Kostya Shows His Favorite Chess Books & Stream Setup | Meet the Dojo 

Kostya is quite a cool and charming guy! Besides being a very good and learned coach!

Good stuff! Looking forward to more instructional videos, and of course the book reviews.

Can't wait to see your new space, good luck! If I were doing a tour, I'd be like, "Okay, I have this book I've never read, also this book I've not touched, I read a page or two of this one, I MAYBE read this one cover to cover years ago..." 🤣

I've never seen a mini-vac before. That Kramnik book looks boss!

Nice tour, thanks Kostya. My chess collection is much smaller, but I too have some books that I haven't gotten around to reading.

“A little outdated, a couple years old”….lol

Poor Jesse. No Lisa in Kostya’s bookcase.

I hope David and Jesse will do the same in the future! I think what I love the most in chess is chess books :D Good luck with the move and merry christmas!

I grew up on descriptive notation so I was exposed to a "chess diet" of old books. I read a lot of books by Max Euwe such as ChessMaster versus Grandmaster; Euwe was a great openings analyst. He analysed the Muzio gambit and concluded that with best play it should be a draw. Some of the opening analysis is now a little dated; ideas like Nd5 against the..Bb4 line in the reverse Sicilian/English were not liked then but are popular now. Once I borrowed a book of Emanuel Lasker's London chess lectures from a chess friend. That was good. On my shelf right now, I will look... - Basic Chess Endings by Fine. As a correspondence chess player thats kind of a bible lol. - Technique in Chess by Gerald Abrahams - Chess fundamentals by Capablanca - The Mammoth Book of the world's greatest chess games, annotated by Burgess, Nunn and Emms, a little outdated as it was before Carlsen, but still probably my favourite chess book of all time. Superb annotation and I think a player of any level, even GM, would learn a lot from it. Especially the modern games. - Tactical Chess Endings by Nunn. Anyone who says that endings are boring, read this first! - some classic books by Chernev/Reinfeld such as Winning Chess. Always good. - Chess Master Trade Secrets by Andrew Soltis. This is probably my least liked book. I don't warm to his approach of "priyomes" as building blocks. Maybe that is just my reaction. Weirdest chess book experience. Once I was in a second hand bookshop and I bought a book that had nothing to do with chess. When I got home I found in the book pages of Alekhine chess annotations! Someone had cut up an Alekhine book [no idea which] and had left its pages inside! I learnt a bit! THat is my biggest missing book - I don't have an Alekhine book on my shelf.

You can feel (and see !) the weight of chess knowledge on the shelves !

Would love to see the entire collection. One by one. And your thoughts on each book.

Congrats on the new place and thanks for sharing. P.S. Love that chessboard. Shopping for one myself.

Awesome collection. Thanks for the tour!

Good library. If I knew 5% of my chess library I would have a 2700 ELO (more than 1.000 books). Now I see myself as a collector. Time and age matter.

Nice collection. I have a couple of the same books. If I wanted more chess books, I would think about getting either that Botvinnik book or the Kraminik book; I think I could really learn from their annotations.

Bottom row, yellow and green is the one book that you do not mention. It looks a bit like 'Winning Pawn Structures' by Alexander Baburin which is a book I recommend in case you do not have it. It mainly looks at isolated Queen's Pawn positions.

Huge collection.

You skipped the book I most wanted you to discuss. SuperSystem! And what other poker books you have.

thanks for reconmmending johan hellsten book, mastering chess opening just received today

I didn't expect you to be this tall lmao

Pffft! The two Tal books you blow off, presumably his autobiography and record of the 1960 match, are among the best chess books in the universe! The other Dojo guys call you "The Millennial" and now I know why! ;) I will take your advice re. the Botvinnik book and look for it. Thank you!

Kostya, thanks for showing us your setup; very cool! Chess question: how do you know when an outpost is really an outpost? Like if both sides only have knights, is there a rule of thumb covered somewhere that tells you in what situation you'll actually be able to make use of a knight outpost, or does it just come down to calculation?

Interesting. Thanks for posting

Just discovered this amazing channel few days ago, thanks for your recommendations. I really like the chessboard, is it possible to order it somewhere ?

Really enjoyed watching this Kostya learnt so much thank you 😄✌️ Also one request please do book reviews

Hey Kostya! Good stuff. Pack carefully when you move!

Nice Kostya! Good luck with the house move! I have many of the same books as you, but I haven't read as many!!! 🤦🏻‍♂️

On the bottom shelf there is a book that seems to be the "Polgar Brick".

Show me the Tal!

Hi. You seem to have the Boris Gelfand books. What do you think of them , particular the very first volume, "Positional decision making", from 20016(?). Is it a "must read" book? If so, what ideal ELO range will be benefit? My ELO is probably between 1700-1900, I am guessing it, based on me playing against Stockfish 12 on home PC. Is it too low to read Gelfand book? I read Nunn book on middle games and Lipnitsky and Romanovsky as well as My System as the first one, all those were fine to comprehend. So I am looking for next positional middle-games book to study to try for ELO 2000-2100. Thank you!

That’s a beautiful chess set! May I ask the name and where I might find one like it?

thanks!!!

Hi Kostya, any specific lines in Modernized that you recommend avoiding nowadays? I'm finally getting around to preparing a white repertoire against the Sicilian and your book seems like a fantastic starting point.

Nice video! It makes me wonder how much time you spend reading chess books/how often do you read.

What chess set do you have? Luv your videos btw!

Read the Tal life and games book as soon as possible. Best. Chess. Book. Ever.

I spy a poker book… :-)

What book for just openings?

wow great video

Great collection.

Wow,780 pages for Boris Zlotniks middlegame manual

why tf your intro have the board rotated wrong, I was instantly triggered lmao

Is that Winning Pawn structures on your shelf?

I wonder if masters need chess board while reading chess books🙄

Cool!

Nice

tanks interesting

Kewl!

all of them look new, never opened