How to Reassess Your Chess = Masterpiece

Originally posted by RahimK
I've read over 30 chess book and watched tons of dvd's in 2 years and that book I am telling you is meant for players at least 1600 but my honest opinion is that is should be for players 1700 and up.

Thats because you feel a 1500 player would get bogged down long before he could generate positions like in the book?

Originally posted by sonhouse
Thats because you feel a 1500 player would get bogged down long before he could generate positions like in the book?

I feel the concepts are too hard to understand for lower rated players. It's like getting a 1400 to read art of attack. I will read this book again later on and hopefully it makes more sense this time around.

I totally agree with RahimK, the concepts are around 1500 ish, basically how to reassess your chess teaches you how to plan, I think you should have a tactics, strategy and endgame background if you've read Winning Chess Strategy, Tactics and Endgames I think your good to go. Ive had no trouble with the book it contains alot less games and alot more explaination which really makes it easy to read as you dont have to set up a bunch of games and play through them.

Originally posted by RahimK
I feel the concepts are too hard to understand for lower rated players. It's like getting a 1400 to read art of attack. I will read this book again later on and hopefully it makes more sense this time around.

The way i see it, no concept is too easy or too hard for anyone. The only difference is the language used to empart the concept. Some authors explain well and some authors. Chess is an intuitive game. Do you play through games by GM's and not understand what's going on because they are rated 2700? I've never had this problem. Obviously they are probably using a lot of reasoning that i am not using, but if one examines a game in detail, these idea's become self evident...

Originally posted by RahimK
I feel the concepts are too hard to understand for lower rated players. It's like getting a 1400 to read art of attack. I will read this book again later on and hopefully it makes more sense this time around.

You've stated your opinion that this book is for higher rated players many times and I must say that I completly disagree. My first published rating was somewhere around an 800 (junior year of high school - my first year of competitve chess) and the next few tournaments slowly took it. My first non-provisional rating was about 1000. I won those games in one of 3 ways:
1. entering complicated positions and out-calculating my opponent (tactical)
2. Playing aggressivly and mating him (most common and most likely to backfire)
3. Win a pawn or two and exchange everything (I was always better than most of my fellows in the endgame).

My best competition at school bought that book and started talking about "weak squares" and outposts. While I had recognized the value of putting knights on squares where pawns couldn't bounce them, I had never activly played for such a position.

I went out, bought the book and it made sense. I havn't read nearly as many books as you, but that is one of the most down to earth/plain english explanations of strategy that I have ever found. As with all other chess books, it must be studied (not just read) with a chessboard.

One fo the best arguments for reading this type of book early is made by Silman himself. He talks about reading Nimzovitch's My System. He said that while he thought some of the topics were rubbish (overprotection) or not a worthy thing to waste a move on, he found that in his games, he considered moves whose main value was overprotection. The idea being that if you are not at least familiar with the concepts, you may eventually grow to recognize when they are useful or to capitalize on an opportunity you may have otherwise missed. The other side of strategy is not just to find weaknesses in your opponents camp, but to better defend the weaknesses in your own.

One of the topics in the book is colour complexs. I know what they are and that they often can be utilized to devastating affect. However, I just can't seem to work that into my game (or perhaps to not just recognize one, but utilize it as well). However, at least it's in the back of my head. Maybe another re-read will help, or I will study a master game and the example of exploiting a color complex will help clarify my understanding of the situation.

Clearly Rahim is the better player, so take this with a grain of salt, but I do believe anyone who can play 25 move game w/o dropping a piece can read this book. Those who can't get that far would probably benifit more from tactical training, but it certainly won't hurt them to read this book.

Originally posted by zebano
You've stated your opinion that this book is for higher rated players many times and I must say that I completly disagree. My first published rating was somewhere around an 800 (junior year of high school - my first year of competitve chess) and the next few tournaments slowly took it. My first non-provisional rating was about 1000. I won those games in one o ...[text shortened]... nifit more from tactical training, but it certainly won't hurt them to read this book.

Hm.. I guess what i'm trying to say is that a lower rated player is better of reading the Winning Tactic Series then Reasses your chess.

I think there are many other books that should be read before Reasses your chess. I can't remember what the first couple of pages are about in Reasses but basically to me when I read it is seemed like:

Your a decent player, you win lots of game at your club they don't offer you much competion. You go to a different strong club or enter a strong tournament and you keep losing. It's time to Reasses your chess.

From that I gather it would be for someone around 1800 or so. I'll check the reviews at the Silman site. Sometimes they assign a rating to the books which they think is apporiate.

I think Silman's planning techniques and concepts are excellent, but they take a lot of work. The concepts are easy to understand, but the real meat of the book is actually making an advantage work for you, or better yet, creating an advantage out of nothing and then making it work for you. It takes a lot of time and effort to apply the technique. I want to get my game count down to like 10 games so I can study each one with written down notes using the planning technique.

Originally posted by EnigmaticCam
I think Silman's planning techniques and concepts are excellent, but they take a lot of work. The concepts are easy to understand, but the real meat of the book is actually making an advantage work for you, or better yet, creating an advantage out of nothing and then making it work for you. It takes a lot of time and effort to apply the technique. I wan ...[text shortened]... to like 10 games so I can study each one with written down notes using the planning technique.

Just that description suggests that the book is intended for a player who doesn't drop pieces, meaning a 1600-1700+ probably.

http://www.jeremysilman.com/book_reviews_jb/jb_ht_reassess_your_chess.html

No way, 1000-2000 Bah! who are they kidding?

That's like saying Art of Attack is good for players from 1000-2200!

Originally posted by chesskid001
Just that description suggests that the book is intended for a player who doesn't drop pieces, meaning a 1600-1700+ probably.

You're probably right. I well-devised strategic plan means nothing if it's full of tactical holes.