How to Reassess Your Chess: The Complete Chess-Mastery Course

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Summary: Excellent book on chess imbalances and thinking
Review: This is an excellent book on strategy and planning, concentrating on the imbalances in a chess position. Obviously borrowing from Nimsovitch, Pachman, and others, it's the clear presentation and focus on thinking techniques and planning that helps. I found that my game improved when following his thinking technique: don't calculate first! Find the imbalances, dream up a position to take advantage of it, then look for candidate moves, and so on. I highly recommend this for anyone who's looking for a better way to plan in a chess game and wishes for better understandings of positions.

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Summary: A classic every chess player should own!!
Review: The word "classic" should be reserved for those few book which fit the criteria, and one criterion is that everyone should own a copy. Silman's book fits that description. His style and detailed explanations hit his targeted audience exactly--the average chess player. The book describes his method for improving: a thinking process using "imbalances"--any difference between the white and black position (Silman's definition). Silman then devotes about eight chapters explaining in detail the elements of strategy which will likely lead to imbalances: minor pieces, space, the center, weak and strong pawns, weak squares, material, temporary imbalances (lead in development or the initiative), and open lines. He closes the book with "Three Keys to Success" and a discussion of how imbalances look in the opening, middlegame, and endgame. Any chess player who repeatedly studies the material in this book, and plays regularly against strong players, will certainly rise to Expert level of play. Silman is to be congradulated for both writing a modern treatise on chess strategy and for explaining to amateur chess players how to employ such strategies in their games.

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Summary: The One Chess Book to Buy
Review: I have read many good (and not so good) chess books in an effort to improve my game. The list includes great books like "My System" by Nimzovich and Kotov's "Think Like a Grandmaster". No single book I have read is nearly as approachable for the lower rated player without sacrificing substance as "How to Reassess Your Chess". And no other book I have read explains and illustrates as many useful and important concepts as this book does. Here are a few: - How to play simple pawn/rook endgames - How to spot combinations - How to judge and use the imbalances in a position. - Minor piece relationships - Weak and strong squares Once you read Silman's work, you will know how to formulate a plan, and with some discipline, you should see your game improve. After hard work and forcing myself to look at games as Silman sugests, I did! If like many of us you have limited time to study and limited financial resources to spend in chess books, this is the one book you should get and read and read and read...

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Summary: Reassess is a modern classic
Review: I know many players of intermediate strength (i.e., 1400-1800 elo) who have read Silman's "Reassess," and all of them value it. It's only a small overstatement to suggest that the book may be the "My System" of the 90s.

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Summary: This is the book you've been looking for
Review: If you understand the basic strategies of chess but don't seem to be getting better, buy this book. It is much easier to understand than most other chess books and will impact your game within the first few pages. I highly recommend this book!!

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Summary: THE Best Strategy Book
Review: Silman has written the modern strategy classic. This replaces MY STYSTEM as the must read book.

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Summary: One of the greatest books for Beginners!!!
Review: It's really a good book to improve your game. I examined a lot of books but I didn't find any book like this! Because it really expains what you have to and what strategy is. I'm sure all beginners have to buy and read.

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Summary: Destined to become a classic
Review: If there were such a thing as the best possible chess book for someone who is between beginner and intermediate this would be the book. "How to reassess your chess" covers in the most painless manner possible the secrets of positions and the most important middle- game motifs. More accesible than Nimzovich's "My System", (a book that should be read after this one) Silman has truly created a book that will become a classic.

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Summary: The Best Chess Book I have ever studied.
Review: Do you study aimlessly? Become unfocused and confused in the middlegame? Want to enter those money tournaments and win! Buy this book. Armed with this book and a little time I raised my rating by 100 points and won a $1500 first place prize. If I can win so can you. Paul Bishop

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Summary: Good book for beginners covers frequently neglected areas
Review: Although this book does not seem to live up to its subtitle ("The Complete Chess Mastery Course"), it is very instructive for players who have some positional ideas (e.g. rooks on open files are good) but don't know how to turn them into winning advantages.

This book was recommended in the Chess FAQ. It includes a brief introduction to the endgame, a reading list for further study, and a section on how to think and plan. A step above chess books which only tell players which piece to move in a certain position.