I have a shelf full of chess books, but How to Reassess Your Chess by Jeremy Silman is the last one I would get rid of. There are lots of good books on the openings, and some good ones on the endgame (Pandofini's Endgame Course for beginners who can tolerate typos, or Averbakh's out-of-print multi-volume series for the truly masochistic), but there's a cricket-chirping dearth of decent middlegame books.
Time after time after time in my mumbledy-seven years of chess I've worked my way through the opening, either by rote or by the time honored trio (develop your pieces, attack the center, protect your king), only to find myself stumped regarding what to do next. The pros are no help; they say "develop a plan", but none of them tell you how. Nimzovich's My System is opaque. Pachman's Modern Chess Strategy gives you a few ideas, but it's not easy to read a condensation of an English translation of a German translation of the Czech original and key-ripes! it uses descriptive notation. Well, stand back fellas, because Silman tells you how.
To grossly oversimplify, Silman suggests you analyze the position for seven key imbalances and develop a plan based on those imbalances. He devotes a chapter to each imbalance, showing you what it is, how it is good or bad, and most importantly, WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. Maybe because he is not a grandmaster, he is able to talk down to my level so I can understand the concepts. At the end of each chapter are some problems that involve the imbalance in question, and whaddya know, I can occasionally answer them correctly.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a weekend chess camp run by Gregory Kaidanov. At one point, he went around the room asking for each person's favorite chess book. Each response was met with "uh-huh" until I mentioned How to Reassess Your Chess. His response of "Great book!" gave me some much-needed confidence. And, heck, it's only US$12.
Time after time after time in my mumbledy-seven years of chess I've worked my way through the opening, either by rote or by the time honored trio (develop your pieces, attack the center, protect your king), only to find myself stumped regarding what to do next. The pros are no help; they say "develop a plan", but none of them tell you how. Nimzovich's My System is opaque. Pachman's Modern Chess Strategy gives you a few ideas, but it's not easy to read a condensation of an English translation of a German translation of the Czech original and key-ripes! it uses descriptive notation. Well, stand back fellas, because Silman tells you how.
To grossly oversimplify, Silman suggests you analyze the position for seven key imbalances and develop a plan based on those imbalances. He devotes a chapter to each imbalance, showing you what it is, how it is good or bad, and most importantly, WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. Maybe because he is not a grandmaster, he is able to talk down to my level so I can understand the concepts. At the end of each chapter are some problems that involve the imbalance in question, and whaddya know, I can occasionally answer them correctly.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a weekend chess camp run by Gregory Kaidanov. At one point, he went around the room asking for each person's favorite chess book. Each response was met with "uh-huh" until I mentioned How to Reassess Your Chess. His response of "Great book!" gave me some much-needed confidence. And, heck, it's only US$12.
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