How to Reassess your Chess

Is there anything in particular that stands out to you from the book, or just an overall good review?

Silman's advice on thinking about a "fantasy position" helped me a lot when I was stuck for ideas. Silman stressed the importance of having a purpose with each move, as opposed to just developing all of your pieces on auto-pilot and merely hoping your position is ok, which made me 'reassess my chess' in the opening phase. His book brought my attention to the concept of weak squares which also was helpful.

I enjoy reading Silman's books, however, it has done nothing for my Live Chess rating.

I've been beaten over the head with this, "Work on tactics!"

Tactics and Pattern Recognition

Has anyone heard of the Einstellung effect?

Being a teacher and a student of learning theory, I found this interesting: "the Einstellung effect, described very effectively by the same GM Andrew Soltis in a recent Chess Life magazine article of the same name: a player thinks they recognize a known pattern at the board, but fails to notice at least one significant difference from the standard pattern that makes the combination flawed, or simply not the best move."

Class A vs. I.M.'s and the  Einstellung Effect  

"One study also found that there was no significant difference in the amount of time it took Class A players (shown only the second position) and International Masters (shown only the first position) to find the fastest win, which was the same combination in both cases. This is because the IMs were distracted by the more familiar yet longer combination. Soltis concludes, "They did no better than the A players when facing more or less the same position. The IMs' superior strength had been wiped out by the Einstellung effect."

Then why are IM's so much better than class A players?  Surely not just opening/endgame memorization?

GREAT book - MUST get for serious chess players.

My wife has taught first grade. If you give a 1st grader the pattern R R B R R B, she will say, "R R B!" I you give a 1st grade the pattern R R B R R B R R P R R B, he will say, "R R B!", missing the pattern because of a calculation error.

I.M.'s make the same mistakes. Every chess player makes this mistake, and mistakes are necessary for a winner to emerge.

I.M.'s will beat N.M.'s almost always. Class A players would not challenge them in the slightest, because of all the other things I.M.'s are so much stronger at. Reading Silman's books on the middlegame, I.M.'s know that stuff far deeper than Class A players. Chess is such an amazingly deep game.

What if the board were expanded beyond 64 squares, to 128 squares, or 256 squares. That would be an exponential number of both weak and strong squares to keep track of!  Has it been tried?

How can they not be considered professional authors when they write books for a living? :)

What's an "actually" professional author then? What does such an author do that earn him or her the attribute "professional"?

Surely you can see the distinction between chess players writing books, and professional authors who are very adept at writing?

Because the Einstellung effect is not present in the vast majority of chess positions. The study focused on only positions where the effect is noticeable and concluded that in those positions the superior strength of the IM had been wiped out because of this peculiar (and rare!) feature.

Of course I can, I just enjoy discussing linguistic issues. People like Silman and other chess writers, or professors of various academic disciplines who write books on their subject for that matter, are by definition authors, and if they make a living out of selling books, they're by definition professional authors.

Wouldn't novelist or perhaps writer be more appropriate words for what regicidalmaniac means?

Outstanding!

I had feared that even my tactical studies, to build pattern recognition, would not even help my chess, rendering my efforts to improve totally hopeless.

I get upset when no one gives a good reason for NOT studying simple calculations/patterns FIRST, then moving on to more complex patterns/calculations/positional play.  Silman is notorious for this.  I thought the Amateur's Mind is far more useful if one has more than a 1400-level of tactical proficiency.

To me the advice of Silman and others who say "you need to balance your study of various aspects of chess" is like a University mathematics professor telling a 6-year old child "yes, you need to work on your addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, but you need to also study the calculus problems created/solved by Newton and the theoretical physics problems that Einstein tackled.  You must learn about Einstein's thinking method of Einstein by reading everything he said.  Over several years and after repeatedly re-reading this material it will begin to make more sense and you will appreciate the beauty of higher mathematics more.   But don't just work on the basics of mathematics, you dumb 6-year-old...I am a 'real' mathematician, trust me".

books are boring

Good choice, I'm really enjoying working my way through it. The workbook version is also worth considering.

 You're viewing this from a pessimistic point of view. The optimistic one is to think that you don't need to improve because you're already good.

Hello, glasgowm8 - certainly provacative thoughts. Genuine Q: have you any proof that people regress after reading this type of book? If not, do you simply think that people need to work a LOT to change ingrained ways of thinking?

Also, how then can people improve their chess? Again, this is a genuine Q. Perhaps your response - as above - is that these books are good, but you need to read and re-read them.

I reached 1900 otb in my late teens and picked up Silman's book a few months ago (many years later). There is so much in it that I really didn't know when I was playing a lot. My chess.com rating has moved perhaps 50 points up since I have started reading it - ie, little discernible difference but I feel I know more. Perhaps I'm the sucker.

I used to think that Kotov's 'Think like a grandmaster' was good but you sum up the problem that I now see with it. But I do think that Silman helps me to find candidate moves - eg, "How can I get my N onto a good square?" "My Bishop's inactive - how can I blast open some lines for it?"

ArnesonStidgeley wrote: 

Hello, glasgowm8 - certainly provacative thoughts. Genuine Q: have you any proof that people regress after reading this type of book? If not, do you simply think that people need to work a LOT to change ingrained ways of thinking?

Also, how then can people improve their chess? Again, this is a genuine Q. Perhaps your response - as above - is that these books are good, but you need to read and re-read them.

I reached 1900 otb in my late teens and picked up Silman's book a few months ago (many years later). There is so much in it that I really didn't know when I was playing a lot. My chess.com rating has moved perhaps 50 points up since I have started reading it - ie, little discernible difference but I feel I know more. Perhaps I'm the sucker.

Dear Stidgeley Arneson,

Do I have proof?  Yes, neurological and statistical in nature leading to conclusions which cannot be argued with.  In addition there although it is not in context here, there is a very good reason why you cannot change your habits for longer than say a month. And by the way, you asked:

>> do you simply think that people need to work a LOT to change ingrained ways of thinking?

First of all I do not think simply.  And secondly work is needed, but not on chess knowledge (once you have it that is) no working on your chess has nothing to do with it, its method which is important.  

You talk about improvement – a lot of people do, but let us be specific, I am talking about Permanent Improvement for a non improiving player who has reached a plateau , (and an improvement in rating of say 200 rating points) which is what Silman is hawking, and let me say straight out (once again for the avoidance of doubt…) – Permanent Improvement it is not possible following the methods in Silman’s book (he is not alone I am not having a go at Silman). 

The methods needed for permanent improvement of your chess (and this improvement goes for players of Joe Blogs stature and also for the run-of-the mill Grandmasters like. Let me think, what about the great teachers of our time?  (LOL)…….. IM Silman, GM Maurice Ashley and GM Jonathan Rowson, all of them talented (Ashley is talented tactically, Rowson is clever in a general sense and Silman loves chess and has worked and worked ….). 

Let’s be clear here Silman as far as I know is the only one of the three who is selling the dream of permanent improvement the other two are of course trying to help you improve but in different ways.  But they want your money.  So three teachers who write books ….  Have these players managed to put on two hundred rating points? 

Let me not be unfair here the same could go for Dvoretsky, Yusupov, Soltis, Pachman, Pandolfini, Kotov....etc.

Current ratings or last active rating (same argument goes)

Maurice Ashley, 2465, Silman 2383 and Rowson 2576

GM Ashley – Great commentator and someone who sells books to help people improve…. Well let’s see how good he was at improving himself after he started writing books.   In January 2000 he was rated 2499 he managed to claw his way over 2500 for a period of three months in 2001 to ratify his GM title and then dropped back to 2492 then 2487 and then settle at under 2470 for the rest of the decade.   During this time he has been writing books and training players, studying researching, working on chess and he has not been able to increase his own rating at all. 

Does he know more about chess?  Of course… but permanent improvement is not about knowing about chess it is about being able to play chess over the board.

Let’s look at IM Silman, I do not know the guy but I have read two of his books and his claims are ridiculous – “Life Changing Experience” my foot…

IM Silman, best ever rating was 2420 in 1995, the second time in five years he had worked hard and then he sank back below 2400 .. and there he has stayed despite writing book after book after book after book after book after book about “How to” get better at chess, you would have thought he might have had a look in the mirror one morning and say to himself “This isn’t working is it?”  Well not for him it didn’t.  But chess players around the world are duped into buying his books by faulty reviews and he probably makes a good living out of it, snake oil salesmen I called him and I stick to that.

GM Rowson – Hailed as a great author (and to be fair his book “The Seven Deadly Chess Sins” is a brilliant and thought provoking read and very very useful for players who are trying to understand about chess – a completely different thing from permanently getting better at playing chess.)

Rowson is rated 2576, his peak was 2599 at age 28 in 2005, but he was already rated above 2500 at age 23. 

I have no doubt that Silman, Ashley and Rowson have WORKED a great deal on their chess over these years but they have not managed to improve by even one hundred points never mind two hundred.

You’ve no doubt heard of “Physician heal thyself.”  We should be as strict with authors of books which promise to help you improve your chess – “Author, Improve thy own rating.”

You also ask: How can people improve their chess?  Speaking of an adult with a number of years’ experience, say five years for arguments sake – helping this chess player improve by a jump of 200 points is as I said above, the Holy Grail of Chess education. 

Stidgeley Arneson, there are ways to improve permanently, yes there are.  But it is very difficult.  And to tell you the truth not really worth the effort, if you are going to put that amount of effort in you might as well do it in a field that would be really beneficial to you, like making more money or becoming a better perosn overall... or raising money for charity or helping homeless lesbian illigal imiigrant run aways. 

You say your web rating has gone up 50 points since you started reading the book, great, well done, and very interestingly you say you “feel you know more”  - I would expect this to be the case, because you do, it is fresh in your mind – but mark my words come August you will not feel this way and if you do you will be doing better than 95% of the people who have shelled out hard earned money for Silman’s book.    Maybe you could report back then?  The thing is though I bet you, that some of the problems that you have eliminated from exposure to Silman’s book will creep back into your play in two to three months.  Keep a track on it, write down or think of the problems which you now seem to have overcome or the part of your game which you have improved in – be specific – and then when they come back – and they will - tell us why you think that is?

Hope that is enough to be going on with.

Good luck with your permanent improvement.

(Note – my interest in this is related to another subject unrelated to chess, but these arguments hold true for practically every human activity.) 

Dear GlasgowM8,

I find it interesting how someone would claim it is as "The truth" when it is a theory. No matter how likely it may seem. The brain is still a thing we do not know much about.
I suggest a slightly more nuanced view of science.

By the way I am not saying it is false what you say, but I simply say that the way you present it is far away from scientific and logical. As a matter of fact I believe that to a large degree you are right. But there is also one thing that I do not understand at all from your argument. How come that people do improve? I've improved playing a lot this year, which isn't a few months. Which I guess I would describe as permanent improvement. And there are many who improve, children who get better. Grandmasters who rise to the top.

But now back to the way you present your argument.
At the moment you are using a technique for defending your opinion/theory in which involves claiming something as the absolute truth. With this you refer to scientific study that you claim are without doubt, but for some reason you do not give the actual source of this claim but you do seem to have the time to write extensive long posts.
By presenting these "facts" this way you are indeed very convincing. It is much more convincing to believe someone who claims to have the truth then to believe someone who claims that something might be that way but that there still is a lot of research to be done. This is a common technique used by people to convince others. It's not a technique of delivering the correct information but rather a way of swaying people to follow your opinion, even if they do not have any correct information to back up their newly formed opinion. Politicians love it!

By using this it is sometimes very hard for the people listening to the arguments to distinguish theories with solid evidence.

So people I ask you. Please think for yourself!

P.S. Again I am not saying wether or not what you say is true or false. All that I am saying is that the way you present it is in a non factual way.