Hello guys,

I try to be short on my problem, I don't know which book would suite me well, I don't know my rating, I don't know where I am standing. What I have done so far and still beeing active at:

- Ubisoft's Chessmaster 11 tutorials (the most important ones 2 times (~68%)
- Chess puzzles
- Tactics training (here and in chesstempo)

What I know:
- Tactics (forks, pins, skewers, discoveries, removing the defender...)
- Strategies (opening principles, pawn structure, weak squares, outposts, closed & open games, art of trading and piece values which can change and why they can change)
- Typical mating patterns

I have problems with:
- Thought process
- Planning, like in tight and equal positions in which every move seem to be wrong... no purpose-moves... which leads too...
- Sometimes problems to find the right move... which especially leads to
- Problems with "indirect moves/grey moves" (because a plan is missing)

What book I don't want:
- a book which discusses something I already know
- a book with too easy content
- a book, where I have to skip 60% of it's content because it's too easy or too hard

Following books I have hardly narrowed down since 2 weeks:

- Dan Heisman - Novice Nook (web or book) (necessary for me?)
- Dan Heisman - The Improving Chess Thinker (does it tell me something new?)
- Yasser Seirawan/Jeremy Silman - Play Winning Chess (too easy?)
- Yasser Seirawan - Winning Chess Strategies (does it show me something new?)
- Chernev - Logical Chess Move by Move (Top number 1 recommended book I found)
- Chernev - The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played
- Jeremy Silman - Endgame Course (better than Pandolfini's endgame book?)
- Jeremy Silman - The Amateur's Mind (positive and negative comments found on this book)
- Jeremy Silman - Reassess your chess 4th edition WITH Workbook (am I ready for this?)
- Bruce Pandolfini - Endgame Course (better than Silman's endgame book?)
- John Nunn's - Move by Move (Better than Chernev?)
- Patrick Wolff - The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess (is there something I don't know?)
- Jose Capablanca - Chess Fundamentals (necessary for me?)

You guys could really help me on this. The next thing is, I will soon decide to go for the diamond membership here for Chess Mentor, Computer Workout, Tactics Trainer, Videos and Computer Analysis, please consider this too. I spend more time on narrowing down books than playing chess! Thanks a lot in advance for your help!

Greetings,
Cabal

The Amateur's Mind is the book to address these issues.

Any book is dead cheap if you study it - consider how much your time is worth.

Steve

I used to play some chess years ago, but wasn't very good. I'm trying to learn now, still not very good. But, I bought the Diamond Membership here and think it is great. I also bought Reassess Your Chess and the Workbook. I also think they are very good. If nothing else I'm picking up a lot of information I never knew before.

Sounds like you've hit that wall where you look at a position and there are no obvious moves that threaten anything, 'what do I do now?' The answer is just think of one thing that would improve your position, assumimg your opponent isn't threatening anything that needs to be dealt with immediately. If that one thing is putting a rook on an a central file (even if it's closed at the moment) or making a short queen move to support a future pawn break or gaining space/taking squares away from opponents minor pieces by pushing a wing pawn then thats a positive step forward. Just making good preparatory moves is often enough to get a better position, then you have to spot when your opponent gives you the opportunity to make a REAL strategic gain, like forcing a pawn move that gives you a knight outpost or a manouevre to get rid of a bad bishop.

This might be called 'small ball' (if you're a baseball fan) but its simply the age old Steinitz maxim of Accumulation of Advantages that hopefully should lead to a position where there are some tactics in your favour and you can push for the win. Don't burden yourself with grandiose 'whole game' plans or not being able to choose between two or three promising ideas -play them all, but one at a time!