The Amateur's Mind

I am surprised that Silman's middlegame books get good reviews, because in my opinion they are deeply flawed. Below is my Amazon review of Silman's Amateur's Mind. Do you agree/disagree?

The Amateur's Mind teaches the reader to use the following thinking technique during a game of chess:

1) Do not look at individual moves!
2) Look at the imbalances (strategic factors, such as outposts) in the position.
3) Create a plan based on these imbalances. Now you may look at individual moves.

The problem is, this doesn't work!

If you try to do this in a game (and Silman suggests doing this every move) then you will blunder, over and over, because you will not notice the tactical possibilities in a position. You will get mated in three moves, or you will allow your opponent to win material with a simple knight fork.

You need to look at individual moves first and foremost. Tactics comes first; strategy second. This is self-evident to any decent chess player --- but not to Silman, who believes that strategy must come first. I would actually go so far as to say that Silman advises you to mostly ignore tactics!

For this reason, I cannot believe that The Amateur's Mind and How To Reassess Your Chess have such good reviews all over the Internet. I am sure that people who rate these books are simply disregarding Silman's "thinking technique" advice. But this is the central idea of both books.

Silman didn't say to play blindly. If you read the chapter in HTRYC on his thinking technique he explicitly states after finding a candidate move to ask youself, "Does this move have any tactical refutations?".

Edit: It is actually in the chapter on Calculation (which is looking into your candidate moves...). Page 40.

Well, not play blindly, but think blindly until you've looked at the imbalances and figured out long-term plans.

So, your opponent's threatening mate-in-3, and Silmanites are (allegedly) thinking of how to occupy a knight outpost, blind to the threat.

I actually want to buy this when I save up the money. Is it like his endgame course?

I think his endgame book is the only one that is organized by rating level.

Silman didn't say play like an automaton.

An analysis of the positions imbalances would tell you that your king is not looking very safe.  Relative king safety (to your opponent's) is one of many important imbalances that Silman teaches. 

Some of Silman's analysis is wrong, but that is true of any prolific author (prolific in that they publish alot of material.)  His method however, is not as flawed as you suggest.  Rather, its how everyone thinks, including you, even if you dont know it.  Do you look at the board and begin to scan in a sequence every legal move?  If so, how do you evaluate the results of your calculation when none of them result in mate or large material gain?  This is the purpose of Silman's teaching - to demonstrate how to understand planning and strategy, which everyone uses whether they know it or not.  Silman merely demonstrates some important ways of building a plan. 

I think you are selling the imbalances a bit short.  Your statement about playing blindly, I think, comes down to a misunderstanding of his system.  He talks about the imbalances of the position but, when judging the imbalances, he also states that you should be aware of how they work out for both sides.  In essence, when looking at your example of the mate in three, I don't think the Silmanite would be only thinking about that Knight outpost but rather, he/she would be thinking about how to control the opponent's threats so that, eventually, said player would be able to seize that outpost, but only when it would be advantageous to do so.

In essence, when he speaks about imbalances, I think it's basically just a way to organize the broad amount of data, both positional and tactical, present in any one position on a chess board so that, when one does make a move, it is an objectively valid one.

I get the impression that Silman feels his audience (1400-2000 rating) does not make obvious tactical blunders very often nor do they play people who make obvious tactical blunders very often, therefore he feels his audience should stress positional play...oh yeah, and just to do a "quick" check for the rare occasion when there is an obvious tactical refutation, as if such refutations were merely absent-minded errors of lazy impatient Tal-wannabees.

Nonetheless, I like his style and if his books were a bit more interactive (say, like his Workbook) with thousands more problems that illustrated his thinking process (even if Rybka can refute it over 33 moves), that would certainly help any beginner trying to learn basic positional chess thinking via repetition/example/context.  As the beginner gains more experience/exposure to patterns, s/he can more easily assimilate positional ideas and add/modify Silman's thinking process as their experience/talent level will allow them.   At least I hope so, since I plan to invest some time/money in his books.

All amateurs do is play for tactics.  When there are no tactics they shuffle around waiting to be mated.  They get terribly inferior positions and don't even know it -- they trade down into dead lost endgames, and because the material is equal you couldn't tell them otherwise.  When they lose, they think the last tactic played is what lost them the game when in reality they weren't pushing back from move 5 and dead lost from move 20.

Playing for tactics is bad because there are only a few position in the game where a tactic is available.  The other 95% of the time you need to know how to build your position.  If you have the worse position, you'll never have the chance for a tactic.

If you don't like his book because it doesn't mention tactics then you've missed the point -- when you get frustrated at how your position is always the one under pressure for seemingly no reason and your higher rated opponent is the only one with tactics available then maybe you're ready to pick his book back up.

I believe Silman has no misconceptions about the tactical capabilities of his target audience, but rather thinks that despite their tactical deficiencies, they can certainly understand positional 'imbalances' and can begin to use them to their advantage in their games, even if their level prevents them from executing their plans perfectly.  Silman is a strong player and obviously understands the need for tactical proficiency, but also believes that feeding a developing player more advanced concepts is critical for chess improvement.  He states as much in the introduction to his book, and I agree with him.

But if we're using Silman's thinking process then when precisely would we recognise the opponent's mate-in-three threat?  At what stage does it come in?

Here's a quote from The Amateur's Mind (2nd edition), page 3:

Can you 'read' the position from diagram 1?

Before you get carried away, let me remind you:  DON'T look at individual moves.  In fact, never calculate until you understand the basic components (imbalances) of the position.  With this in mind, it's time for you to list all the imbalances you can find.  Write this information down and then compare your work with the positional explanation that follows.

I'm pretty sure that Silman is saying never look at individual moves until you've looked at imbalances.

The problem with this is that you can easily go off on the wrong tangent.  Your opponent is threatening a mate-in-three, and you're too busy looking at imbalances to notice.  Sure, you might notice after you've looked at the imbalances, but perhaps not.  Perhaps you've paid too much attention to your queenside space advantage and now you've completely overlooked your opponent's tactical threat (mate).  Especially if you're in time trouble.

I'm pretty sure you guys have not paid attention to Silman's words.  I have spent a good year trying to apply what Silman says, and let me tell you it has been a stressful one.  My chess has taken a serious nose-dive, and I have come close to giving up chess in depression.  All because of Silman's middlegame books.  Imagine my horror when these same books are recommended all over the Internet, by beginner and expert alike.

I guess that this "ignoring Silman's words" is why these books are highly rated over the Internet.  If you ignore what Silman says about the thinking process, then I agree that his books are very good.  But the problem is that Silman's thinking process is the key theme to his middlegame books -- it's his key teaching.

My thinking technique violates Silman's "rules", because I look at individual moves before imbalances.  It's hard to describe my thinking technique, but usually it's something along the following lines:

1) Pretend it's my opponent's move.
2) What good moves can my opponent make?
3) Now realise it's actually my move.
4) What good moves can I make?
5) What imbalances currently exist?
6) How can these imbalances be exploited (by either side)?

Basically, I do something like the above, perhaps over and over.

I might do steps 1 to 5, and then steps 1 to 5 again.  There are positions where I'll do step 5 first, but not often.  I believe it is highly important to look at checks, captures, threats, etc., first and foremost, even in a "quiet position".  But, as I've said above, this contradicts Silman's advice.

First of all the Amateurs Mind is a book used for learning how to think positionally and I'm sure if you ever asked Silman what ones thinking process should be I'll assume that "Look for any threats or tactics and respond accordingly" to be high on his list of priorities.

This is precisely the procedure I've adopted for my last few games, and it has been rather fruitful. I believe it takes into account both tactical and strategic perspectives. Even if I have a certain strategy in mind, I need to consider the ramifications of my opponent's last move. Perhaps when I improve my ability to analyse 10 moves in advance, I'll be able to give strategy a bit more weight.

It might not make much sense now, but as you get stronger you'll see more how this is a very good way to play a game.  Sure when you still fall for simple tactics it's best to check for simple tactics first, but more and more you're going to have to ask yourself "is this move good for my position no matter what my opponent does" type of questions, and that's when his thinking technique will really help out.

Eventually you're going to be able to "see" all checks and captures instantly.  I put it in quotes because you don't actually look at them, you're just automatically aware of them, and it takes a highly tactical situation for it to be otherwise.

orangehonda:

While I am not a Master, I certainly am not the kind of undeveloped player you're thinking of.  I think you're missing the point.

I'd imagine that the vast majority of chess players look at tactics before strategy in general, whether they're a GM or a beginner.  Don't forget that even GMs occasionally make tactical blunders.

Besides, I would say that, in order to understand the strategic situation on the board, you must first understand the tactical situation on the board.  It's no good looking at your queenside space advantage and thinking of advancing pawns there when you aren't even aware of the individual moves (tactics) available to both sides.  I think that strategic thinking is meaningless without a tactical understanding of the position in question.

I haven't expressed myself very well.  I can only draw from my experience so instead of trying to make sense of it myself I'll just tell you the experience itself.

Two years ago or so I went to a chess club where I was the weakest player there.  I would walk in, and for 4-5 hours calculate (and look at tactics) non-stop, it was the only way I knew how to play chess.  On those nights when I broke even, besides luck, I attribute it to sheer will power and never stopping calculating.  It was exhausting and difficult and slowly I started trying to follow the thread of the game -- now I can go in there and spend 1/3rd of the energy, my results are better, and the games are a lot more fun to boot.

In the middle of a tactical exchange, you can bet I'm calculating first, but there are only 2-3 tactical skirmishes a game really, if even that -- the rest of the time I'm just trying to get a sense for what's going on.

I don't follow Silman's process word for word, but I will stare at a position for a minute or two after my opponent's move and not calculate even one half move -- I can't say exactly what I'm doing sometimes, other than weighing the different parts (imbalances) of the position.  When I do start to calculate it's often only 2-3 moves deep, but I can only guess they're good quality because the level of my play has gone up.

Anyway I wasn't able to start doing this till pretty recently, but if a player is introduced to this aspect of the game early I can only imagine it helping.  I don't calculate first, so it makes sense to me, I'm not sure how to back it up... but there's my story anyway...

Whether we consider "tactics" first or "position" first...it really does not matter...what matters is that we consider both before we make our next move. Sometimes we may need to change our strategy given what is immediately before us (current tactics)...it is not an "either/or" situation.

Does this book follow or precede Reassess Your Chess ?

Is it a new book out ??