After a week, this book boosted my performance to almost a CM level

Hello Folks

I'd like to recommend a very good chess book.

I am a ~1500 rated player. I play a lot on chess.com and I want to reach rating 1700 next year.

Last week a friend of mine (who is rated 1650 on chess tempo) gave me a new chess book called "Reassess your chess" by IM Silman and told me that the book added more than 150 points to his chess strength.

And so a few days ago I started reading this book. After I read the first chapter, I found the book very useful and full of wonderful ideas, many of them are positional ideas, but some ideas are mainly tactical as well.

I have yet finished to read the book, but so far I have learnt the following things:

1. How to create long-range plans, based on weaknesses in the pawn structure of the opponent.

2. Of passes pawns, isolated pawns, backward pawns, how they influence the progress of the game, how you should play with them or against them and how to create plans based either on their presence or absence.

3. Of superior Pieces in the Endgame: How to win when the opponent owns a bishop and you have a knight? How to win when the opponent owns a knight and you have a bishop?

Thanks to this wonderful book, I had an amazing performance in one of my recent games: 1989 ELO, that is hundreds of levels above my current rating. And I already have improved my rating and my understanding in chess so far as it regards positional play.

Take a look at this game, which is by far the most accurate game I've played in the last few months. In this game my performance was very close to a CM level.

If you have any questions about the moves, I'll be glad to explain them. Each move in this game could be explained with the positional ideas that IM Silman teaches in "Reassess your Chess".

Coming on Saturday next: A post about imbalances. Stay tuned

I mean your opponent pawn pushing and starts exchanging before castling followed by blunders didn't hurt but well done ;_)

if you went from 1500 to 2000 on "reassess your chess"

as far as I have heard

you are very much the exception.   I find silman interesting, but reassess is not as instructive as Amateurs mind and neither has done much for my game....

btw,  look up the "backyard professor" for another example of a guy that liked "reassess..." but didn't get strong from it.

I'm sure white was completely winning by move 24, but was there a combo if balck played Kf8?

white does have an exposed back rank.....

CM? you should get a refund 

Don't flatter yourself.Your play was nowehere near 2200 level.Be honest with yourself.

For those that have the book, are you folks just reading the book? Or you also have the board out and moving every piece one by one? It might sound trivial to setup all the pieces and move them as you read along...

I bought the book because I feel like after the opening, the middle game is where I am always out in the wild. Sometimes I am not sure what is a good move to play

Here's what'll happen. You'll stop playing like a total bozo and start  beating up all the other total bozos (bozoes?). But then you'll hit a plateau as other, better opponents stop creating pawn structure weaknesses and are trying to do the same thing to you as you are to them.

I failed to understand silman's style of thought process. I like everything forced sequence of move.

....looked up Backyard Professor, he looks like the Donald (without glasses)

you learn some  stuff from any  book if

1) you have some respect for the writer.

2)able to finish it.

Give the guy a break. He had a 1989 performance in his last tournament - which is unbelievable for his "pay grade" - can't you guys read?

Great Matan!! That's wonderful. I also find that Silman explains the most difficult and elusive chess concepts in a very assimilable way - and never neglects a note of humor in his writing. I'm becoming something of an addict. 

Keep growing and discovering! 

Another great book by IM Silman is the book on the Endgames - from beginner to master - which I very sincerely recommend. 

Since studying the sections on rook endings - I suddenly find that it's my OPPONENTS who spend time in that phase of the game, not me...

They start to be intimidated by my speed of play and precision - not the other way round as was always the case...

Very very recommended!!!

Wait a minute - I didn't pay attention... I thought that 1989 was his performance over the whole tournament he played. It's true that he's given that "level of play" to that one game. 

I wonder what is that number based on?

Was it a computer program which evaluated his play and gave him that score?

I recently played a tournament game, and later had it analyzed here with the chess.com software - which said that I dropped 0.04 centi-pawns on the average.

I think that about 0.09 is the level of the world champions - so based on this, my performance rating for that game (the one I won without a single aggressive move here) should be in the area of 3768...