Reassess Your Chess Workbook: How to Master Chess Imbalances

I chose this book to improve my game.I found that Silman adds a good understanding into the mechanism of strategy. This is a very practical book.For instance, I am studying the imbalance between knights and bishops. Silman explains that you have to make these pieces work for you, by creating outposts for your knights, or open the game for your bishops. his games show very clearly how to do this.The method is a detailed one which will indeed help you with planning of your game.Silman asks you to work through this slowly, then put the book down and acquire some tactics skills too. I have not finished the book outright, but It has enlightened me to play the game with my mind, and not just relying on an opening and find myself stuck after ten moves because the champion who explains its pet opening cannot play for you! This book supplement your skills to enter into the long term strategy of the game.This is eminently readable, but you have to work at it, with a physical board by your side and play, even replay the example games that are shown.yes, people have criticised Silman. But if you take this method to heart (and to mind!) you are bound to have a fresh look at your games and you will improve, though chess is not a simple upward curve to success. One has to learn by one's mistakes in the game. Hopefully, this book will prevent you from making obvious blunders. This is a valid method given by someone who did not mind presenting this as a human being who is not above failings!

This is one of the best books on the market for improving your chess if your rating is 2000 or less. Even without it's companion first volume "Re-assess Your Chess" it is worth every penny. I wish that there were books like this available when I began playing 65 years ago!! I have always loved playing through the chess games of the masters, ancient or modern, and I'm sure this has been very helpful but Silman illustrates very simply and thoroughly how to get the most out of this and it is his preferred method of self-improvement before studying, openings, endings, middle game strategy and endless variations, computer or otherwise, which often leads to disillusionment and defeatism and in many players losing heart and interest in the game. I find these books by Silman inspirational and I can't wait to get back to my old favourites and past issues of Chess, the British Chess Magazine and New in Chess to try out the methodology recommended by him.

Perfect as described

ok

Great book.

I am not a complete disciple of Silman's "Imbalances" concept of chess strategy, but it is a really good place to start, and this book is a really good way to develop your grasp of the methodology. (By the way, that is me calling it a methodology, not Silman; he has none of that pompous air about him, and neither does he call it "Imbalances (TM)" !).The book consists of a brief review of the method (about 40 pages), then about 80 pages of problems, then a couple of hundred pages discussing the solutions. It is the solutions section which is so valuable: rather than a dry "the correct move is Nxe5" or "Option A is the right choice" you sometimes get in quizzes, there is a very substantial discussion and analysis of each case. This gives the book an interactive feel, in that your ideas are in effect compared and contrasted with those in the "right" line.The bulk of the book is about strategy rather than tactics. A wide variety of situations are covered, in all three of the opening, middlegame and endgame.It strikes me that this book might be a better place for youngsters to start on Silman's ideas than his other more deeply instructional books, since youngsters are usually impatient to "get on with it", and here they can do just that and receive a lot of instruction and feedback at the same time.