:

• The Carousel (pattern 10)
• The Maltese Cross (pattern 31)
• The Hook-and-Ladder Trick (pattern 41)
• The Staircase Maneuver (pattern 89)
• The Magnet Sacrifice (pattern 100)

Another unique feature of this book is the addition of flashcards. You can use these to quickly refresh the patterns at any time you need - for example, prior to an important chess tournament.

Related: How To Prepare For A Chess Tournament.

An adjunct to this title is the accompanying workbook, which provides additional exercises to further sharpen your tactical vision.

Strategy

As an intermediate player, you don’t need advanced strategy treatises yet, but you can still take several steps to improve your positional understanding. This knowledge will enable you to accumulate the kinds of small advantages that can eventually lead to a positional advantage.

The next two books on our list will help take your strategic understanding to the next level.

Simple Chess

Simple Chess can be regarded as a “hidden gem” in the chess literature. It may not be flashy nor recently published, but it does contain timeless chess strategy wisdom that is sure to elevate the game of intermediate chess improvers.

The book was first released in 1978 by the English grandmaster Michael Stean. This edition has been updated with algebraic chess notation for the modern reader.

Readers will learn important chess strategy fundamentals, including:

• Outposts
• Weak pawns
• Open files
• Pawn majorities
• Space
• … and more.

Each concept is accompanied by master games that show it in action. Generous annotations explain why the masters played the moves they did, aiding in the reader’s understanding.

The book is notable for its ability to get straight to the point. At under 200 pages, it is reasonably concise. You can soon finish the book and start applying the concepts to your own games.

How To Reassess Your Chess

Jeremy Silman’s How To Reassess Your Chess is widely regarded as essential reading for serious club chess players.

The “big idea” within the book is that of imbalances. Strategic plans should be formulated and executed based upon the imbalances within the position. Silman’s work is packed with examples so that you can build this way of thinking into your own play.

Examples include:

• Superior minor piece
• Pawn structure
• Lead in development
• Initiative
• Static vs. dynamic advantages
• … and more.

Fair warning: this book is more appropriate for players at the upper levels of intermediate, i.e., rated 1500+. It is also long, weighing in at over 600 pages. 

However, it is not necessary to finish the entire book to derive a tremendous amount of value from it. It is a classic and deserves to be part of every ambitious chess player’s library.

Endgame Chess Books

As you advance in chess, you will find that more and more of your games will be decided in the endgame. Endgame technique, therefore, becomes increasingly essential for intermediate chess players.

Although intermediate chess players do not need chess endgame encyclopedias, they will still benefit from studying both theoretical endgames and practical endgames. We have a book recommendation for each.

100 Endgames You Must Know

100 Endgames You Must Know is the perfect all-in-one guide to theoretical endgames for intermediate chess players (and advanced chess players, too). It is one of the most popular chess books on the market - and for good reason. It is engaging and well-organized.

Consider this book a reference guide. Instead of reading it from cover to cover, you should focus on the simpler endgames first. Then, once your skill level improves, you can move on to the more advanced material.

This book focuses on those theoretical endgames which:

• Occur often in practice.
• Can be usefully defined - when they work and when they do not work.
• Have ideas which can be applied to more complex positions.

Do you need this book? Ask yourself these questions:

• Do you know how to win the Lucena Position?
• Could you hold the draw if you had the weak side of a bishop versus a rook?
• Can you reliably perform the knight and bishop checkmate versus a lone king, before the 50-move rule is invoked?

If not, then you ought to improve your endgame technique. Studying Jesus de la Villa’s book will help you do just that.

Chess Endgames For Club Players

There is a lot more to being a strong endgame player than knowing the simplified positions that constitute theoretical endgames. It is vital to also study practical endgames - and that’s where Chess Endgames For Club Players comes in.

Take a position such as the one shown below, which is taken from inside the book. The queens have been traded, but a significant amount of material remains on the board.

In this unbalanced chess endgame, each side has a rook and a minor piece. White has an extra pawn, but how should White conduct the game from here in order to convert their advantage into a victory?

Studying positions like this is invaluable for intermediate players. There is no tactical way for White to win. Instead, White must come up with a plan and then set about trying to achieve it.

Herman Grooten’s book provides a comprehensive education on the endgame. It will help you to gain many half-points and even full points against your lesser-educated opponents.

Game Collections

Chess games are not so neatly divided by the artificial distinctions we tend to create: opening, middlegame, and endgame. To further our understanding of chess as a whole, it is vital to study entire games played by strong players, along with their move-by-move commentaries.

The following are two of our favorite grandmaster game analyses.

Logical Chess: Move By Move

Logical Chess: Move By Move is an excellent game collection, particularly for those at the lower intermediate level (under 1500).

Irving Chernev presents 33 master games with a unique approach, explaining every single move the players make. This stands in contrast to other annotated game collections, where many moves are given without comment - based on the assumption that their purpose is “obvious” to the reader. However, this is not always the case! Books for beginners or for intermediate players should not leave anything out.

By working through each game “move by move”, the reader will gain an understanding of everything the masters are doing throughout the entire course of the struggle.

Bobby Fischer: My 60 Memorable Games

What better way of improving your game than to study alongside one of the greatest chess players of all time? In this book, Fischer provides a tour through some of the most iconic games of his storied chess career.

Intermediate players, advanced players and even master level players can all learn a great deal from studying My 60 Memorable Games. It has something for everyone. This is why it is widely considered to be one of the best chess books ever written.

Some of the games covered include:

• Fischer vs. Bryne, 1956 (the “Game of the Century”)
• Fischer vs. Tal, 1959 (a positional masterpiece)
• Fischer vs. Spassky, 1960 (an instructive example of the King’s Indian Attack)