English Chess Forum

Is there someone who has taught juniors who can advise me, please?

I'm planning to give a couple of (old) chess books to the son of a friend, aged 10, who sounds promising. However, the only suitable books I have use descriptive notation. Does that need to be avoided? Two of the titles I have in mind are: D.B. Pritchard, The right way to play chess (11th edition, 1977), and Paul Langfield, Chess move by move (6th impression, 1973). Is the Pritchard book still sold today?

Any thoughts welcome.

Descriptive notation should definitely be avoided imo. It is an outdated and inefficient language that slows down an already slow process. Learning it is only useful to access old books, which almost to a rule are inferior to modern books.

The answer is always the same Richard James

Many thanks for the plug, Mick.

My Chess Heroes books take a structured approach to teaching chess to older children and adults.

https://chessforheroes.uk/purchase/

You can buy them from Amazon or download the pdfs for free.

The next (final?) two books, Puzzles Book 2 and Games Book 2, will be published next year.

The Pritchard book, dating from 1950, is still in print: I edited the most recent edition. But chess is a very different game now from the 1970s, and we also know a lot more about how novices (in any domain) process information.

Nick Burrows wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 28, 2025 10:51 am

Descriptive notation should definitely be avoided imo. It is an outdated and inefficient language that slows down an already slow process. Learning it is only useful to access old books, which almost to a rule are inferior to modern books.

This is just a *bit* sweeping - the best old books are still very good and well worth reading, whilst it surely barely needs saying there is a fair amount of modern rubbish. I have used algebraic since I was a teenager, but am glad I learned descriptive first and still think it worth doing.

I am a fan of descriptive but would only recommend the classics to modern juniors, most of which will have 'moved over'.

Thanks for your replies so far, which are appreciated.

The decision for me is whether to give him the books anyway, or whether to give none because they would do more harm than good, in view of the descriptive notation.

My feeling is they may do more harm than good, as the world of descriptive has passed.

My vote would be not to give him the books. I think their day has passed. If the boy's parents want to spend some money on their son's chess hobby, then perhaps paying for a year's subscription to 365chess.com, chessgames.com or even chess.com (I don't use the latter at all myself) might be worth considering.

Jon D'Souza-Eva wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 28, 2025 7:28 pm

My vote would be not to give him the books. I think their day has passed. If the boy's parents want to spend some money on their son's chess hobby, then perhaps paying for a year's subscription to 365chess.com, chessgames.com or even chess.com (I don't use the latter at all myself) might be worth considering.

Would he get just as much from the completely free https://lichess.org/learn as these sites? Although the suggestion of Richard's books seem a great suggestion.