Patzer's review

During the past years, I have sporadically read Dan Heisman's old Novice nook articles . And they are really great. When I realized that Dan had put together the best of Novice Nook in a book called A guide to chess improvement , I felt I had to read it. This review is based on a post on my previous blog on chess.com. And I thought it was a good article to include here. What can you expect from this book? This book is really good, but it also hurts to read. Because reading the book made me realize that I have some fundamental issues that I need to iron out in order to become a better player. According to Dan, there are three skills that must be mastered before going for more advanced studies. Play slowly enough to identify and properly evaluate candidate moves. Ensure that the selected move is safe, which means checking for your opponent's tactics. Develop the pieces to squares where they have activity and can do something constructive. Why is this important? The...

This is a different kind of review. It's not just a review of one book, but two (actually three). Therefore, it's written in two parts, and this is part 2. I have chosen the book Move first, think later by Willy Hendriks and Understanding before moving by Herman Grooten (which is actually a series, with two books so far). The main reason I chose these books is that the titles indicate completely opposite views of how to approach chess: Think before you move or just move and think later. So how should a patzer like me make sense of this? I read this book using the  Forward Chess app on my iPad. This is especially handy when it comes to books like this, which tend to have many and long variations. I find that when it comes to openings, it helps to see each move played out. Also, the book has a collection of entire games, which can easily be displayed using the app. The Forward Chess app is truly excellent for this kind of book. What can you expect from this book? Althou...

This is a different kind of review. It's not just a review of one book, but two (actually three). Therefore, it's written in two parts, and this is part 1. I have chosen the book Move first, think later by Willy Hendriks and Understanding before moving by Herman Grooten (which is actually a series, with two books so far). The main reason I chose these books is that the titles indicate completely opposite views of how to approach chess: Think before you move or just move and think later. So how should a patzer like me make sense of this? I read the book on Forward Chess , which was a new experience for me. The service is available for various operative systems. I used the app on my iPad. One advantage is that it allows you to click through the variations instead of just visualizing them in your head. You can of course skip this, if you want to train your visualization skills. Another good thing is that you can try out various moves that are not in the book and switch on an ...

This book came to my attention when reading Dan Heisman's book A Guide to Chess Improvement . Heisman recommends the "improvers" part of this book as one of several books that should be used for post-beginners who want to sure up their chess foundation. I have come to develop a deep respect for Heisman's recommendations, so I thought I'd give it a try. I was not disappointed. This specific book is actually a collection of three books: It's your Move , It's your Move - Improvers and It's your move - Tough Puzzles . What can you expect from this book? I have labeled this as a middlegame/tactics book below. The puzzles actually cover all parts of the game, but I find that the majority of the puzzles are either direct tactics or find-the-plan type of problems. The book has a quite original structure. Each part contains 5 "tests" that consist of 10 puzzles each. In each puzzle, you are given a position and a short description of the...

Let me be honest; I fell for the title. It sort of promises to take your game to the next level, doesn't it? Also, I have read a few books by Andrew Soltis, and I think he is a great writer. That combination is hard to resist. I first heard about another book by Soltis that has a very similar title: What it takes to become a grandmaster . Someone had given it a good review, so I was curious. I looked it up and found this one as well. I bought both of them. I spent about a week reading the book, and I have enjoyed it more and more. It is very instructive and well written. What can you expect from this book? This book will not make you a chess master. If you think so, you'll probably be disappointed. What it will do, is point to certain factors that characterize players at the master level and thereby indicate what you need to work on. The book presents nine such factors that make up chapters in the book. Examples of such factors are "winnability" and unders...

I have been playing chess since I was a kid, but until about 10 years ago (2009), I had not even considered reading chess books. For some reason, this changed. I cannot remember why, but I decided I wanted to learn more about chess and probably pick up a book or two. I searched the Internet and consulted a few online chess forums, and was recommended the book The Amateur's Mind by Jeremy Silman. I bought the book, and that was the start of my growing collection of chess books. The Amateur's Mind has had a tremendous impact on my understanding of the game. Prior to Reading this book, I had no idea about how to evaluate a position or how to play the opening properly (or any other phase of the game, for that matter). I saw my results improving dramatically, and gained a couple of hundred rating points in just a few months. At this point, I only played online, so I did not have a "proper" rating. But regardless, I learned a lot from reading the book. What can y...