How to Reassess Your Chess: Chess Mastery Through Chess Imbalances

First a little about me: I'm in the 1400 to 1600 range. I haven't read the original HTRYC, so I can't make any comparisons. I've spent over 100 hours going over this book from cover to cover. Second a little about the book: The book is on positional chess (aka the middle game). It's not about tactics or checkmates. It's about how to recognize key differences in your position versus your opponent's position and how to develop a strategy to make your position dominate your opponents. The book is divided into sections of positional principles (example: recognizing targets and fixing them as permanent a weakness). For each principle, several games are given as an example that highlights the particular topic. Silman's commentary is excellent. Often he analyzes a position by talking only about ideas without even mentioning particular moves. This was the most helpful part of the book for me. He also gives a lot of variations many of which I quickly glossed over. As a reader, you will have to study the book based on your level. At my level, the ideas are the most important, and I shouldn't get sidetracked with variations. At the end of each chapter/positional idea, there are test questions. At first, I thought the problems were really hard, and I couldn't solve many of them. But going over the answers which are explained very well both with ideas and variations was really helpful. Towards the end of the book, I was able to at least partially solve almost every problem even the ones that were rated 2000+. I didn't always find the correct moves, or the correct move orders, but I was able to evaluate the position and understand the ideas behind the position (what should be white's strategy and what should be black's strategy and what moves make sense for both sides). Sometimes I picked the 2nd best move, etc but I was still picking good moves that addressed the positional battle! Style: The writing and style are excellent. Silman uses conversational English and a coaching tone that is pleasant. It's obvious that he's passionate about positional chess and really enjoys teaching it. The book is fun to read. The book itself is large with a nice amount of white space that makes it easy to study. Is it for you? Silman recommends this book for 1400 to 2100 range. I can't speak for the upper range, but the book was definitely challenging and beneficial for me. I'm going to completely re-read it in about six months and go over each lesson much more slowly and carefully (100hrs is sprinting through this book). If aren't already very comfortable with the basics, tactics, and checkmate patterns, pick up a few books on tactics and solve 1000 tactical problems first and then get this book. Like me, you won't get everything the first time through, but you will learn to properly think about chess and develop a strategy. Could it be better? I would have benefited from more analysis in English (instead of an explanation in algebriac notation) and discussion of ideas, and fewer variations, but realize this is coming from my level. Higher level readers will need the variations. Ideas must be tactically sound and if you are analyzing master games, you must demonstrate that the idea is tactically sound. As it stands, this book is a masterpiece which I will re-read many times.

I have always enjoyed chess, but always played casually. I always intended to get better and study more to improve my game. Like many chess students with good intentions I found my chess library growing around me but my game staying stagnant. As the chess book pile grew so did my intentions. I would open a book and work through the lessons never quite understanding why none of it would stick. I found some improvement through Mr. Silmans 3rd edition works and began trying to use his "thinking techniques." As I practiced the lessons on imbalances my game moved from move by move chess into the realm of seeing the board more clearly and understanding what was going on in a position. Fast forward to this year... I was asked to help out with a National level High School chess program who had won a championship in 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2007. It was time for me to get serious. I noticed at this time that Mr. Silman had released a 4th edition of his work and saw on the cover that it stated that it was completely rewritten. I purchased the book and decided this was the moment I was going to work as hard as ever learning the game. Too much intro and too little review, yes I know, I know... *Cough* ok so away we go... What an amazing book!! Never in all my studies has chess been so clearly presented in a way that any student could find joy and advancement. Mr. Silman has taken his old "techniques" and found a way, not only to teach them, but to stick them solidly in your brain. During my games I can actually hear comments made in this book. Lessons are open in such a wonderful way. This rework is not only an improvement on his old information it is a teacher with years and years of implementing his lessons and over time finding just the way to make a student retain them. Since my studies began this year, I have joined a chess club as an unrated amature and beaten some solid players. Part 4 of the book Psychological Meanderings is worth the cost of this book alone. The week I studied this section I went into chess club with the lessons on stepping beyond fear, mental breakdown, macho chess, etc, fresh on my mind and found myself across the board from a 1927 rated player. Suddenly Mr. Silman was in my head saying, "Rating nothing... This guy is rubbish... Just play the board..." So off we went... I sit here looking down at the score sheet with this unrated amature winning in 25 moves. To hear the 1927 look up red faced and say, "That... That was just too much pressure... I... I just messed up." and to smile up and say, "Not bad for a beginner, huh?" was awesome. Throughout the game Mr. Silman's lessons were always coming to my mind. My mind was working through comments like, "Look if I can stop that pawn I can make that Bishop useless," His Knight would love that square I better take it away now and that would be two very useless pieces," and my favorite, "Wow if I sack that exchange look what it does for my position and look how active my pieces become!" Some other important aspects of this book are the following... Current examples for every lesson from every rating category, examples have the opening sequence of moves listed up to the important lesson for the position so you can actually see how the players arrived to the moment you are learning from, at the end of every chapter is a set of tests similar to what the workbook was to 3rd edition with answers fully explained in the back of the book (almost like having an additional book within a book), many examples per lesson to help get the material to stick, a well thought out order to the delivery of material. So much more... I guess the best way to sum this book up is, to me, "this one is it," the chess book every learning chess student should own. Mr. Silman is a fabulous teacher with a wonderful delivery. Thank you, Mr. Silman for taking the time to give us this work. With every good review should come a section of things wrong with the book I suppose, but as I sit here I struggle to find them. It is what it claims to be and nothing more. You will not get an opening repetoire, an endgame diatribe, or a brilliant tactical guide, but what you will get is an understanding of what a position is calling for and where your plan should be centered toward, where the weaknesses are on both sides of the board, a thinking method to know what advantages and disadvantages matter at this very moment, and a clear picture to help you see through what Josh Waitzkin calls the "black and white jungle." Enjoy!

I have owned some great things in my life: a plasma screen TV, a BMW, automatic watches. These are the kinds of items that satisfy every time I use them because their craftsmanship and quality is so good. Without hyperbole, this book is just like that. The first thing you'll notice about this book is that attention has been paid to every detail. The book is big and heavy. The paper is good quality (I have read many chess books that seem like they are printed on newsprint). And space abounds to write in the margins if you're so inclined. "So what?" you say, "I want to learn to be good at chess." My friends, apply this book's principles and your play will greatly improve. Mine did. I'd heard about Silman for years, but I always mentally shrugged and thought, "I'm happy Nimzowitsch's instruction, thank you very much." What a mistake! Silman gets it. This book helped me improve by leaps and bounds. Silman's ideas break down the game in a systematic way that makes it easier for you to formulate a plan and assess where the deficiencies in your game lie. I'm not just talking about the overall deficiencies in your game, though the book does richly address those areas, but also the deficiencies in any particular position in your games. REASSESS teaches you to look at what the board is telling you and to react accordingly to fundamental chess principles (i.e., imbalances). The instruction is terrific. And Silman's writing style is easy and entertaining, which will help you to enjoy and comprehend the information presented. Further, the book is written so that you will learn and remember the important points. REASSESS, unlike many chess books, doesn't merely present useful information, but it truly aims to help you absorb and retain what you read. For example, dear old Nimzowitsch presents great information. That information is given in the context of games and examples. So, if he talks about the importance of rooks on open files, for example, he shows what he means through an illustrative game, then moves on to the next topic. This is good, but I often find myself asking "what was the important point of those five pages of information?" Every chess book provides a lot context for the main point it's trying to make--the point that you must understand, remember and apply if it's to be of any use to you. If I study diligently, I underline the important points for later review. But as Ferris Bueller says of life, if you don't stop and look around [for the point of the lesson], you could miss it. Silman makes sure you won't miss it. REASSESS YOUR CHESS has clearly marked bullet points that give the themes and important points, which ensures that they don't get lost in the text. These bullet points are scattered throughout the chapters, but are also helpfully listed in summation at each chapter's end. This is tremendously useful, if you, like me, need to repeat information numerous times before it sinks in. This also saves me from sussing through and highlighting what I think is vitally important for later review. The author has done this work for me. As the final and crucial instruction point, Silman gives various exercises to try on your own to test what you have learned and identify what you need to work on. In the ANSWERS TO THE TEST section, Silman carefully annotates which move is correct and why. This is invaluable as it really makes sure that you have learned what has been taught. So often after reading chess material I think "got it," but in the game, I don't remember. These exercises safeguard against this kind of overconfident reading. This book's motto is "show me what you have learned, don't tell me." In conclusion, REASSESS (1) is asthetically pleasing, (2) is made of high quality materials, (3) is formatted with annotation in mind, (4) gives top notch instruction, (5) highlights and summarizes the salient points for you, and (6) gives exercises to train you to apply what you've learned. Wow! Silman has carefully and thoughtfully considered what will help you to best improve at chess. I cannot recommend it enough!

It's a great book, providing a wealth of information about chess strategy. The Target Consciousness section answers the question, "How can I win a game without attacking the opponent's safe king?" I learned a lot and feel like I've improved. My only problem with the book is the poor paper quality and the poor paperback quality.

This review is for the FOURTH AND FINAL EDITION of this book. I do have an older third edition as well, and I will compare the two. There are plenty of reviews written about the quality of this book (older editions included), and I rate the book 5 stars for its content. However, I am not here to go into detail about that, but rather focus on the differences between editions. The book contents are made up of the following parts: The Concept of Imbalances. Minor Pieces, Rooks, Psychological Meanderings, Target Consciousness, Statics vs. Dynamics, Space, Passed Pawns, and Other Imbalances. Each part is further broken down into specifics and is concluded with a summary and test questions. The big differences between editions...This is an oversized book, much larger and 250 pages longer than the 3rd edition. The layout and size is just like Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner To Master . Larger print and more white space - I find this makes it much easier to read. The graphic designer should be commended. The 4th edition goes much more in depth (!!) about the concept of imbalances and guiding you to the correct plan. The main theme is the same as the older editions, but Silman gives it a new feel with updated ideas and ALL NEW examples. Silman writes it himself, he "literally wrote this fourth edition from scratch". Another huge change is the addition of Chess Psychology, 90 pages long! Silman claims many of these ideas have never been seen in any chess book before. The 4th edition does not include a Basic Endgames section like his 3rd edition. I believe it has no place in this book anyway and is covered in more detail in the previously mentioned work! He chopped this section and other parts that "distracted from the book's main purpose: mastering the imbalances". The 4th edition is more humorous! From drunken knights to passed bananas, he will keep you interested with some laughs along the way. Again, similar to his endgame course! In the rear.... Silman added 33 pages of instructive articles where he takes some important pieces of writing from his Q&A column on chess.com. Some articles are Creating a Study Program, Proper Tournament Diet, Offering a Draw, and Is Chess a Gentleman's Game? This is a little bit odd considering he wanted to cut out any distractions. Unnecessary, but interesting nevertheless. Perhaps Silman wanted to give his column a shout out. On the other hand, the Index of Concepts is a great addition. If one of your games has a Rook for Minor Piece or Isolated Pawn, you can look up this concept in the index and find the listed pages to learn more about it. Bibliography and Index of Players/Games are included as well. Silman recommends this book for USCF rated 1400-2100. And I agree! Being about 1900 USCF rated, I am reviewing and learning plenty. I listened to IM John Watson's interview with IM Jeremy Silman on the Internet Chess Club. Great interview! I won't take away too much from it but I will add that Silman says, "If I am going to be known for one book, I wanted something I was really pleased with, and I am pleased with this." I am too! If you don't have a copy of Reassess Your Chess, then this is a great buy. If you have an older edition, there is enough new material and ideas with fresh examples to reassess all over again. ---- I think it would be great if amazon let you read the introduction online. Silman sums up the differences there as well.

The fourth edition of the famous: "Reasess." Already having purchased the massive softcover version, I also bought the Kindle version some time later, since it is better for travelling. The book is a classic. Like Nimzo's My System is a classic, and for the same reason: it takes individual understandings that, considered individually, might be discovered elsewhere, and then combines them in a well-organized and original way. The fourth edition seems to have changed mostly to focus, unmistakeably, adamantly, on one idea that bypasses chess fluff: it helps us to learn the positional features -- which the author artfully calls the "imbalances," to stress that each player will usually find in a given game that different features favor him or her compared to those that favor the opponent -- and then to THINK about the favorable features that appear. This simplified approach can lead to a provisional plan that might be short or longer. In other words, he seems to teach us to think in a way that is consistent with how people actually think and create: by musing over the discovered concrete differences available in a situation! This seems to help me from the first moves to the last, although of course it supplements - and helps sometimes to understand more clearly - other sorts of opening, tactical and engame knowledge. In a word, it helps me "plan" in a natural way. Now, in order to plan, the author's short, clearly presented list of potential positional imbalances / features can serve as a simple, useful checklist. Is his list the only list possible? Is it utterly comprehensive? I can't say and I don't care. It is good enough to be very helpful and to provide one way to get one's bearings on the storm-tossed sea of chess. Does it make the study of tactics and opening theory unnecessary? Does it dispense with the need to calculate? Of course not! But, pricelessly, it allows us to discover, on our own, like the creative, curious chess players that we are, what might be WORTH calculating -- in what direction we might USEFULLY calculate. His refined newer approach might seem less hand-holding and structured to some. But, at least in my own opinion, it is far simpler and more realistic than some other approaches to "thinking like a master." I actually use it, and it helps me. Chess is art, not paint by numbers. Given the huge number of mostly very favorable reviews already posted for this book, this will likely be read by few, if any. But after starting to read the book yet again, I felt an urge to say thank you to the author, who I will likely never meet or know. Thanks for being among those authors (fortunately there are others) who genuinely try to clarify and help, and who don't just data-dump or otherwise hide or play carelessly with the ball.

I've been playing chess for 3 years on line and I've hit a brick wall of trained club players. My on-line rank is somewhere in the 1400 to 1600 range depending on the site and whenever I play players above that range, I get my chess clock cleaned. I've worked my way through Silman's wonderful Endgame book, and I bought the Reassess book with the expectation that it would "reassess my chess" and allow me to move up the ranks. My second expectation was that I could read this book on an airplane or lying down or if I had time to kill, the bathroom. I thought it would directly improve my score by 100 points. It's not that type of book. Although some of the concepts are basic (like getting your knight to an outpost or opening up lines for your rooks and bishops), you need to be at least a 1400 (and that's pushing the low end of the scale) to fully appreciate the concepts of this book and integrate them into your game. So if you buy this book, expect to pull out your chess set or create positions on your chess software because this is more like a chess course. It is a book about positional chess, but make no mistake about it, you need to be tactically skilled to obtain the positions that give you the advantages Silman talks about. Each position is dominate because it is tactically sound. If you try to obtain a dominate position using your new found positional skills sans tactics, you will find your wonderfully dominate bishop swapped off the board or find your positions overrun by tactically skilled players. So let's paint a different picture. Let's say you are really serious about moving up the chess ladder. You are solving 50 tactical puzzles a day. You're improving your opening play by studying your opening systems in depth. You've worked your way through Silman's Endgame book. You've played 2000+ on-line games or competed in several tournaments. Now's the time to pick up this book. If, in conjuction with the efforts above, you work through this book like you would a college course, you will find yourself mopping up weaker players in 8-16 moves and yes, finally competing with those 1600+ players. Believe me, they've read the book too. You can see Silman's influence in their games. You will also understand loftier things like weak squares, backward pawns and pawn cascades and how to make your pieces relevant to the position at hand. You will find yourself saying things like - gee F3 may be the ideal home for the knight, but on H2, at least the useless stead is out of the way of my bigger guns behind it and I can rotate it to a more useful square after that. You will also find that you start trading one advantage or imbalance for another. Hey, maybe a certain move collapses your central control, but you realize you can trade that for a passed pawn on the 6th rank. Is that worth it? Yes, let's go for it. Finally, this book will also allow you properly analyze master games with a much better sense of what is going on. But...make no make about it, you've got to be the one to put in the effort, you've got to be the one doing the reassessing. Silman gives you the tools but you've got to build the house.

This is one of the best books on chess that I have ever read, and I have read several. The other great book was Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, which is much more basic, but a must read. IM Silman helped me get over the hurdle of what to do in the middle game. Before reading his book I would develop my pieces then be like “Now what?” in my head. I would typically make a stupid move which would deteriorate my position and begin my demise, unless my opponent did something stupid first. Now I can look at the board, evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of both sides, then make moves to increase the imbalance. This book has opened up a whole new world of chess for me and my rating is going up. A note on my playing skills: I am around 1600 on Chess.com playing daily chess. The only tournaments I played in were small tournaments that my college club put on. I played club players in college twice a week for most of college. Otherwise I played online chess. After reading this book (and I skipped a lot), the game is so much simpler. I can simply turn the screws on my opponent’s position until I win. No more “random” pawn or piece moves. I highly recommend this book to any intermediate player. It is worth your time.