Did "Rapid Chess Improvement" by Michael de la Maza work for you?

"Every now and then someone advances the idea that one may gain success in chess by using shortcuts. 'Chess is 99% tactics' - proclaims one expert, suggesting that strategic understanding is overrated; 'Improvement in chess is all about opening knowledge' - declares another. A third self-appointed authority asserts that a thorough knowledge of endings is the key to becoming a master; while his expert-friend is puzzled by the mere thought that a player can achieve anything at all without championing pawn structures.

To me, such statements seem futile. You can't hope to gain mastery of any subject by specializing in only parts of it. A complete player must master a complete game ..." - FM Amatzia Avni (2007)

I definitely agree with both Silman and Avni. In fact, so does de la Maza! When you remove all the self-advertising from his book, you will see that he himself studied complete games, studied endgames, studied positional chess. His weakness was tactics. Targetted training is a well known, and often recommended technique.

Michael de la Maza's method isn't earth shattering. His book is like so many self-help books in that it contains a kernel of well-established information and smothers it in self-congratulatory advertising. 

I once read Korchnoi commenting on missing a basic tactic. He said he would have to spend two hours a day for the next week working on short tactics puzzles. Botvinnik said that he was weak in "petit combinations", and so worked hard to improve on those. Kasparov has said that each player should start by evaluating their weakest area and work to improve that. 

Working on tactics is necessary for chess improvement, but is not sufficient by itself to guarantee improvement. Some players will benefit more from de la Maza's book than others, but only if they are relatively weak on tactics to begin with.

Move First Think Later by Willy Hendriks

http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/john-watson-book-review-103-challenging-conventional-wisdom

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708084425/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review866.pdf

I definitely agree with John Watson's criticism of Charles Hertan's book in that review. I read Willy Hendrik's book and found it interesting, but seriously flawed. Watson found it to be seriously flawed, but interesting enough to recommend.

Hendriks created an iconoclastic book which flies in the face of conventional wisdom. He makes some excellent points, but goes way overboard too. If you've already read Kotov, Watson, and Silman, then Hendriks can come as a breath of fresh air. But I would strongly recommend against reading him instead of the classics. Read the classics first, then read Hendriks.

With a knowledge of basic opening principles and a few favorite lines, you can get to expert if your tactics are very strong.  As for facing an opponent who is solid positionally, if they are not solid tactically as well, the tactician will almost always prevail.  NM Dan Heisman has written that someone who plays perfect positional chess but looks at tactics only 2 moves deep will almost always lose to a player who is clueless about positional chess but accurately calculates 3 moves deep.

yyochess, I can't agree.  Spielman's famous lament was that he could play combinations as well as Alekhine but never got into the position to do so against Alekhine as he understood positional chess much better than Spielman.  At any rate, to say that a person plays perfect positional chess is nonsense if he has no idea about tactics.  They go hand in hand because positional chess requires calculation.  At the lower levels of chess, a good positional player can suck the tactical opportunities out of the position and leave a dry position which is theoretically drawn but which somebody always looking for nothing but tactics is going to lose just about every time because his position will deteriorate slowly but surely without him even realising.  As for NM Heisman, I have never met a player who was of either the two calculation category or three move calculation category.  I am sure NM Heisman was merely illustrating a point rather than suggesting that there was such a divide.  I agree that learning some opening principles and being a strong tactical player will make you a reasonable player but opening principles are about positional chess.

Indeed. I agree with everyone!

Anyone relatively serious about chess competitively always needs commitment to improve their weaknesses and at the same time, elevate their strengths.

I have no doubt all or most self improvement gurus have done their own fair share of work in all areas of development. I'm guessing they want to relate their own journey to their readers. As others have posted, to each their own is also my personal opinion.

I started out trying to emulate RJF (original as that is) for about 4 yrs. Studied every game of his. Bought every book concerning him. The most helpful was the Mind of Bobby Fischer. Of course, My 60, The Complete Games of Bobby Fischer, and last (but certainly not the least) Pandolfini's Bobby Fischer's Outrageous Chess Moves.

I never got around to reading MLDM's stuff, because after putting some effort in mastering the essentials of Silman's works, I became unjustifiably critical of him and his ilk.

I felt unsatisfied. Which isn't fair to them, but I only mention it because I personally feel they make some student (me included way back when) a little dependent on them.

As if it's not their fault, but yours if you go out of (their)book. Trying to break everything down to just a sort of systematic way of playing (using their teachings, materials, language) seems antithetical to our own basic need to self-explore/discovery for ourselves. Which is all the fun, for me.

I'm not talking about GM strength players, nor even masters.  You don't get to their levels without all around knowledge and skill.  I was just making the point that making expert (USCF 2000) does not entail deep knowledge of either positional chess or openings.  I speak from experience because my son became an expert without any real opening training (he got about 20 minutes of opening education per week from his coach and didn't do any opening study outside of that) and very little positional training.  He'd often be worse out of the opening in his tournament games, but win in the middlegame with tactics.  As for players who try to positionally squeeze you, there are very few players rated under 2000 who are proficient enough at positional chess to beat a strong tactician.

As I mentioned earlier, Silman himself got to expert (almost master) level without the kind of positional knowledge that he now pushes on the under-2000 crowd.  

I don't know about Silman.  Apparently, you can't be too sure of what he says.

I've read MDLM and used some of his ideas with my son, but I can't say MDLM's methods are the best. What I know to be true however is that a certain high level of proficiency in tactics is required to get to USCF 2000 (FIDE ~1950).  It doesn't matter how well-developed your positional muscle or openings muscle is, if you don't have a strong tactical muscle you're not going to get there.  Conversely, you can get there with a strong tactical muscle even if those other muscles are relatively weak.  So the best use of your time if you're not already at that level is to focus on things like visualization, calculation, and pattern recognition.  If you devote, say, 80-90% of your chess education to those areas, you're on the right track.  Also, don't discount the value of developing a good and consistent thought process that helps guard against blunders.

I personally find MDLM's methods to be boring. I have no doubt that they work since Dan Heisman says they do and he's a pro coach while most of the posters here  who say it doesn't work are pro patzers but I personally prefer working out tactically with Tactics Trainer. Of course, at the end of the day it is what it is.

"What I know to be true however is that a certain high level of proficiency in tactics is required to get to USCF 2000 (FIDE ~1950)."

What level was that?

I have been looking at thought processes recently.  What have you found to cover this area?

MDLM doesn't really cover this aspect of the game.  And I have bought and read the book.

They aren't intended for kids.  Kids have no difficulty acquiring patterns.  The purpose of the method is for people --adults-- who can see a pattern hundreds of times and not get them into their automatic pattern recognition recall.  The kids I train, including the one deemed "learning disabled," can find patterns they've been introduced to once, even if they weren't isolated patterns in a puzzle book.

If you've applied it to your kid, I feel sorry for kid, considering that they are hard and most adults would prefer to make spurious claims about the method's ineffectiveness to justify their avoiding them.  To apply MDLM's method to a kid is to have completely missed the purpose and rationale behind the training.  If anything, the method will likely be counter productive for a kid, since there is a strong correlation between a child's happiness and ability to learn.  Boring a kid to death with the method will likely have a deleterious effect.

That book was the worst $2.50 i ever spent.  He takes something already known and makes it painfully long.  

@Millern "adults-- who can see a pattern hundreds of times and not get them into their automatic pattern recognition recall"

That is one of those myths that are perpetuated.  I say that as one of those children who was a so-called "g-----".  My memory as an adult is just as good and better.  An adult learns much faster than a child.  If that myth is correct, then children would be the only professional chessplayers who would be pensioned off at 21 years of age at the latest.

petrip is correct.  Be clear on what "memory" you are referring to, as well.  Pattern recognition development, and simialr forms of knowledge acquisition, in children has been shown in neuroscience to be patently superior in children compared to adults.  In fact, research that is going on right now is seeking to find out whether adults with aspergers have slightly greater neuroplasticity and capacity for patterned knowledge acquisition than other adults --though, still nowhere near what children possess.

petrip, the mind works in ways that scientists do not understand.  it is not simply a biological machine. myelin alone does not determine how well a mind works. an adult mind (at least a sophisticated one) has many advantages that far outstrip any perceived advantages of the child mind.  furthermore, many of these studies are unable to eliminate certain factors such as the tabula rasa effect and therefore their value is limited or even questionable other than to record what is observed. furthermore, I recall reading some study not so long ago along the lines that we are beginning to rethink all this.

Okay, you can officially be ignored.  Take care.