That Silman guy has written over 7000 books on chess, and he has his readers and fans I would hope, or else that's a lot of paper he's used up for no reason.

But I find it to be too much--To have to use a board to follow along with every single page!  It's an unreadable book.   With other chess books, I've been able to follow the action described by looking at the diagrams and occasionally slowing down to think through one of the lines in text form only.  This guy I can't just read through, it's too dense.

 But I guess people say that about Shakespeare too.  Is Silman the Shakespeare of chess, turning out truly helpful books for those who hunker down and do what it takes to work through the text?   Or is he the Robert Jordan of chess, just cranking out volume after volume of tedious text for those who've acquired a taste for that?

Have you benefited from his stuff personally?   Or did you get done and ask "Okay, now what was any of that?"

http://blog.chess.com/ILLYRIA

After reading "the amateurs mind" by Silman my OTB rating went from 1333 uscf to 1584 and just recently 1655. His books are truly helpful and very easy to understand/read through, but you do in fact need to play the moves out on the board, as I had assumed you had to do with any book if you were studying chess .

the exception being tactical puzzle books

I received "How To Reassess Your Chess" as a Christmas present.

I have only gotten through the first couple chapters.  I will say they have been very beneficial to me.  I have re-read the first three chapters several times.

I am an industrial manager.  I read technical documents for a living.  The more technical the writing the better as far as I am concerned.  For me, this may mean that several reviews are necessary to gain all the value I can but it is how I tick anyway.

In my opinion any technical book should take effort to get everything out of it.  In this case, if it were easy your opponents would already be using his methods to crush your skull.

Think of it like panning for gold.  There's almost surely another nugget in that stream.

I own his book "Reassess Your Chess" and have found it to be very helpful, but at the same time tedious.

Illyria, we have the same idea. I have to use a small magnetic board to play through his analysis.

I  can only say that I got 300 rating points the first month i studied Jeremy Silman in the first month... got to be good

I'm reading "How to Reassess Your Chess" and only had time to get through the first few chapters. But some of it makes crystal clear sense to me and then other things I'll have to re-read several times to understand. And yes, you will definately need to have a board on hand to see the examples he shows. It is tedious but worth it from what I've heard. Good luck.

I like Silman, but yes, you do need a board to play it out on.

if you find it too tedious, find another author. Different people require different kinds of books, so if Silman doesnt work for you, try fischer. You dont need a board for his most popular book, BFTC.

Silman's books are dense, but the guy's writing about a dense subject, particularly with "Amateur's Mind" & "How to Reassess Your Chess". Both of those books are primarily about the middlegame and positional/strategical chess ideas. One could easily spend a whole year or more alone studying either of those texts. Unless one quits their day job or you're a natural prodigy, don't expect to absorb the contents of those books in a month.

You can still read those books though more casually or "on the go" and still glean "nuggets" as Rhinotillexomaniac said.

I also think most of Silman's "Complete Endgame Course" could be read without the use of a board, but personally a nice small magnetic chess set isn't that much of a hassle to use while reading. I've gotten the most benefit from this book, but his positional ideas found in "How to Reassess" have also helped me with strategical planning. 

I got Silman's Complete Book of Chess Strategy for Christmas last week and it's already really helped me. I can't put it down. It was hard to get into, but definitely worth it.  At first i used the chess.com game explorer or "insert analysis board" to visualize, but now that i'm used to his writing style i don't even need to.  I would recommend Silman's work.  By far the best chess book i've ever read.

i've found Yasser Seirawans (spelling?) books to be rather nice. Silman stuff is good for ideas, some of the variation analysis is off. What I learned from Silman is to be sober at the board. So often when we are starting out in chess we get caught in these flights of fancy and imagine wonderful attacks, but too often these marvelous creations are not borne of logic, but rather our boredom. Silman helped me think about giving the chess position what it needs, instead of trying to extract from it what I wanted.

 Got it.   'Bob Teaches Chess' is the readable kind of book I used to think was cool, back before all of you hipped me to how I should be focussing on the 'ordeal' style books.   I recommend Bob very hard for people who want the best introduction to crushing moves, which y'all seem to call "tactics" 'round these parts.

guess so

I've always thought, for the very reasons that prompted the original poster's post, that the game boards on chess.com's forums and blogs were incredibly conducive to really bringing some of the tedious material in these classic books to life making them much, much more accessible.  Sadly, the impediment to making this a reality likely lies with copyright issues.

I think Silman is about as good as it gets as far as clarity and enjoyment.  There are some of his early "pamphlets" that are tough to read, but any of his "real" books are great!  Definitely recommend "Amateurs Mind."

John.

It probably depends what books you're reading.  Like many chess professionals, Silman is a prolific writer, of varied quality.  He has has "classics" like How to Reassess Your Chess or the new endgame book, which most people to find to be quite good.  And then there are a pile of opening manuals which... well, one of the primary aims may have been to pay the bills.

If you are talking about those popular books, then "dense"-ness and unreadability are criticisms I find odd -- I think his best books are actually pretty heavily loaded on diagrams compared to most other popular instructional books (e.g., My System or The Art of Attack in Chess).  Playing through the moves on a real board is just something you have to do with any book of sufficiently advanced material to get the most out of it.

I've read Silman stuff and other books where a board is needed. It takes ages to get through some stuff but I love that - a 200 page book lasts as long as a normal 800 page book, therefore, I feel that I'm getting more bang for my buck :)

7000 books? Surely an exaggeration. Perhaps you have Silman confused with Keene or Schiller.

I would be curious with what books you are comparing with Silman's regarding the need (or not) of a chess board. Perhaps the criticism is Silman's books need more diagrams for some people, and that may be a valid suggestion.

With some books I can work through without a separate board, most of the time I benefit from playing or visualizing it with a real board instead of from the diagram.

If one thinks Silman's work is dense, try working out of books by outstanding authors GM John Nunn (as amac7079 notes) or GM Jacob Aagaard. (As Miguel Najdorf's mother reportedly said, "Chess is not an easy game.")

Personally, I find Silman's books both instructive and humorous, though my infrequent tournament play does not provide rating changes as data similar to others who have posted.

While a huge fan of his works, I do not consider him the messiah of chess , and have not agreed with all his words and views, but still will check out anything published under his name for some value.

For those who do not like his writing style or his methods, there are plenty of other authors.

I do not see a need for trying to "bring him down".

Is there a Tennis coach who can teach me to be great at Tennis but without all the tiring running around first? OK a few theory lessons on how to swing the racket will be great, but until I knuckle down and practice over and over then things won't become second nature.

Silman understands that teaching concepts to an amateur is not difficult,  however helping an amateur understand how these concepts are used in their own games is not so easy.

How quickly do you want to develop? If you want to get better quick then you do need to play through many games understanding why moves were made and why others were rejected, Silman will do this with you but you need to work with him. If you want to develop more slowly and struggle to improve then just read a list of general principles and hope that you will be able to spot and apply these later in the context of a game!

Hello all,

Currently I'm about half-way through Silman's How to Reasses Your Chess. It's the first chess book I've ever read so I don't have anything to compare it to, but I find it quite informative.

Using a board to follow along is without a question a requirement of my being able to comprehend his lessons. That said, he's really changed the way in which I think about my pieces and changed my way of playing to looking for goals to improve my position. Before, I'd just kind of hop around the board with my knights until I'd achieve an advantageous position...or got slaughtered. Now, I really have a focus and am able to find targets and goals. I don't have enough data to claim a numerical improvement, but I like the way I'm playing now better than before.

However, I can tell you to truly understand everything he's espousing, I'll have to read the book several times, which is what he said in the intro so it only makes sense. As others have said, it's a lot of bang for your buck, though you HAVE to work to get through it.