Is Silman's way of playing chess really how strong players play?

I wish I had a career as poor as his!

What about Aaron Nimzovich My System..or PLay Like A Grandmaster (Kotov's book) the tree analysis??

chess requires a little thinking. Thinking about your chess position is like a finger pointing to the moon. If you only look on your finger you will miss the beauty of the moon.

When I was jumping out of a plane with my parachute for the first time I only saw blue-green-blue-green-blue-green and I was dizzy. But soon I found out how it works it was only green and fun.

People seem fixated on comparing Silman's teaching with what GMs think. But, learning how to climb a mountain seems to me a fundamentally different thing than enjoying the view from the top. 

If you're struggling to play Silent Night on pitch you probably shouldn't worry too much about Josh Bell's vibrato in scherzo-tarantelle in G minor.   

Silman's endgame course just hit the iPad as an App (inside e+chess reader).  Pretty cool to have a 530 page book with the board and variations automatically set up for you to work through as you read it.

I feel comparing Ludék Pachmann's books with those of Silman is like comparing oranges to apples. Pachmann's are classics which were indeed landmark books in their time. They are dry though, like the books of old used to be (even where they tried to be lighthearted and funny it doesn't work for us today). Silman OTOH is really not groundbreakingly original - even "his" "pawn pointing theory" was not invented by him. But his books are stylistically accessible to the modern day reader while still being educative. Actually, Silman's book on endgames is original in its didactical approach, and I much prefer it to e.g. that of Euwe, even though of course Euwe is much more rigorous and scientific about the subject. And while using thought protocols of players is also not an original idea (it goes back to de Groot's famous dissertation), Silman's book on the "Amateur's Mind" is really not only a pleasure to read, but also quite enlightening (IMO it brings his points across better than "How to reassess your chess").  

I believe that nobody claims that you cannot learn to play chess without reading Silman. Silman made difficult subject accesible to many club players who find difficult to read rigorous books. That is it.

Club players are like not very smart kids who cannot add fractions. Silman wrote 600-page book about adding fractions. You claim that if Euler and Gauss made it so far in math without reading his 600-page Idiot's guide to adding fractions that it is trash. Well, I find it quite useful.

For a millisecond, I missed GambitKing.

 I like Silman, but don't mind hearing and considering honest criticism.  The real error is to entrench yourself into this artificial duality of Silman vs anti-Silman and in doing so throw away your objectivity.  Seems you discredit yourself on this one.

I also find it funny that a number of amateurs so easily state "grandmasters think _____ or don't think ______ when they play"  Either your psycic or... something :)

But I believe you're right... those who said it would be very unlikely for a titled player to go through Silman's process.

And using Duniel's comparison, it would also be unlikely for a mathematician to use the same rudimentary and tedious processes to solve equations that are taught in schools and text books everywhere.

So I agree that what's nice about Silman's HTRYC is it introduces the idea that there is more to evaluating a position than counting pieces.  In short, the quality of his method is certainly debatable, but IMO his core message to class players is not.

You can't be serious, Silman was born in 1954, three years before Fischer won his first US Championship. Silman would've been 18yo when Fischer won his match against Spassky. I doubt Kasparov or Karpov ever heard of Silman before they came to the US.

I understand you like Silman, but making such ridiculous statements won't help your cause.

LOL @ I think catnapper actually thinks solomonben was serious.

His post confused me at first too :p But I think solomonben was (trying) to use a sort of "proof by controdiction" IOW because those great players never heard of Silman, Silman isn't a good teacher... something silly like that.

milling

That book is incredible ! , after i had finished it i started to observe GMs matches , and i clearly noticed that they all follow the expression " plan " like Silman explained in his book .. i began to understand positions better after reading this book .

p enis

For purely selfish reasons, personally, I am glad there are some people are trashing Silman.  Unfortunately, since they have not even begun to support their assertions by substantively addressing the flaws in the content of the author's work, it won't have much effect, even to the readers here.

I would think that not all people think the same regardless of their level. I would be interested to find what books GM and IM used when starting their journey on to the way to the top, however I think books  would of played a small part and a chess coach a much larger percentage in rating increase.

Just my two cents and in no way proven scientific fact

This book got me stuck for a while because it lead me to ignore activity, a very important "imbalance" that is not covered on the list. Since I am not a master, and I need to know more "imbalances" then the ones presented, it´s easy to conclude that GMs must know much more than what the book teaches. I think what the book teaches is important, but you won´t become a GM just by doing what it says, and it may even get you stuck after a while.

As a person who has The Amateur's Mind and How To Reassess Your Chess, I support Silman's books. They do help, but you just have to GET the book to have a major jump. When I started out, it helped quite a bit with my positional skills.