Improve Your Chess Now

Rating:
Summary: Improve your chess, not next Monday, not tomorrow, NOW!!!!!!
Review: Finally, a thinking method that works! It is simple, flexible, and realistic, very human unlike Kotov and Silman's suggestions. The chapter on "stepping stones" and visualization are excellent, as well as all the mating patterns in the appendex. A great book to improve your game.

Rating:
Summary: Improve your chess, not next Monday, not tomorrow, NOW!!!!!!
Review: Finally, a thinking method that works! It is simple, flexible, and realistic, very human unlike Kotov and Silman's suggestions. The chapter on "stepping stones" and visualization are excellent, as well as all the mating patterns in the appendex. A great book to improve your game.

Rating:
Summary: Improve your chess, not next Monday, not tomorrow, NOW!!!!!!
Review: Finally, a thinking method that works! It is simple, flexible, and realistic, very human unlike Kotov and Silman's suggestions. The chapter on "stepping stones" and visualization are excellent, as well as all the mating patterns in the appendex. A great book to improve your game.

Rating:
Summary: Not Your Run-Of-The-Mill Instructional Book
Review: I agree that this book is not really for novices or players below, say, 1700 USCF. I was reluctant to purchase this book at first because how many times can we go over the same concepts and practical advice ("Study master games. Study your games. Read books on positional play. Solve combinations." And so on...)? But Tisdall writes engagingly about the confusion we all experience once we leave the sterile, analysed positions in our texts (Chapter 1). He offers a way to develop that "vision thing" through blindfold chess (Chapter 2). And if we mess up? Playing bad positions (Chapter 3). When we're at the board, can we recognize patterns that will give us ideas on how to proceed? (Chapter 4). Chapter 5 shows how piece values change during the game. The last chapter is concerned with various practical tips that every chessplayer could use now and then. This is not your standard, "here are the laws of chess" text. It does not treat you like a child and say, "Study x hours, read y books, etc."

Rating:
Summary: What's so great about this?
Review: I must have missed the boat on this book.I did not care for it and found it to beboring.Improve NOW by what method??If the tree of analysis is flawed, then what is it's replacement?The best part was Carville's quote- THATapplies to chess very well!!You can have my copy of this if you want --- I won't miss it...

Rating:
Summary: One of the BEST chess books ever !
Review: I think that this book is the best I have ever read ....If for no other reason that it made me really think about chess...and fed me with many new ideas on how to improve. For example, the use of stepping squares...ie picturing a position in ones mindseye and then calculating the next several moves in ones head...and using the "original" position as a stepping stone so that one could go back to it if need be...combine the ideas in this book with say the 3 books by Laszlo Polgar and you'd really improve your game in my opinion

Rating:
Summary: Recommended for slight advanced players
Review: The noted author International Master Jeremy Silman calls Grandmaster Jon Tisdall a more "human" Chess master than the stars such as Morozevich, Kramnik and Leko who seemingly don't have to work as hard. One does indeed get that feeling from reading "Improve Your Chess Now" in that it details what the ordinary joe can do to improve, with much work, their Chess abilities. Tisdall has put a lot of work into the production of his book almost to the point that we can say it was a labour of love. It is filled with insightful observations and numerous tips on how to get better. Particularly interesting are his theories on blindfold Chess and to what extent it can help improve one's game (read the book to find out!). Unfortunately, your average Chess player may not be able to adequately utilise the material in the book but for those more advanced players who can, it will become an indispensible manual for how to play Chess and still be human.

Rating:
Summary: Recommended for slight advanced players
Review: The noted author International Master Jeremy Silman calls Grandmaster Jon Tisdall a more "human" Chess master than the stars such as Morozevich, Kramnik and Leko who seemingly don't have to work as hard. One does indeed get that feeling from reading "Improve Your Chess Now" in that it details what the ordinary joe can do to improve, with much work, their Chess abilities. Tisdall has put a lot of work into the production of his book almost to the point that we can say it was a labour of love. It is filled with insightful observations and numerous tips on how to get better. Particularly interesting are his theories on blindfold Chess and to what extent it can help improve one's game (read the book to find out!). Unfortunately, your average Chess player may not be able to adequately utilise the material in the book but for those more advanced players who can, it will become an indispensible manual for how to play Chess and still be human.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best book I have ever read.
Review: The very first time I touched this book I realized it would be a nice journey on the realms of fresh ideas in chess teaching. The author knows exactly when and how to stress some new ideas, and we follow him, learning new concepts and views in this wonderful game/sport. I have learned a lot, specially ideas on blidfold chess to perfect ones's calculating power. I thank Mr. Tisdall for such a good book, looking forward for the next one he will, certainly, write soon.

Rating:
Summary: One of the BEST chess books ever !
Review: This book gets high praise from both amateur and professional chess players, but I found it not nearly as useful as John Nunn's Secrets of Practical Chess. Nunn's is the better book and thats all you really need to know. Tisdall rehashes various theoretical methods of calculating variations and choosing the "right" move, and provides so many examples its impossible to determine what material is really essential. My copy of Tisdall's book is 224 pages long and should have been edited down to quite a fewer number of pages. John Nunn's book is superior and covers much of the same material with a clearer writing style and essential examples of over-the-board faults and their remedy.