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Stop and reassess!

In my very first post on this blog, I reviewed The Amateur's Mind by Jeremy Silman. That was my first step to understand chess strategy. And I actually bought another one of Silman's book at the same time, but for some reason, it took me more than ten years to read. I finally decided to go through it and now I am ready to share my thoughts with you. (It feels like I've written this before.)

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What can you expect from this book?

Before writing this review, I had a few candidates. I am always reading several books in parallel, and I have a number that I'm about to finish. So I asked the Twitter community for input on which book they would like me to review as number 50. And this came out on top.
When I decided to start this blog a couple of years ago, I did it mainly to keep myself accountable and make sure I actually read the chess books that I've collected over the years (and not only accumulate unread books). And the fact that it has taken me over two years and 49 books to get to the third book I ever bought really illustrates this point. The Amateur's Mind was my first review (and second chess book ever), and I bought it together with the Reassess your Chess Workbook. So based on that it seems somewhat natural to have this as number 50 - like a sort of bracket around my 50 first book reviews.

Silman has a system of positional evaluation that is based on what he calls imbalances. An imbalance is defined as "any [significant] difference in the two respective positions" (p. 13). These differences can fall into any of the following categories:
  • Superior minor piece
  • Pawn structure
  • Space
  • Material
  • Control of a key file
  • Control of a weak square
  • Lead in development
  • Initiative
  • King safety*
  • Statics vs. dynamics*
The word "significant" in the definition of an imbalance, and the imbalances marked with * in the list above were added in the 4th edition of How to reassess your Chess, which was published 9 years later.

Silman's approach to positional evaluation is to list all imbalances and identify the imbalances and based on that deduce the appropriate plans for the respective players. For instance, if you have a lead in development, you may want to initiate an attack. Or if you have a superior minor piece, you may want to trade off pieces that can challenge it.

Although this book has the word workbook in its title, it is not only a workbook. The first 37 pages is an introduction in which he gives a suggestion for a generic thought process regarding positional evaluation and decision making as well as a "crash course" on imbalances. Silman comments on the work of other authors (Kotov, Nunn, Tisdall, Purdy) and elaborates on their suggestions by adding his system of imbalances. In my opinion, this is a truly excellent description of positional decision making that every patzer should read! 

The following part (Imbalances: A crash course) gives a short summary of each imbalance along with a number of "rules" for each imbalance. Here is an example (p. 32):
Rook Rule 2 - An open file is only worth bothering with if a Rook can use it to penetrate inot the enemy position. If no penetration points exist, then the file is useless.
I don't think this is sufficient as an introduction to Silman's concept of imbalances, but if you are familiar with it (from The Amateur's Mind or How to reassess your Chess), it is an excellent summary that can be useful to remind yourself of the main points.

The bulk of the book is positional puzzles (or problems as Silman calls them). However, the balance is a bit unusual. There are only 131 puzzles/problems, which may seem very little. But the solutions are (for the most part) very comprehensive and give detailed explanations of the positions and games that the puzzles are based on. While the puzzles span over about 80 pages, almost 300 pages are dedicated to the solutions. So the book should not be seen as a pure puzzle book. The instructional value of the solutions is more important. Silman comments on this in the introduction, where he gives three different alternatives for how to use the book (pp. x-xi):
  • You can make a serious effort to solve all the problems. An excellent way to do this is to place your answers (given in as much detail as you can manage) in a notebook. Only look at the solutions when you've gone through all the questions. This will allow you to form an honest idea of how knowledgable you really are.
  • You can look at a problem, try to solve it, and then immediately look at the answer.
  • Instead of trying to solve the problems, you can skip that section of the book, jump to the solutions, and simply study what's given. In this way, you will be using the book in a purely instructional manner.
If you are new to this kind of material, the third option may be a good choice. The option that Silman recommends is obviously the first one. I did a mix of the two first options. I tried to solve each problem and made a short note of my solution on a piece of paper, and then I looked up the answers directly while my thoughts were fresh in my mind. I then noted whether my solutions were correct or not.

About 20 of the "puzzles" are entire games that Silman's asks the reader to annotate. Instead of doing this on paper, I entered the moves into a lichess study and recorded my annotations there. The point is, of course, to compare annotations to Silman's. I found this to be the most rewarding type of exercise in the book, and it's something that can be done with any games collection. I will make this a recurring part of my training from now on. If you have this book yourself, please feel free to copy the pgns from my study and try the exercise yourself. You can also read my annotations if you promise not to laugh. ;-) Please observe that I have not published Silman's annotations, as that would probably be copyright infringement. 

One thing that bugged me through this process is that the problems/solutions are not always sufficiently clear. In many cases, I've found myself correctly identifying the relevant imbalances, created a plan around these, and arrived at a move or line - which is different from the solution given in the book. Here is an example.
Black to move

I noted that Black's only chance for active play is on the queenside. If possible, Black wants to gain control of the b-file. However, the rook is attacked, and trading on b1 would hand the file over to White. Also, the knight is a bit off-side. My conclusion was that Black can give up the exchange by Bxb4, cxb4. That would give Black the c5-square for the knight and two connected pawns that can put pressure on White's position. But all this requires that b4 is reinforced. I came to the conclusion that Qb6 is a move that fits the bill. The given solution is Qc7, which does basically the same thing. It defends b4 indirectly, as Bxb4 cxb4 Rxb4 is met by Qc5+ (Oh fork!). So here we have two moves that solve the same problem, but only one is mentioned in the solution. Stockfish gives a similar evaluation of the two moves (ever so slightly better for Qc7). So did I solve the puzzle? I'm not sure.

This example is one of many where the book falls a bit short. In many cases, Silman's method can lead to conclusions that are perfectly reasonable but not even mentioned in the book! And engines can not always be trusted when it comes to positional chess. So basically, in order to fully understand the given positions and evaluate alternative lines, you would need the help of a stronger player. And this defeats the purpose of having a book like this.

Another strange feature of the book is the wildly varying level of difficulty. In the introduction Silman says that the problems are designed to have a difficulty that ranges from about 1200 to 2100, and he thinks that some problems will be challenging for players rated 2500 and up. With such a wide range, it is a bit unclear who the book was written for. Logically, it should be for intermediate players. But why are then some puzzles so insanely difficult??

Don't get me wrong, I like the book. But I think that Silman could have included some comments on other lines that are reasonable results from applying his approach; either that a move is equivalent to the given solutions or incorrect for some reason. One book that does this in a masterful way is It's your move by Chris Ward, which also exists in three different versions for different levels. I would love to see an updated version of Silman's book with a similar approach.
 
Fellow chesspunk Neal Bruce has been working through this book at the same time as myself, and he has criticized the book for similar reasons. In a recent tweet, he wrote: "Don’t buy this book. There are much better positional puzzle books. This is the 'Pawn Power' of the batch."

My opinion on this book is not as harsh as Neal's. It does have its weak points, but I think it's very good. And with just some minor adjustments, it could be great!

Who should read this book?

This is a good book, but it is not one that gets my unequivocal recommendation. If studied seriously, it can help you deepen your positional understanding. But you should be aware of its weaknesses (see above). As mentioned, it is a book that can be challenging for a wide range of players. It could be useful for expert players (2000 strength) and above. But I think the book will sit best with players with a strength in the 1500-1800 region. However, I think you should work through at least one other book on positional chess before digging into this one. Or maybe find another book. I'll get back to you on that.

About this book

Author:Jeremy Silman
Title:The Reassess your Chess Workbook
Type of book:Middlegame, Strategy
Level:Intermediate, Advanced
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