How To Reassess Your Chess Help

I have been having trouble with some things with the book.

Lets say my plan is to get my knight to an advanced support point. So I carry out my plan and get it there and now what do I do. I know it depends on the position but I never have any continuation. Another example is lets say I have two bishops. So my plan would be to open up the position and take away my opponents support points for his knights. And I carry out this plan and come out with a superior minor pieces. What would I do to take advantage of my superior minor pieces?

Another thing I am having trouble with is lets say I have a space advantage and I want to increase this advantage by gaining more territory. But by doing this I am making my bishops bad and inactive. What do I do?

Thanks for any help.

It would probably help if you treated Silman's breakdowns of imbalances and how to use them as guideposts for your own play, rather than an ends unto itself.

Agree with the previous poster ... the imbalances are meant to serve as things you base your plan on. Once you've achieved said advantage,  one usually looks for his opponent's weaknesses that this advantage brings about.   The game now really becomes a battle about squares and controlling + reinforcing them to the point that your opponent will either lash out and tactically trip or will allow you to squeeze him like a python.

You made a mention of gaining space but making your bishops bad.  Sure ... but what did the position require? More Space or effective bishops?  If it needed mobile  bishops, then you've already answered your question.

There is no thumb rule here ... it's about KNOWING when to consider certain positional criterion and when to dismiss it. The thing about the really strong players (who you and I hope to be one day!) is that they've played over enough Master games and actual serious "long time control" games to get a feel for how to "cash in" on these advantages.

Even Fischer once said "you gotta give squares to take squares" !

The rest of us tend to be in this "okay, I've got the knight blockading the pawn....hooray....err...now what" situation.

May I ask what your actual OTB rating is, if you have one? Based on your live chess scores (if they indicate anything about your actual playing strength), it might be a good idea to put Silman's book away and work on something much more basic like Chernev's and/or go over tons of annotated games to see how players play on after they get the advantages you mentioned.

Thanks for the responses.

I think I'm gonna follow your suggestion of going over annotated games.

Silman hypes his approach to the point where you can come away thinking that just understanding an imbalance in a position suddenly makes everything easy-peasy and all your decisions are made for you... and as you've discovered -- it doesn't work that way! All Silman actually gives you is a glimmer of something to work with... but when you stop expecting Silman's method to make things easy for you, you'll realize that having something to work with can create an amazing change in your approach to a chess position. I continue to work on Silman's material and I continue to learn from it. I also continue to see that there are many places where Silman is selling his method... the guy has taught me more about chess than any other single author -- so I cut him some slack...  

One of the things Silman pushes is going over annotated games. It's pretty much tops on his training list. Speaking for myself: Going over annotated games has helped me a lot. I'm a big advocate of really breaking a sweat trying to figure out the best plan and best next move -- if not every move, several times a game. I don't believe in the "just click thru and your subconscious will pick up on quality moves" concept. i think that is wishful thinking and bs.  I think the most important points to look for in a master game are not in the tactics or in the beautiful execution of some intricately calculated plan, but pay special attention to those postions where you would be staring at the board going: "What the hell is there to do here?" It's very instructive (and usually rather simple) to see how masters handle those positions. They are the kinds of positions you'll blow right by if you are going fast... they can be positions that don't get a lot of annotation.

It sounds to me like you've actually gotten a lot out of Silman. Keep going. And there's stuff that Silman doesn't really get into -- that's important:  Converting an imbalance/advantage into another advantage. Capablanca is a great one to study for this... Capablanca will mutate one advantage into another -- he'll take space and turn it into two bishops which becomes a kingside initiative, which become material, which turns into a won king and pawn ending!

Silman's middlegame books contain some very unrealistic advice.  Much better, in my opinion, is something like Simple Chess by Michael Stean.