Complete Book of Chess Strategy: Grandmaster Techniques from A to Z Kindle Edition

This is a pretty good starter book for someone, yet is far from complete... The name is a bit deceptive to claim to be a complete strategy guide... This reads more like a Chess Dictionary than an actual strategy guide... Perhaps a better name would of been Chess Dictionary, Grandmaster Techniques from A-Z... I would say this book is mostly good for those U1600 range... The lower you are, the more this book most likely will help you... Just realize this gives a brief basic idea of what something means... By no means is this a complete work that will make you into an IM or GM... I will try to give a basic idea of what to expect in this book... Basically the book starts with an introduction explaining the goals of this book and how the idea to write happend... Silman explains how he had a student that basically wrote a book like this in a simple form... He could not deal with how books overwhelm person with too much information... So Silman took that idea and expanded upon it, creating basically an easy to digest Chess Dictionary... It then goes into a short explanation of what the various chess notation symbols mean... This can be good for a starter since its easy to confuse !? with ?! :)... Then he gets into Chess notation, this part bothered me a bit to say the least... I wish he covered and explained descriptive notation since that was something I had lots of trouble understanding starting out... I think that would of helped someone staring out very much to say the least... Also make it easier for them to get older chess books and understand them... Still he covers modern notation rather well and in an easy to understand way... Then we get into the 4 main parts of the book... They consist of The Opening, The Middlegame, The Endgame, and Practical Matters... I will try to give a basic idea of what each one of these parts consist of... Part I The Opening... He deals with basic opening strategy, castling, development, fianchetto, then he gets into some opening systems... The coverage he gives on the openings he covers here is pretty minimal... At most he gives 1 or 2 pages with only a few moves mentioned... He tries to give basic ideas of the openings using words, instead of a page or two of variations... This can be good for someone new to the game, since its likely to now overwhelm them... The openings he touches on consist of Albin Counter Gambit, Alekhine Defense, Benko Gambit, Bogo-Indian Defense, Benko Gambit, Boring Opening(Reversed London System), Botvinnik Formation, Budapest Gambit, Caro-Kann Defense, Center-Counter Defense, Colle Opening, Czech Benoni, Dutch Defense, English Opening, Four Knights Opening, French Defense, Giuoco Piano, Grob, Gruenfeld Defense, Hedgehog Formation, King's Gambit, King's Indian Attack, King's Indian Defense, Larsen's Opening, Modern Benoni Defense, Nimzo-Indian Defense, Orangutan, Petroff Defense, Pirc Defense, Queen's Gambit(Chigorin system, accepted, declined), QGD(Capablanca's Freeing Maneuver, Tarrasch Defense), Queen's Indian Defense, Reti Opening, Ruy Lopez, Scotch Opening, Semi-Slav Defense, Sicilian Defense, Slav Defense, Stonewall Attack, Torre Attack, Trompowski Opening, Two Knight Defense, and the Veresov Opening... They are listed in alphabetical order so that makes looking them up rather easy... He also touches a bit on preperation and reversed openings... The part concludes with 20 quiz questions relating to openings... Part two The Middlegame deals with what comes after the opening... This part starts out talking about attacks on the enemy king... Castling on opposite sides, castling on the same side, and even the classic Bishop Sacrifice... He then gets into combinations and combinational themes... Stuff like Clearance Sacrifice, Decoy, Deflection, Double Attack, Fork, Pins/Skewers, Windmill, X-Rays, and Zwischenzug... He touches on King in the center and Kingside focal points next... After that he talks about Mating Net and Mating Patterns... He even lists several known mates, including Blackburne's, Boden's, and Pilsbury... This is good for a new player so he knows what people mean when they refer to these mates by name... Silman even talks a little bit about Sacrifice and Tactical Vision... Silman also gets into such things as Blockade, Candidate Moves/Imbalances, Centralization, Closed/Open Positions, Compensation, Counterplay, Defensive Strategy, Entombed Pieces, Initiative, Material Advantage, Minority Attack, Minor Pieces, Mysterious Rook Moves, Open Files, and Overprotection... He even touches on more neglected concepts to starters... Topics such as Pawn Center, Pawn Chain, Pawn Structure(Backward, Doubled, Isolated, Hanging, Passed, and Tripled Pawns), Pawn Islands, and Pawn Tension... After that he talks about Perpetual Check, Piece Activity, Plan, Principle of Two Weaknesses, Prophylaxis, Queenside Pawn Majority, Restriction, Space, Squares, Static Versus Dynamic Advantages, Support Points, Trading Pieces, and Traps... If your not sure about any of that stuff, or don't know what they mean... Perhaps this book might be something that will help you out... The part ends with a 33 question Quiz relating to Middlegame concepts... Again the coverage of the mentioned topics is rather on the brief side... Part III The Endgame talks about what comes after the middlegame... The topics he touches on in this chapter deals with the following... Bishop and Wrong Rook Pawn, Cat and Mouse, Exchanging, Minor Pieces in The Endgame, Passed Pawns in The Endgame(Queen Endgame, Pawn Majority and Outside Passed Pawn, Promotion and Underpromotion), Queen and Minor Piece Fights, Stalemate, Using the King(King and Pawn vs King, Opposition, Saving Pawn Moves, Square of The Pawn, Triangulation), and Using The Rooks(Active Rook, Lucena Position, Philidor Position, Rooks Behind Passed Pawns, Short and Long Side of The Board and Two Hogs on The Seventh)... Again the coverage is far from complete, but still it can get you started on right path... Also help prepare you to read a more detailed/difficult book on the topics... This part ends with a 10 question Quiz about Endgame matters... Part IV deals with Practical Matters where Silman talks about "invisible" facets to the game... He touches on such topics as Blunder, Draw Offer, Point Count, Psychology, and Time Pressure... He does preach to players to never give up and play to win... This part ends with a 10 question Quiz about Practical Matters that were covered... So this is a pretty good book for a newer chess player, the less you know the more it will help... If not for a few things I might of given the book 5 stars... Mostly the fact that he does not cover descriptive notation and the books name is very deceptive... If someone buys this thinking it is actually a Total Complete Guide of Chess Strategy, they will find over time there are many gaps... Also some of the coverage perhaps is a bit too brief to be helpful... The end of the book with the Questions and Answers to the Quizzes is rather nice... Instead of just printing the answers to them... This makes it rather easy to go over them without back and forth looking... Other starter books to consider might be Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess and The Mammoth Book of Chess... This book is nicely priced and you get good value for your dollar... Also remember Silman is rather easy to read and understand... Just realize this is more of a Dictionary than anything else... The book is very easy to Digest and Should at least help with Chess terms if nothing else... I might not agree with all Silman says, but I still think this is a good book with a deceptive title...

Each opening gets one short page, with a suggested strategy to follow the opening. It does a better job of getting you started on new openings than developing detailed strategies. I've had a lot of fun with some of the openings I hadn't seen before.

I think "The complete book of Chess strategy" is a primer to just that,Chess strategy. Now maybe the title is a bit misleading, "The complete book of Chess strategy",as a matter of fact it is because this book just scratches the surface of Chess strategy but for me that's good enough but that's what I wanted,it is not however "complete" in any way,one can argue that a whole set of books can be written on each element of Chess strategy he has in this book.I was looking for a book that would give me a definition or tell me what the basic Chess Strategy elements/devices are and this book does that for me. I think some sections are a bit too short, I think in some sections he should have gone into a bit more depth,the "Planning" section is one that I can think of off the top of my head but I'm sure there are more.However I'm not at all disappointed with the book,I haven't read it from cover to cover,I'm just skipping around in it right now. I did learn something from it today and I'm happy enough with that,what did I learn? the minority attack,I looked this up before a while back on youtube but I had forgot about it,and I looked it up again today in this book and well there it was,he had a couple of pages on it,so I played over the moves on my Chessboard. Here is what I learned:I learned that the "Minority Attack" is when 2 pawns on the Queenside attack 3 pawns on the opponent's Queenside,now normally it would seem like the side with 2 pawns is outnumbered and the side with the extra pawn should win. It's not that simple though,the side with 3 pawns,actually gets saddled with a weak pawn on c6 (from white's perspective,meaning white is the one deliving the "minority attack"),also C5 might become a weak square in Black's camp,meaning that would be a great home for a knight or a Bishop. The idea I think is that,as I said White saddles Black with a weak pawn,that pawn,later,then becomes a target,or an object of attack by White. Now you probably won't need to know about these things until you reach a certain level in Chess,which I'm not at yet,I'm at the,I need to keep drilling tactics stage. :) I mean but I think that it's still good to know and I learned something from this book,which to me suggests that I got my moneys worth and I think you would to if you sit down with your Chessboard and carefully and slowly go over som eof the examples in this book.So yeah I mean,this book is good enough for me,it's nice to know that you know what a minority attack is or overprotection or any element covered in this book,when you see them in your own games or when you see them in a game that you're going over,such as in a game collection etc.However those looking for a more deep study of Chess strategy should look elsewhere,perhaps you can try his (Jeremy Silman) "Reassess your Chess" or his Endgame book,you can't go wrong with either one. Also there are other good Chess strategy books out there as well,that go into indepth study. On the other hand if you're looking for a brief introduction to some of the seemingly myriads of Chess strategical elements and 1 or 2 examples for each one,then this book is for you,so it all comes down to what you're looking for.

Title Simms up my thoughts, recommended

This book is best for players with a pretty good knowledge of the game of chess already.

Another excellent chess coaching book from Silman. His "plain English" teaching style is great whether you're in the early stages of playing chess or having played for a longer time wanting to improve your game. I've loaned this book out to a few of my friends & they've all gotten useful info out of it.

I'm really enjoying this book about chess strategy, tactics, and openings. I'm not advanced enough to know if it should be considered complete, as the title says, but I've learned a lot. I recommend it. Please note that you will need to learn chess notation (algebraic notation) to get the most out of it--chess notation is probably easier than you think it is if you don't already know it.

This is a great book but I am finding it a tough read,. let me explain...I am not new to chess (I've been playing for years but more as a hobby) so I am still yet to even master the chess board grid (the letters/number) which for me is the biggest barrier in picking up the book repeatedly. To be fair, the book does give a good explanation at the beginning on the grid and how to read the moves.This book expects you to have this level of knowledge and of course if you don't then you will like me spend a lot of time trying to understand this rather than appreciating the learnings the author is trying to teach.The book itself has a series of popular opening, middle game and end game scenarios - so everything you need to increase your level.But as I said, it can be a tough read if you aren't versed in the basics like me.I am going to keep my copy because it is a good book but will pick it up again when I can read the chess board grid by heart including the chess moves.

i came to chess late in life, and went from a 1200ELO to 2100+ in a few years. yes, i played a lot, but i give a lot of the credit to Jeremy Silman's books for getting quickly and easily to the heart of the things every player needs to know. it's just a pity that the boards reproduce too small to be readable in the Kindle version...i guess if you have the Kindle Fire, it may be okay. but i'd try a sample of any electronic version first.this book is particularly good for giving a rough knowledge, summary and ideas behind the major openings, which avoids so many tournament blunders and lost time. this is my third copy (first one - given away in Cuba, second one in my London flat, third one with me), it's that invaluable. lower-rated players may will also find the rest of the book very helpful.this, Nimzowich's 'My System' and GM Chris Ward's 'Simple Chess' were the three books which most helped me improve quickly.

A good sized print book, (with plenty of illustrations.) Interesting chess book, without being too complicated. Happy with this purchase! Thanks.

a bit heavy going - but worth the effort

Best chess book i’ve Read. He is not a grandmaster but international master and better than me. He explains things really well. Improving my game online as I get back to competitive chess after a 20 year break