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Reddit mentions of The Reassess Your Chess Workbook
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Reddit mentions: 5
We found 5 Reddit mentions of The Reassess Your Chess Workbook. Here are the top ones.
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Ok, cutting and pasting my own post from early in the year. (Sorry about the formatting.) I originally composed this for a friend who claimed he was ready to work on chess for 20 hours/week. I don't think he's kept it up.
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Here's what I recently emailed someone in the same situation as you - well, his goal was year-end.
If you STUDY chess for 15-20 hours/week for a year, you should be 2000 strength by the end of the year, and 2200 (I expect - much better than me) by the end of next year. Studying is the same as for math and music - it does not include leisure time like playing blitz.
You can break down your chess study into five buckets:
Tactics (start now and continue forever)
Endings (start in April and continue)
Playing/competing (start in February / start reading in July)
Strategy/middlegame planning (start in August and continue)
Openings (start in November and continue)
I think you need to begin them in that order - overlapping, of course.
[1] Tactics - do these books in order. DO the problems, however long it takes - don't look up an answer until you have a solid solution. If the books offer clues on the page (e.g. this page is all pins and skewers), go through and black them out with a marker in advance.
[2] Endings
[3] Playing/competing Play slow games, at time controls of Game/60 to Game/120, preferably against stronger players. Keep score, then analyze and annotate those games in depth, without using a computer. Then go over the games and your analysis with a stronger player, e.g. bring it to Sunday chess club.
I should really stress this - chess is about playing, not just studying. You need to find a variety of strong players, not just computers, and play against them. You might also consider playing correspondence.
If you play in tournaments during this time, DO NOT THINK ABOUT YOUR RATING. Also, NEVER offer or accept a draw, EVEN if the option is losing. During the next two years, your only goal is to learn and improve. Learning comes from playing on.
After a few months of playing and analyzing slow games, read these books:
By "read" I mean go through them slowly, doing every exercise, thinking about every comment to every game. It's hard work.
[4] Strategy/planning
[5] http://www.amazon.com/Build-Your-Chess-Opening-Repertoire/dp/1901983897 [How to Build Your Chess Opening Repertoire]
Of course someone else could construct an equally valid study plan with hundreds of entirely different books, but ... the ones I've chosen are excellent, and I strongly believe that they are sufficient.
I don't mention computers very much. I think they can be most useful as sparring partners for learning your basic endings and (eventually) openings. But don't let your study center around computers or opening databases or internet blitz.
And of course ... don't let it stop being fun. :-) Maybe that's where some blitz comes in. Otherwise, what's the point?
Let me tell you what I've experienced. I'll list off the most important things in descending order: 1. Tactics 2. Positional understanding 3. Basic Endgame knowledge (King pawn endgames and some basic rook pawn endgames)and 4. Openings.-- Now, people think this means openings are unimportant. so wrong... When I play players rated around 2000-2100 we're both doing the same thing:
Basic, vague generalizations in the opening and we play the middle game while trying to decipher the optimal positional goals to create and achieve and we crunch the tactics on the way to it, meanwhile considering the endgame that will arise out of the position along the way and always waiting for a chance to convert to a won or two result (win or draw) endgame.
Now, if you want to play with the big boys, you have to have a solid opening repertoire. I go to a decently strong club, everybody is rated around 1700-2100 sometimes a few 2300-2400's show up. I've won at least one of these tournaments and several times been second place. I often will lose either 0 or 1 game out of 3 or 4. (I typically draw my disadvantaged endgames).
--- The one thing all these players lack is a legitimate Opening repertoire. Once you reach 1700-1900uscf strength, you need some serious opening knowledge. SERIOUS. Knowledge. you need to know tons of lines, you need to know WHY they have to follow the lines and what you're trying to achieve and what THEY are trying to achieve. You have to know why Black can't develop his light squared bishop in the QGD Exchange variation. And when he tries, you have to know how to punish him. The opening becomes the game, and it is the game; I like to say that chess is the opening. The opening defines your strategic goals in the middle game and the structure of the endgame. Sure, the opponent can deviate, but at a cost. You'll at least be equal, and with all the general plans you learn about that opening, you'll be able to CREATE weaknesses and positions from openings you're familiar with, or continue about your plan because he's not following a proper one. The only problem is that Openings are extremely hard work. Extremely. It takes a huge toll on the memory and if you don't have enough time in your day, all the other areas of your chess will decline as you acquire your opening knowledge: Tactics, positional play, endgame etc. These things have to be drilled constantly so that you can improve. Without doing chess full time or at least having several hours a day to commit to chess, you're going to have to slip somewhere. ---
TL;DR and conclusion: My recommendation is that you acquire enough opening for your rating; what I mean by that is, get some basic guidelines, VERY Basic, for instance, go to wikipedia. and look up the opening you want to play, check it out, go to www.chessgames.com watch some pros play the opening you want to play, then start playing it. at your rating of 1300-1400 on chess.com I'd suggest switching to longer games (at least 15 min, but 45 would be nice) and studying tactics, and VERY importantly, get a book like John Nunn's "Understanding Chess middle games" [http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Chess-Middlegames-John-Nunn/dp/1906454272/ref=pd_sim_b_5/192-4270710-0603025?ie=UTF8&refRID=124Y382AWAKY8YZW33B1] or a book like "Jeremy Silman's Reassess your chess 4th edition" [http://www.amazon.com/How-Reassess-Your-Chess-Fourth/dp/1890085138/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405369188&sr=1-1&keywords=reassess+your+chess+4th+edition] These books contain the information necessary for you to understand positional evaluations in a game of chess. Also there is Jeremy Silman's Reassess your chess workbook [http://www.amazon.com/Reassess-Your-Chess-Workbook/dp/1890085057/ref=sr_1_fkmr3_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405369544&sr=1-1-fkmr3&keywords=reassess+your+chess+4th+edition+workbook
] They are all positional puzzles. It's great, because he breaks down the 7 main imbalances and you simply drill them. Very nice.---
Studying master games on your own is good, but you won't understand like 90% of what they do honestly. You need someone to hold your hand. If you could just watch it and understand you'd be a GM already.
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FYI. I have Reassess your chess 4th edition. It's a miracle jesus walking on water great chunk of information. However, I find myself almost completely incapable of reading it anymore. I am so tired of the banter and the jokes, I just want the dang information. It's cute and spunky and fun and whatever the hell when you first read it; a real great joy, but after reading the same dang joke like 5 6 7 8 9 times you really start to wish you had a more serious book, like John Nunn's (Which I admit I haven't read yet, but it looks more like no nonsense material).
Pick up one of Jeremy Silman's books, like The Reassess Your Chess Workbook, or perhaps one from Yasser Seirawan - Winning Chess Tactics.
I think The Amateur's Mind and How to Reassess Your Chess are staples to any chess player's book collection. Not only is Silman's language friendly, but the content in his books are incredibly thorough without any verbosity when it comes to n lines of notation and the occasional "...and White is better because of their knight on d5."
I own My System but have yet to manage to find myself at the halfway point of the book. From what I've read, it's rather dense (in language) but informative, however, I have a strong bias toward Silman's language because it's more digestible.
To put it simply: if I could employ routinely everything I've learned in How to Reassess Your Chess, I would be a much better player. There's so much content in that particular book that you could find yourself working through it for a couple years, especially if you purchase it's companion workbook.
From reading some reviews on Amazon, Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy seems to appeal to strong club players and up-- but that's not to say that the material isn't educational. You'll have to write back if you decide to pick it up and let us know.
https://www.amazon.com/Reassess-Your-Chess-Workbook/dp/1890085057