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The Process of Decision Making in Chess by Philip Ochman

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stwils

Is anyone reading this book? I have just started it and it seems hard yet it has a 5 star rating by about 43 people. How does it seem to you and how is it helping you?

ekkolalia

I've read it and I quite enjoyed it. It's not what I'd call an easy read necessarily, demands a bit of dedication, but I think it can be quite helpful. Opened my eyes on a few things for sure. If it's not quite your thing now, it might be worth coming back to later, or perhaps there are better books of this sort. 

stwils

I'm going to stick with it. Isn't one of Dan Heisman's books a bit like this one?

alghul

Never heard of this book before. There are apparently two volumes. It does look interesting. One can see the contents here:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Process-Decision-Making-Chess-Mastering-ebook/dp/B00BC0JXEQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1415026423&sr=8-2&keywords=process+decision+ochman

 

http://www.amazon.com/Process-Decision-Making-Chess-Goals-ebook/dp/B00OI7NDNC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415026423&sr=8-1&keywords=process+decision+ochman

 

The FIDE ratings show a Philip Ochman rated at 1840. This is probably a book useful for beginners and intermediate levels.

ekkolalia

Didn't know the second one was out, so thanks for the link. 

TwoMove

Have never heard of the author or the books. This makes me a little suspicous they are any good.

alghul

@TwoMove: The author is not an expert player, so I wonder about the quality myself - having not read the books. I also wonder if studying a decision making process would actually help one's chess strength much. The first book has 4.5 / 5 stars on amazon over 44 reviews, so there must be something good about the book.

 

@ekkolallia: Alternatives could be Silman's imbalances (Reassess your Chess) or the little known "Point Count Chess" by Horowitz and Mott-Smith. Don't take the point count system literally, but the explanations about the strategy make this last book a true gem.

 

There is also Karpov's thinking system, a set of rules for evaluating a chess position. See here

http://chessthinkingsystems2.blogspot.com/p/karpov-system-complete-chess-accounting.html

ekkolalia

@alghul: Yeah "How To Reassess Your Chess" is definitely on my list!

And yeah, it's a book for beginners and intermediate players. I was rated around 1350-1400 when I read it and it definitely drove home the importance of threat analysis, what to consider in positional evaluation, such as space, development, quality of pieces, what to consider in tactical evaluation, etc. It was a better bargain than reading a book written for IMs or something. Obviously, better players can probably find books more suited to their skill level.