Reassess Your Chess V.S. Amateurs Mind

Hey Guys,

Own both of these books (The Amateurs Mind and Reassess Your Chess), for anyone who has read these books by Silman, which should I start with?

- Jeff

Amateur's Mind is intended for a lower level audience and will be much easier to read

I have both and concur with @QuaidHauser. 

Ditto with the above two posts.  Reassess is an actually very advanced book (barring the 1st two chapters or so) and lower-rated players would very likely be cherry-picking random ideas from that book without a firmer foundation ( with nearly  zero return-on-investment when they try to apply it in actual games).  I've still barely been able to read/absorb that book for what it offers :)

Amateur's mind is clearly a more appropriate book.

got both books read amateurs mind.then read a second time then go on to reassess. take your time then you will learn a lot good luck.

Put Reassess on your bookshelf. Maybe even lend it to someone. Start on Amateur's Mind. Set up every position on a chessboard, play through every variation on that chessboard. It will amaze you at what different strength players think about the same exact position.

I have both, I had Ameture's Mind first and read it first.  But since the Reasses 1st edition was published 1st, Am Mind, makes several refrences to ideas expresed in Reasses.  When I read Am Mind, I felt like I was missing something by not having read Reasses first.  I sugest Reasses first then Am Mind b/c of the references Am. Mind makes  to ideas explained in Reasses. 

However, the point made my the others above, about the more advanced level of Reasses is also valid. So if you are going to read Am. Mind first keep Reasses near by to use it as a reference when needed.

Both are my favorite and most useful chess books I have. Granted I do not have very many.

Doesn't Silman himself say to read Amateur's Mind before Reassess Your Chess?

I read the Seirawan/Silman Winning Chess series first, then Reassess, then AM, then the Workbook.  While I can understand some of the reasons others here give for starting with AM before Reassess, I found (like BigLew) that AM refers to Reassess so often that reading Reassess first seems more logical.

The Workbook and AM can be switched without missing anything, though.

As I mentioned above, I have both (but not the workbook).  I am going through AM but have not (yet - I'm only 1/3 through) found a reference to RYC.  When that comes up, I'll plan to open RYC.  I do like Silman's comments on amateur thinking and mistakes in AM.