How to Reasses your Chess by Jeremy Silman

Anyone red that book with succesfull results? This IM claims that the way of teaching chess is not very good because we all often learn this game in chaotic way, a little bit of tactics, then openings, basic mates, etc., without really knowing the fundamentals of the game. So his advice is to empty your head from all chess dogmas in it and start constructive and systematic , from the beginning.

What are your experiences with this book ? How did that book afflect on your rating and chess knowledge ?

When I read rewievs on this book, I can see that is highly reccomended, but I want to here some people with positive results after working on the
principles of that book.


Thanks !

Originally posted by ivan2908
Anyone red that book with succesfull results? This IM claims that the way of teaching chess is not very good because we all often learn this game in chaotic way, a little bit of tactics, then openings, basic mates, etc., without really knowing the fundamentals of the game. So his advice is to empty your head from all chess dogmas in it and start constructiv ...[text shortened]... e people with positive results after working on the
principles of that book.


Thanks !

I was a C player for nine years. Working through two of Silman's books as a major element in my chess study helped move me into the B class. In the past two years, my OTB rating has risen more than 100 points.

I read it in high school when I had an 1100 rating. I did very well at my last couple of tournaments (rating up to 14xx) then I took 5 years off of chess. Since returning my rating has grown to a 16xx. I attribute most of that to that book. I am now focusing on tactics and endgames.

I got the book, too. But I think I have to improve in basics first...
Cause what is strategy good for if you do blunders or have a lack of knowledge in tactis. that's why I bout "winning chess tactics" also by Silman.

How to reasses your chess seems to be really great if you are allready an intermediate 🙂

I think you will not find anyone who says this is not at least a good book. I think it is great. Most will probably say it is one of the absolutely best. I know a 2000 player who said he improved from it - I think it speaks for itself.. It is no miracle of course, but it does give you a method of evaluating positions.

In my chess coaching, I use this little game to teach and test kids' understanding of opposition and outflanking. The exercise comes from Silman's How to Reassess Your Chess.

White must manuever the king to f8 or h8. Black tries to prevent it.

White moves first.

I have just red the rewievs at the amazon.com, and some of them are not very good. The opinions are divided, but a lot of players thinks that his "imbalances method" is hard to implement in a real game. Maybe they didn't really understand the method, so it didn't help them? I hope that's the reason of bad reviews?

Originally posted by Wulebgr
In my chess coaching, I use this little game to teach and test kids' understanding of opposition and outflanking. The exercise comes from Silman's How to Reassess Your Chess.

White must manuever the king to f8 or h8. Black tries to prevent it.

White moves first.

[fen]k7/8/8/8/8/8/8/K7 w[/fen]

So, will you solve that for us?

I read it. I noticed some similarity between his methods and the earlier suggestions of CJS Purdy. Purdy is better at describing things, but his work was never done all at one time and in a systematic way. I think Silman’s material is well-organized and beneficial though to be honest, I no longer study, being content just to play. My first OTB rating was 1667 and I stayed there for years and no amount of study did much for my rating. Threw out the books and started playing over hundreds of unannotated master games trying to guess the next move. Never spent more than 5-10 min. per game. After hundreds & hundreds of games my rating went up nearly 400 points. Warning here: you’ll get sick of doing it! Anyway, I mentioned this to a local master and his reply was a simple, “Of course it went up.” I think it was a combination of organized thinking I learned from Purdy and increased pattern recognition from playing over all those games. My recommendation would be read the Silman book then start playing over games… at first with whatever openings you want to play. After a couple hundred games with say the Dragon Sicilian, you’ll start recognizing repeating themes & tactical motifs that you can apply in your own games. One 2300+ player I was watching doing a post mortem told his 2100 rated opponent, “I’ve had positions similar to this 50 times or so, so I knew I was better and probably winning.” He knew how to proceed; all he had to do was work out the particulars of that position. Silman’s method will help guide you in that area.

Even Silman states in his own book that you need to go over lots and lots of games to get better and he suggests further readings. "How to Reassess Your Chess" is a great starting point.

Originally posted by ivan2908
So, will you solve that for us?

Seeing the answer will give much less benefit than figuring it out. Stick with it a bit longer. Try to observe some features that dictate how the kings interact. If you genuinely can't make any further progress maybe some small clues may help enough rather than the whole story.

Originally posted by masscat
I read it. I noticed some similarity between his methods and the earlier suggestions of CJS Purdy. Purdy is better at describing things, but his work was never done all at one time and in a systematic way. I think Silman’s material is well-organized and beneficial though to be honest, I no longer study, being content just to play. My first OTB rating was ...[text shortened]... was work out the particulars of that position. Silman’s method will help guide you in that area.

Interesting that you mention going through master games - I'm going to start doing that, in fact, I already started. 🙂

One more question, this time of practical nature. When you have a diagram in chess book and a lot of variations written in algebraic notation in text, is it better to follow it with chessboard and real chesspieces, or to visualize position and moves in your head.
Because second way is much more slowly, but if it is good for improving I'll do like that ...

Originally posted by cmsMaster
Interesting that you mention going through master games - I'm going to start doing that, in fact, I already started. 🙂

I got pretty tired of if after a couple hundred games. I tried to make it more interesting by keeping track of the percent I guessed correctly. At least you can see progress that way. I think I started at less than 40% and ended at about 80%, depending on whose games I was looking at. Tahl's I didn't get too many right; Reshevsky's were much easier. That's because I prefer positional play and I think in my oun games I may have sac'd something about 3 times in my life.

Originally posted by ivan2908
So, will you solve that for us?

I've already told you all that you need to know:

Originally posted by Wulebgr
understanding of opposition and outflanking