Rating: 
Summary: Finally beat your chess computer!
Review: Tired of losing to your chess computer at the easy level? Finally give your copy of Chessmaster a run for its money by learning solid chess tactics from Reassess Your Chess. This book promises if you put its teachings into practice you can achieve master level. But I know most of you reading this would just like to play better and this is the best book I know of to help you learn to play at a level that lets you compete with other players without completely embarassing yourself. You can play and lose over and over if you don't know why. Jeremy Silman will give you the fundamentals you need to know. But most importantly he will teach you an entirely new way to think about the game. Each chapter outlines how to put each of the pieces in its most advantageous position on the board. Your thinking will quickly shift from trying to capture your opponents best pieces to accumulating positional advantages that prevent your opponent from walking all over you, and put you in a winning situation. You will even know when to let your opponent take a valuable piece. There are no openings or end game positions to memorize. This book teaches you how to see the board and think like a master player so you can find the best moves at any stage of the game. Jeremy Silman's writing style couldn't be easier or more friendly to follow. Some Chess books will put you to sleep but you will be hooked on this one because you will already be playing a much better game by the time you get to page thirty. The saddest part of this book is before long your friend who used to take pleasure in watching you squirm and strain over your next move won't want to play with you anymore when you start beating them regularly. If you want to play better chess, regardless of your level you can't pick a better book than Reassess Your Chess.
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Summary: How to Reassess Your Chess - A Complete Course to Chess Mast
Review: MY BACKGROUND: Rated high B (1760 -- performance rating in last 4 tournaments). I've read 14 books since I last played in a tournament, and am probably around "Expert" ("2100"). I also coach a high school chess team.The List of 51 books for continued study at the end will rudder you to "Master." For beginner to "B," the book will probably add 300 to 400 points. An "A" player or "Expert" will appreciate the nuances of knight and rook play, and the suggested reading list at the end. Even a master might appreciate "spying" on another master's suggested reading for the middle game and end game play. The book in general is a good overview, with insights better than other positional books. Don't be turned off by the phrase "positional" - "positional" means positions allowing for a successful attack - or to be attacked if you're not leary. Minor advantages over other positional books: 1) How to squash 2 knights (or knight & bishop) with 2 bishops; 2) Getting a rook to the 6th rank; 3) ways in which weak pawns can be used as an advantage. Topics: 1) Basic Endgames: A) King & Pawn; B) Rook & Pawn. 2) Thinking Techniques: A) What is a Plan? B) Imbalances 3) Calculation & Combinations: A) Calculation & training - Nowhere Near "The Inner Game of Chess" or "Think Like a Grandmaster," but a useful comment or 2; B) Rules of combination -- 1/20th of a combinations book, but a few useful comments. 4) Minor Pieces in the Middle Game: A) Using the Bishop; B) Understanding N's; C) B vs. N; D) The power of 2 B's; E) 2 N's 5) Space: A) Squeezing; B) Disadvantage of Space; C) Block Before You Punch 6) The Center: A) The Center under Sige; B) The Indestructible Center. 7) Weak Pawns & Strong Pawns: A) Doubled Pawns; B)Isolated Pawns; C) Bakward Pawns; D) Passed Pawns. 8) Weak Squares: A) The Creation of A Weakness; B) Making Use of a Weak Square. 9) Material Loss & Sacrifice: A) Exchangin Material for Other Imbalanaces; B) Making Use of Extra Material 10) Temporary Imbalances: A) Slow Play vs. Fast Play -- Static vs. Dynamic. B) A lead in development; C) Initiative. 11) Open Files: A) Penetration down an open file; B) Domination of Open Files. 12) 3 Keys to Success: A) Mastering Positon With Many Types of Imbalances; B) Preventing Counterplay; C) The Art of Fighting Back; 13) Using Imbalances in Every Phase of the Game: A) Opening; B) Ending; C) Imbalances That Last Until the end game. I strongly agree with his recommendation to read "The Art of the Middle Game" by Keres & Kotov. Kotov's section on the 5 considerations when castling on opposite sides is inidispensable. Kotov's section on how to form a plan depending on the center structure is also classic.
Rating:
Summary: A Modern Classic
Review: Don't let the other reviews let you believe that this book isn't for everyone. Sure, a grandmaster who has spent years of studying might not spend much time on any book. But even the great Mikhail Tal routinely went through books on the basics and found them useful. This is a book that will absolutely help you understand chess better and help you improve your chess-playing ability. You might ask why? The answer is very simple, Jeremy Silman is a teacher. Many confuse his humor with arrogance, but basically he is revealing the secrets many other chess writers are unwilling to share or simply cannot share because they don't know how to teach. Of the three hundred chess books I currently own, this certainly is in the top ten. If you don't think this is one of the best chess books that you've gone through, I'll eat a bug!! Note: I'm a tournament player at roughly a USCF rating just under expert with my highest single tournament performance rating at roughly 2300. The 2300 performance tournament success was just after I read Jeremy's book the first time.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Choice
Review: This is a book that can be of use to just about anyone rated under 1800. Having looked at many other books of its ilk, I have found this to do the best job at explaining how to best work with the pieces. Of greatest significance for me was the explanation of imbalances. In the past I suffered from the situation where one gets out of the opening, looks at the board, and says, "Okay, now what." By understanding the imablances that exist, I have been able to select targets for my attack that work because I understand how to expoint them, as opposed to them working by chance. Less than a third of the way into the book, I finally understand where the power of the bishop lies, and just now finished a game where I used the crushing power of the knight on the 6th rank to ignite a devistating attack. I would highly recommend getting the book from the library (you should be able to find it through interlibrary loan) and read the first 50 pages. If you are like me, you will see that this is a book to read again and again, and will make the purchase.
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Summary: Discuss Jeremy's book with the man himself :)
Review: Hi all This is a great book, which at its core teaches very dramatically the concept of "imbalances". It has become as renound as Nimzovich's My System, but unlike Nimzovich's book is written in a very easy to read and accessible way. Because Jeremy Silman is now a super-star in Chess, I personally asked him to play an instructive several month long "Rest of World" match at www.letsplaychess.com where you can message him about the book, and vote moves against him and ask him questions about "Imbalances". The current game score as of 21st April 2004 is:- [Event "www.ChessWorld.net server game"]
[Site "www.ChessWorld.net "]
[Date "2003.12.31"]
[Round "NA"]
[White "IM Jeremy Silman"]
[Black "Rest of World"]
[Result "*"]
[Termination "in progress"]
[Mode "ICS"]
[DateLastMove "2004.4.17"]
[ECO "E12"]
[Board "434057"] 1. d4 Ng8f6 2. c4 e6 3. Ng1f3 b6 4. a3 Bc8b7 5. Nb1c3 d5 6. cxd5 Nf6xd5 7. Qd1c2 Nd5xc3 8. bxc3 Nb8d7 9. e4 c5 10. Bc1f4 cxd4 11. cxd4 Ra8c8 12. Qc2b3 Bf8e7 13. Bf1d3 Nd7f6 14. Qb3b5 Bb7c6 15. Qb5b1 O-O 16. O-O Qd8d7 17. Rf1e1 Bc6a4 18. Bf4d2 h6 19. Bd2b4 * There is also now a specialised team to discuss his book as well. Best wishes
Tryfon Gavriel
Rating: 
Summary: Book review in portuguese
Review: - Um livro surpreendente - a começar pelo tamanho (402 páginas). Também me surpreendeu o fato de me manter motivado o bastante para lê-lo de capa a capa, ao contrário, por exemplo, do antigo ' Assess Your Chess Fast ' do ex-campeão mundial postal Alberic O'Kelly de Galway, este sim, um livro muito chato, em notação descritiva em inglês (P-KB4, N-QB3...). A visão de Silman e seus comentários são bastante lúcidos e o seu ponto forte é sem dúvida o toque didático que lhes imprime. O cerne do livro está em fazer o aficcionado entender o conceito de "imbalances" - e se o mesmo não conseguir, está lá a definição do termo em bom inglês no glossário do livro, o que é uma raridade em se tratando de livros de Xadrez. Silman usa muitos exemplos retirados de suas próprias partidas, e embora vários de seus adversários não tenham jogado os melhores lances, ele transforma uma partida que certamente não iria para o Informator em uma lição memorável. Ao final existe uma lista de livros recomendados para leitura, todos com algum breve comentário. O livro é recheado de posições para teste e as respostas são bem elaboradas verbalmente, o que deve ter colaborado em muito para a grande aceitação deste volume entre os leitores de língua inglesa. É uma pena que um livro de xadrez tão bem escrito não tenha tradução para o português.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book! (counter point to the proceeding review)
Review: You don't hire a lion to do your mousing... I'm a chess player in the 1550 range. I used to be better but let my attentions slide over the last few years. I felt my sticking point had always been that I was a purely tactical player and wanted to find ways to reassess board positions with an eye to subtlety. I found Silman's books to be the most readable I've ever read on chess. While Fritz 7 may be able to crush some of Silman's plans, his books are not meant to instruct 2600 players. Just as Nigel Short's excellent introduction to chess states that the goals are to develop your pieces quickly and castle early and leaves the subtleties to other texts, so Silman's ideas have their own level of subtlety beyond which they were not designed to venture. The rules of his 'system' have their counter examples as do the rules of any system. As Kasparov once said, the way to beat a computer is to work out its rules, and then find a counter example. He could do that with Fritz 7 just as Fritz 7 could do it with Silman. But this fact is not relevant for me, or anyone else who is considering this book. For me, Silman lays out ideas that needed more of my attention than they were getting and shows me how to apply those ideas to every-day games. It's true that knowing how to balance these ideas with each other and with tactical plans is still something that has to be done by 'touch', but Silman's explanation of seemingly equal positions in terms of 'imbalances' has been an extremely useful analysis tool for me. Don't worry about typos. Don't worry about his moves being sub-optimal for a 2600 player. If I see a baby running before it can walk I don't say "It's going in the right direction". I say "There's a baby that's about to fall on it's head. Pass me a beer!". So if you can't follow through on your single 2600 level move with the rest of the 2600 level combination, then it would be better for you to have plodded through with a coherent system, that you can adapt and refine after you have mastered its basics. BTW - I'm also a Huge fan of the companion workbook to HTRYC. It's the only book I've ever read that doesn't require a chess board while not being simply about tactical combinations (and generally mating patterns). As Silman put it "White to mate in 2 often appears in books, but we often miss the mate in real play because nobody is giving us this enormous clue". His board positions require all kinds of positional analysis and even some tactical analysis (though probably not as much as I'd like, as this lack is its own hint to not search for tactical solutions). And while I confess to being impressed with the arguments put forth in the following review (he convinced me to buy the 2 tactical training books he mentioned) I'd be interested to hear his assessment of the examples in other books that don't feature grandmaster play (and even ones that do), when held under the critical gaze of Fritz 7. And as for Silman's examples appearing elsewhere, I coulnd't care less. I'm not out to buy the original. I want the most articulate instruction. And Silman is all that and a bag of chips... If you're considering this book then I believe you should almost certainly buy it!
Rating:
Summary: This is a great book
Review: This is one of my favorite chess books. This book taught me a lot about chess. After reading this book I really started looking at chess positions differently. I was no longer a "king hunter" going all out for mate in every game. This book starts off by looking at some very basic "king and pawn" endgames and "king and rook" endgames. After this the book deals with the question how a player should look at a position when he/she is trying to understand it so a proper plan can be conceived. This part of the book is unique. No other chess book deals with this subject in such detail. After reading this chapter I realized that Jeremy Silman really understands how a non-master feels when looking at a chess position. After explaining a simple method of "looking" at a chess position (i.e. dissecting a chess position!) and conceiving a plan, the book asks the question when a player should calculate variations and when a player should be looking for combinations. After this, the book turns into a middlegame book dealing with traditional middlegame subjects like the minor pieces, the center, space, weak pawns, weak squares, the initiative, lead in development, the use of open files and more. The book also contains about 38 exercises and the solutions to these exercises. Some reviewers here at Amazon.com have said that the book contains many typos. I must disagree. The book does contain some typos but not as many as implied by some of these reviewers. Some reviewers have also said that this book is a hard read. I was very surprised to read this as I have read this book many times and every time I re-read it, I enjoy the book even more. The book does contain a lot of information in it's 400+ pages, but Jeremy Silman's writing style made it all easy for me to digest. I really love this book. It has had a profound impact on my playing. I would recommend this book to any intermediate player who want's a basic understanding of positional chess. After completing this book I highly recommend Jeremy Silman's "Reassess you Chess Workbook".
Rating:
Summary: Chess Textbook
Review: I think 'Reassess your chess' is a CHESS TEXTBOOK !
Rating: 
Summary: Good but not great
Review: I consider this book to offer a good insight into how to analyze. However, there sometimes are areas in the book that are unclear and there are some significant typos.
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