Michael de la Maza chess improvement

What's the address???

De la Maza took a bit of time to bash Jeremy Silman in his book.

Silman replied thus:

Mr. de la Maza starts out by doing something I can’t stand: he tells you, over and over and over (page after page after page), what he’s going to do for you without teaching you anything. This technique is popular in many self-help and how-to books. It serves as page filler, it revs the reader into a frenzy, and it obscures the fact that the author actually has very little of worth to say. In short, Rapid Chess Improvement is less instructive than motivational. It incites emotion, promises far more than could or should be promised, and ultimately is nothing more than pie in the sky in view of the true lesson he’s imparting: Study Tactics and Work Your --- Off.

+1 Jeremy

If that's true, that's hilarious!!

He should have called his book "Michael's Bad-Ass Tactics Workout Regimen" or something and left it at that. People would be doing his seven circles thingy and the board vision drills, improve their tactics a little, and be happy.

But no, he had to step into full-on snake oil salesman territory with his one-stop-one-size-fits-all-miracle-cure mentality, the cheesy testimonials, and the cheap shots at well respected chess authors. He deserves the bad rep that he gets for that alone.

+1 "Study Tactics and Work Your --- Off."

And analyze your own games.

The only thing I learned from the Maza book was that there was a chess software called CT-ART, which I eventually got.  The rest of the book I have completely forgotten.  I'm thinking it's not necessary to train exactly how he says he trained.

In old French, "mazette" refers to a bad horse, and it was also used in chess circles to designate a woodpusher.