The Amateur's Mind: Turning Chess Misconceptions into Chess Mastery

Some people find Silman's style condescending because he primarily uses lower ranked players games to illustrate points, but I find that this makes the lessons more accessible. Watching Grandmasters slug it out can be instructive, but the simpler, linear approach of Silman's students, with his line by line dialog, make this book a great lesson on chess theories and changed the way I think about the game...

This is an excellent, in depth book for the beginning chess player. I followed through carefully with a chess board, and I know that I can still gain much more by re-reading, which I plan to do sometime in the future.

The basis of Silman's chess philosophy is identifying imbalances (both temporary and permanent) and then making plans to take advantage of the imbalances while denying the opponent the use of their imbalances.

The book goes through chapter by chapter over different imbalances, and then discusses some weakness in amateur chess play (such as mindless King hunters and playing on the right side of the board that one's play has led to).

Finally, the book ends with 26 chess problems, with in depth analysis of each problem. show more

Highly recommended for the amateur player to develop and improve their game. show less

I enjoy playing Chess, but I am terrible at it. So I decided to read this book and see if it could help me out somewhat. Most of what I gained from this book was the idea of a plan. It doesn't necessarily have to be Checkmate. Silman is a fan of looking at imbalances and seeing what the board has to offer and responding accordingly. So he takes some games from Masters and goes over them, followed by a section where one of his rated students go and try to copy the moves. Silman also does one better by telling the student to say what they are thinking and why they did what they did. So they annotate their moves and then Silman chimes in with his own input. It's pretty well done, but as I am terrible at this game, I don't really have much show more else to say. show less

I'm divided on this book. One the one hand, it's the best and most readable book I've read that details exactly where the regular chess player's thought processes go wrong. I'm sure it's helped my play very much. On the other hand, Silman can be brutal when criticizing his students' play.

If this book doesn't make you loathe the writing of Silman, nothing will. Oh, and you probably have no soul in that case. If you want to read a pretentious IM mocking kids because they can't beat him, this is the book for you. If not, don't touch it. It will just make you feel dirty.

IM Jeremy Silman is a fine instructor, author of numerous popular books on chess, and an engaging writer. His technique in this book is to take games from tournament play and give them, move by move, to his students, asking them for their evaluations and observations along with planned moves and ideas for progress. It is refreshing and interesting reading for students of chess. I would place this instruction at the mid to strong club player level. I agree that this book should be included in any list of contemporary chess instruction literature of interest to mid-level players.

One of Silman's best, I think. Too advanced for *total* beginners, everyone else who studies the game will find something of themselves in this book - and also start developing some tools to combat the 'amateur' within.