Your philosophy training is coming through in this video. Very interesting lens to view chess. Our chess prejudices are the shadows surrounding us in the cave of a chess position, while Silman is like Socrates’s dialectic helping us to leave the cave and see the reality in itself, on the board. The true assessment of the position.
@11:17 This is awesome, I'm so glad someone at least kind of looks at time like I do. Maybe not exactly, I would say time is even more nuanced and that it includes more things than lead in development and initiative, but I never see anyone look at it quite like I do. I honestly think time is the most important factor of a chess position. It's something I learned deeply about by analyzing Morphy's games. I really think the entire concept of time, and not just lead in development and active pieces, is what Morphy understood better than almost anyone else throughout history.
TBH, I think Amateur's Mind fits a more specific niche than Reassess Your Chess. For the lower end of the rating spectrum, it's hard to find really good books on basic strategy, and Amateur's Mind fits that gap well because it spends a lot of time explaining positions with lots of prose rather than hitting you over the head with lots of examples that are sparsely annotated. Reassess Your Chess does that as well, but it's a bit more advanced, and by that point there are other competing books to fit that niche, like Simple Chess, Winning Chess Strategies, Pachman, Nimzo, Nunn's Understanding Chess, Training for the Post Beginner, and others.
Speaking as a no-talent chess-inept reader, the main upside to this book is that it is fun to read and gives us amateurs hope that we can develop and use our reasoning skills to discern plans and find moves in our games. The main downside is that it may not wake us up to the fact that if our tactical house is not in order, all this strategical and positional stuff will not benefit us much. I sometimes wonder if titled players got to where they are largely because they were born with tactical talent that allowed them to immediately skip to the more interesting stuff while also blinding them to the struggles of the rest of us. I'm certainly not "blaming" them for their talent! This just may be the natural distribution of the herd.
I think around 90% of the time in any chess game, it is positional. Like opening and shuffling the pieces around. If you can just avoid simply hanging your Queen or any other pieces at that 90%, then I think you can easily get to 1500 rating online. To get to 2000, then more advanced tactics are needed.
@@RealityCheck1Magnus' games are positional only at face value. Extreme tactical complexity is hiding under his most simple decisions. He is like Capa and Smyslov in this regard: their moves seem simple but are always hiding something. Keeping the tension in level positions requires extreme calculation.
OT. I am listening now a podcast in German of Mr. Kraai. He speaks German better than me (and I am living there for a while now) Impressive! You should make a video (even a short one) showing the prowess in Philosophy/Languages.
Also worth noting the 3rd edition is basically a completely different book with the same theme. But targeted at players a couple hundred points higher. Never seen the 1st or 2nd editions.
I never knew this, there was a period few months ago when I first started studying chess as a 1700ish player when I felt I was really bad at chess due to not being to understand a good part of the 3rd edition where most people were saying it is a great introductory book for intermediate/expert players. Now that I have gone threw it and mostly understood it I have increased my play significantly but till I read this I did not know why. Thanks for that comment, really makes my struggles make sense.
Wow nice to see someone covering this book. I have both of his books. My first one was AMATEURS MINE and later got REASSESS YOUR CHESS...dam-good books. They are also on kindle, Have his workbook also...now i must watch this video 😅 ( listen to the board its talking to you CHARLIE)
Two other philosophy of playing books. Victor Mosalenko's Revolutionize Your Chess. He talks about using his 5 touchstone's which are: 1.Material 2.Devolopment 3. Placement of pieces and pawns 4. king position 5.time.The other is Best Play A new Method For Discovering The Strongest Move by Alexander Shashin .He talks about 3 types of positions and the ways to play them. It's a bit off putting to look at the math he uses to decide which type of position it is. But the ideas and analyses are interesting. In an interview Shashin said the Algorithms he use to pick moves (thinking method) is for 9 year olds since adults already have there evaluation methods developed.
Re: Statics and Dynamics, Silman cites Euwe & Kramer's The Middle Game, Book 1: Static Features (1964) and Book 2: Dynamic & Subjective Features (1965).
You are spot on. I was Jeremy Silman's first and only chess teacher and mentor for about 4-5 years, while we were both in public school in San Diego. One summer and fall I went through both of these books with Jeremy, discussing the ideas (which were topically presented in a very orderly manner). I had a passion for the middle game. I still have the books I used to teach and coach Jeremy, including the ones by Euwe and Kramer. Many years later, Jeremy send me a copy of the 4th edition of Reassess Your Chess, with a hand-written note of appreciation!
It's interesting that Silman added material significantly with each edition, to the point some people recommend the 3rd over the 4th as they deem he overdid it and hit diminishing returns.
What I took from this is that there will be a grandmaster out there who I naturally play like, and their philosophy probably is an easier way for me to get better than something that doesn't particularly fit?
Pretty cool! I started reading this book yeas ago when I was a beginner. I got about half way through it but didn't finish it. Maybe I should go through it again to get a refresher and complete the entire book.
much appreciated review. It's cut a bit disjointly and so harder to follow than need be. A bit more elaboration on what Silman's concept of chess is before diving into examples would have helped and including the live chess board when you are discussing the various aspects of the position using Silman's terms (instead of just the list and your talking head 😅 )
@@JERRYR708 yes it gets better. But the first minutes were somewhat confusing to follow. Its clear that they are excerpts out of a longer session, but if your gonna put a longer vid on youtube the intro is important to set the context.
Oh god I've just been listening to Irina Krush tell me not to trade off my bishops! I'm so confused now. I feel like the only way to get better is to calculate every legal line 10 moves deep
You have to judge each position individually. The two bishops are, all things being equal, roughly a half to a full pawn advantage. But all things usually aren't equal. So just make sure the trade is worth it.
@@CapAnson12345 bishop's value depends on the position. In fact one bishop can be good and one bad (the one on the color squares occupied by all your pawns for example). Bishops are more important in open positions and then the bishop pair become particularly powerful because they can control large swaths of the board in both color complexes. On the other hand in closed positions knights are better since they can hop over pieces and pawns. So as with all things in chess these rules are relative. Irina surely mentioned this in the video you watched (or in another on the same topic). She's quite eloquent and gifted at explaining things to us intermediate and beginner players.
@hypersphere Yeah I was speaking in absolutes. Really, what I took away from her recent lessons was that I should value them more. For example, simply doubling pawns with a good bishop by taking a bad knight is not right. Like someone else commented, though, is that I need a deeper understanding of positions to make the right trades.
I agree that your three areas of chess cover everything, but I think the point of elaborating some of the quality ideas is for pragmatic and not philosophical reasons. Anyway I don't understand what you mean by a chess philsophy. Chess culture aside, all I care about is the factual things about the game and how to master it, IOW what works best. Other than that, I don't have what I'd call a philsophy.
I've not read this book yet but it's interesting it's kind of an intermediate book 1400-2000, I'm at the upper end of that range on LiChess so maybe I'll just skim through it. Also it's true what Jessie says about even chess engines having values (in their 'evaluation function') such as rooks behind pawns and the like.
Remember LiChess ratings are a few hundred ratings points higher. It's a good book, if a bit verbose (a good editor could easily have trimmed a hundred pages off the total length). A skim will give you most of the ideas, and you can decide which to read more fully.
How to reasses your chess, 4th edition, helped me to get out of a rating plateau I stucked in for years. By the way: Don't do more than 1/3 of your study time max. on openings regulary...
This is a book for someone who has no intention going over 2000 FIDE, in other words, for 99% of players. But for ambitious players it may do more harm than good.
I love how Jesse is always recording from the pearly gates.
Your philosophy training is coming through in this video. Very interesting lens to view chess. Our chess prejudices are the shadows surrounding us in the cave of a chess position, while Silman is like Socrates’s dialectic helping us to leave the cave and see the reality in itself, on the board. The true assessment of the position.
@11:17 This is awesome, I'm so glad someone at least kind of looks at time like I do. Maybe not exactly, I would say time is even more nuanced and that it includes more things than lead in development and initiative, but I never see anyone look at it quite like I do.
I honestly think time is the most important factor of a chess position. It's something I learned deeply about by analyzing Morphy's games. I really think the entire concept of time, and not just lead in development and active pieces, is what Morphy understood better than almost anyone else throughout history.
TBH, I think Amateur's Mind fits a more specific niche than Reassess Your Chess. For the lower end of the rating spectrum, it's hard to find really good books on basic strategy, and Amateur's Mind fits that gap well because it spends a lot of time explaining positions with lots of prose rather than hitting you over the head with lots of examples that are sparsely annotated. Reassess Your Chess does that as well, but it's a bit more advanced, and by that point there are other competing books to fit that niche, like Simple Chess, Winning Chess Strategies, Pachman, Nimzo, Nunn's Understanding Chess, Training for the Post Beginner, and others.
especiall Pachman - I believe still the best book
I’m using this book as part for my training 2000-2200 as it was a suggested book for 1400-2100
Hello sir , I am 2000 rapid online, will this help me a lot to become 2200 online and like 1900-2000 fide?
@ chessable course will help but should not be the soup thing you study
Speaking as a no-talent chess-inept reader, the main upside to this book is that it is fun to read and gives us amateurs hope that we can develop and use our reasoning skills to discern plans and find moves in our games. The main downside is that it may not wake us up to the fact that if our tactical house is not in order, all this strategical and positional stuff will not benefit us much. I sometimes wonder if titled players got to where they are largely because they were born with tactical talent that allowed them to immediately skip to the more interesting stuff while also blinding them to the struggles of the rest of us. I'm certainly not "blaming" them for their talent! This just may be the natural distribution of the herd.
Magnus is both tactical & positional but his games are more positional. I like sacrifices. I am more like Tal.
I think around 90% of the time in any chess game, it is positional. Like opening and shuffling the pieces around. If you can just avoid simply hanging your Queen or any other pieces at that 90%, then I think you can easily get to 1500 rating online. To get to 2000, then more advanced tactics are needed.
@@RealityCheck1Magnus' games are positional only at face value. Extreme tactical complexity is hiding under his most simple decisions. He is like Capa and Smyslov in this regard: their moves seem simple but are always hiding something. Keeping the tension in level positions requires extreme calculation.
@@odysseas573 Magnus is most definitely a positional player. He uses it to neutralize early & midgame tactics. Your position IS your defense.
OT. I am listening now a podcast in German of Mr. Kraai. He speaks German better than me (and I am living there for a while now)
Impressive! You should make a video (even a short one) showing the prowess in Philosophy/Languages.
Love the picture of the martial arts Kraai. I have heard of dancing with two left feet but never seen it. :)
Also worth noting the 3rd edition is basically a completely different book with the same theme. But targeted at players a couple hundred points higher. Never seen the 1st or 2nd editions.
I never knew this, there was a period few months ago when I first started studying chess as a 1700ish player when I felt I was really bad at chess due to not being to understand a good part of the 3rd edition where most people were saying it is a great introductory book for intermediate/expert players. Now that I have gone threw it and mostly understood it I have increased my play significantly but till I read this I did not know why. Thanks for that comment, really makes my struggles make sense.
Whaaaat? Now I'll need to get the 4th edition too.
Bought this book a month ago and Silman is a great author. Funny when it matters, and descriptive.
Wow nice to see someone covering this book. I have both of his books. My first one was AMATEURS MINE and later got REASSESS YOUR CHESS...dam-good books. They are also on kindle, Have his workbook also...now i must watch this video 😅 ( listen to the board its talking to you CHARLIE)
beautiful video, love you Jesse
Two other philosophy of playing books. Victor Mosalenko's Revolutionize Your Chess. He talks about using his 5 touchstone's which are: 1.Material 2.Devolopment 3. Placement of pieces and pawns 4. king position 5.time.The other is Best Play A new Method For Discovering The Strongest Move by Alexander Shashin .He talks about 3 types of positions and the ways to play them. It's a bit off putting to look at the math he uses to decide which type of position it is. But the ideas and analyses are interesting. In an interview Shashin said the Algorithms he use to pick moves (thinking method) is for 9 year olds since adults already have there evaluation methods developed.
Sad that he passed away...
Silman's way of teaching changed my chess forever.
Thanks Master, and Rest in Peace.
Yes rip
:(
RIP
Re: Statics and Dynamics, Silman cites Euwe & Kramer's The Middle Game, Book 1:
Static Features (1964) and Book 2: Dynamic & Subjective
Features (1965).
You are spot on. I was Jeremy Silman's first and only chess teacher and mentor for about 4-5 years, while we were both in public school in San Diego. One summer and fall I went through both of these books with Jeremy, discussing the ideas (which were topically presented in a very orderly manner). I had a passion for the middle game. I still have the books I used to teach and coach Jeremy, including the ones by Euwe and Kramer. Many years later, Jeremy send me a copy of the 4th edition of Reassess Your Chess, with a hand-written note of appreciation!
@@peterwise7047 Very cool, thanks for sharing!
Nice! I got it last month
I bought it last month. I like it.
It's interesting that Silman added material significantly with each edition, to the point some people recommend the 3rd over the 4th as they deem he overdid it and hit diminishing returns.
What I took from this is that there will be a grandmaster out there who I naturally play like, and their philosophy probably is an easier way for me to get better than something that doesn't particularly fit?
Pretty cool! I started reading this book yeas ago when I was a beginner. I got about half way through it but didn't finish it. Maybe I should go through it again to get a refresher and complete the entire book.
how are you finding it as a beginner because i'm also a complete beginner and have never played chess.
@@Hung_P . I haven't been a beginner for many years. But I can tell you that I learned a lot from it. Silman is a great author.
@@MrSupernova111 thanks for the response and i've bought "Amateur's mind turning chess misconception into Mastery" by Silman.
@@Hung_P . Nice! Enjoy the journey!
Best beginner to intermediate chess book in my opinion.
much appreciated review. It's cut a bit disjointly and so harder to follow than need be. A bit more elaboration on what Silman's concept of chess is before diving into examples would have helped and including the live chess board when you are discussing the various aspects of the position using Silman's terms (instead of just the list and your talking head 😅 )
From 4:36 to 8:07, he gave gave us some good examples.
@@JERRYR708 yes it gets better. But the first minutes were somewhat confusing to follow. Its clear that they are excerpts out of a longer session, but if your gonna put a longer vid on youtube the intro is important to set the context.
Oh god I've just been listening to Irina Krush tell me not to trade off my bishops! I'm so confused now. I feel like the only way to get better is to calculate every legal line 10 moves deep
Which is probably the sure-fire way to not get better.. 🙃
You have to judge each position individually. The two bishops are, all things being equal, roughly a half to a full pawn advantage. But all things usually aren't equal. So just make sure the trade is worth it.
@@CapAnson12345 bishop's value depends on the position. In fact one bishop can be good and one bad (the one on the color squares occupied by all your pawns for example). Bishops are more important in open positions and then the bishop pair become particularly powerful because they can control large swaths of the board in both color complexes. On the other hand in closed positions knights are better since they can hop over pieces and pawns. So as with all things in chess these rules are relative. Irina surely mentioned this in the video you watched (or in another on the same topic). She's quite eloquent and gifted at explaining things to us intermediate and beginner players.
if your takeaway from Irina was 'don't trade off bishops' then I think you need to go re-watch!
@hypersphere Yeah I was speaking in absolutes. Really, what I took away from her recent lessons was that I should value them more. For example, simply doubling pawns with a good bishop by taking a bad knight is not right. Like someone else commented, though, is that I need a deeper understanding of positions to make the right trades.
You guys should collab & write a book on chess.
There are courses on chessable written by them.
This didn't sound like a whole-hearted recommendation to me. Am I correct?
Isn't material and time argueably just part of quality of position too? :P
I agree that your three areas of chess cover everything, but I think the point of elaborating some of the quality ideas is for pragmatic and not philosophical reasons. Anyway I don't understand what you mean by a chess philsophy. Chess culture aside, all I care about is the factual things about the game and how to master it, IOW what works best. Other than that, I don't have what I'd call a philsophy.
I've not read this book yet but it's interesting it's kind of an intermediate book 1400-2000, I'm at the upper end of that range on LiChess so maybe I'll just skim through it. Also it's true what Jessie says about even chess engines having values (in their 'evaluation function') such as rooks behind pawns and the like.
Remember LiChess ratings are a few hundred ratings points higher. It's a good book, if a bit verbose (a good editor could easily have trimmed a hundred pages off the total length). A skim will give you most of the ideas, and you can decide which to read more fully.
In stucked at 2000 lichess for a long time. Thanks to this book I am on my way to 2300 now. But I went through it with a board and time.......
When I think "philosophy of chess" I think of Lasker's Manual of Chess.
How to reasses your chess, 4th edition, helped me to get out of a rating plateau I stucked in for years.
By the way: Don't do more than 1/3 of your study time max. on openings regulary...
This is a book for someone who has no intention going over 2000 FIDE, in other words, for 99% of players. But for ambitious players it may do more harm than good.
So overrated. He underrates tactics and mini plans
What would you say is the best book on mini-plans?
But his book is not on tactics so how can he underrate them?