Rating: 
Summary: Excellent middlegame book
Review: I am a Class B player, and I am always seeking ways to improve my chess game. As much as I love the game and as long and as often as I play, I have a lot upon which I can improve. I stumbled on this book while researching other titles.Reassess Your Chess (RYC) trumpets itself as a book that teaches the reader how to think in chess. Perhaps a better description is that it teaches the reader how to focus and stay organized in chess. This it does, quite well. I am roughly half-way through the book and I have found that Silman's wisdom is very helpful in "reading" a position. The core of RYC is what Silman refers to as "imbalances" -- the differences between the sides in a chess game, either strengths or weaknesses. He asserts that these imbalances are the points in the game to exploit if you want to win or even just break even. Silman makes it clear that the rules to follow for imbalances are guidelines and are applicable in most cases, but not always. As with anything, there are exceptions. Also, sometimes making a choice is required -- which imbalance is more important? He describes this process in RYC. One invaluable piece of instruction he gives is to annotate master games. This *really* does help, although it is very time consuming and at times very dry. The end result is worth it. One thing that is not covered in too much depth is tactics. RYC is not about tactics, it's about overall strategy and thinking. If you are seeking books on tactics, look elsewhere. In spite of all the positive aspects of RYC, there are a couple of negatives. One negative is the font used in printing. I find that RYC looks a bit outdated because of the font, and looks like a copy of a copy in some cases, although the actual information is good and current. This is a matter of personal preference -- I would have chosen a different typeface instead. The other negative is the author's tone. He's a very good player and author, and he very clearly demonstrates that he knows the topic in great depth, but he tends to talk down to the reader. It is not as prevalent in some areas of RYC as it is in others, but it's there and unmistakable. This tone can be found in Silman's other titles, too. Some readers may find his overall tone to be insulting or demeaning at times. In his defense, at least one other reviewer criticized Silman for using his own games as examples and wrote it off as ego. I am not so sure I agree with this sentiment. Silman will know his own games better for obvious reasons, and it is probably very easy for him to choose one or more that he remembers as good examples for the topic at hand. He is an IM as well, after all, so the games he uses are better than the huge majority of those of his readership. I think that being able to use his own games is more of an asset than an ego trip -- it guarantees that the topic will not be brought up out of context. Want to improve your overall game, especially your middle game? This is almost an invaluable book for the topic. Hopefully a new revision with a better typeface will appear sometime.
Rating: 
Summary: Best chess book money can buy!
Review: I've been playing chess at an amatuer/intermediate level for over 5 years now and have always wanted to make the jump into the big leagues. I've got a small collection of books but none of them really helped me to improve my game. This book changes everything. Silman presents all material in simple, easy to understand form. His game examples show clear connections to what the chapter discusses. Where other books seem to force you to memorize positions or go deep into opening variations and theory, "Reassess Your Chess" is practical and to the point. Silman concentrates the material on something alot of amatuer players overlook: the formation of a plan based on a game's inbalances. This is the perfect book for any intermediate or lower player. To give you an example of its effectiveness: I'm a elo 1550 player and recently purchasing this book I read the first 4 chapters, entered a tournament, and left with a performance elo of 1900, drawing an "A" class player. If there's one book that should be on every chess player's shelf, its this one.
Rating:
Summary: In Order to Improve....
Review: Excellent book! This certainly is not too basic for a class A player. I doubt that many class A players would be able to accurately judge a position and be able to trade off one positional plus for another (for instance, trading off material gains for another advantage...besides material). Indeed many players KNOW what weak squares are, or how important pawn structure is, but not many actually learn how to apply such things to games. For instance, I've meet many players that claim to have a lot of positional understanding, yet they seem to rampage and do other things than what the given position demands (like constantly going for a k-side attack, even when their advantage lies on the queenside). Most of these players are in the 1700-1900 range. They seem to only survive on tactical situations rather than applying their positional knowledge. If you have the knowledge you must learn to apply it, and apply it CORRECTLY! This book will help you do just that!
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read
Review: This book, unlike any other chess book I have ever read, has shown me what I should be looking for when attempting to analzye a position. This has improved my game greatly. Anyone who is below master level will be rewarded greatly for reading this tome. Thank you Jeremy Silman. The only one small negative, and I do mean small, is that Mr. Silman used to many of his own games in his analysis. I would have loved to have seen him break down some of the games of the current greats like Kramnik, Kasparov, Anand, Ivanchuck, etc.
Rating:
Summary: excellent!!
Review: For the serious student of the game, this book is amazing.
The main theme of this book is " the imbalances ". An imbalance
is simply put any difference in the two respective forces. This
book deals with each of the main imbalances in detail. For example " superior minor piece ". Lets say you have a rather dull
looking position with a B v. N, all else being equal. Your strategy should be to make your speedy B vastly superior to the slow N your enemy has, and manipulate the position to not only make your B excellent...but his/her N a restricted pathetic piece. Games are won everyday cause of a superior minor piece!
The " Silman thinking technique " is based on the breakdown of the imbalances that excists in any position, and the author does and excellent job of telling the student how to judge a position based on the imbalances. Most players sit and stare at the board calculating variations with no plan in mind, this is wrong. By the time you look for a move you should already know what your plan is. This book is the most important book i`ve come across....IM Silman has given me alot by writing this book.
Rating:
Summary: A must buy for the intermediate player!
Review: I wrote a review of this book before when I was half way through it and I did not do it justice! As a USCF 1500 player I can say this book has made a huge impact on my play and my ability to judge what is needed in a position. In the later part of the book Silman puts it all together with several full game examples to show how to use imbalences throughout the game. This book has lots of small lessons that make it easy to digest but it will still take effort on your part to master. If you are a beginner, skip this book. If you are intermediate, say 1300 or above then get it and go to work.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent chess book
Review: Before praising this book, i want to give a few words of caution: 1)This book is not for absolute begginers. Its like the Middle School of chess learning. If you dont know(at least a little bit) about chess fundamentals, like forks or pins, i wouldnt read this book yet. Im a novice, around 1300, and found this book extremely challenging. Try "Play Winning Chess" by Yasser if your very new to the game. 2)This book is defintely not light reading. You cant just lie on the couch and read it passively. It requires intense study and participation in the games he discussess. Actually, I dont think there is a chess book that is easy reading. That being said, this is the most helpful book on chess i've read so far. Being a novice to the game, I discovered many useful guidelines for solid play in his book. If you oftentimes find yourself asking "What do i do next?" while playing the middle game, then this is the book for you. This book definitely gears the reader away from relying soley on unsure and risky combinations and tactics; instead focusing on treating your pieces like an army, and the board like a battlefield that has to be conquered through sound planning and positioning above all else. He discussess thouroghly how to analyze positions on the board, looking for weak squares, inadequatly protected pieces, pawn advanteges, and much more. And it is extremely in depth. I read the first hundred pages, and was overwhelmed with the info he gave. I thought it was too far over my head to gain anything from it. But I can honestly say that I got a new understanding of chess after reading the book. My game has since increased by at least a hundred points (so far). And Im probably gonna have to read it through three or four more times to get everything i can from it.
Rating: 
Summary: Certainly a famous book in the Chess fraternity, but buyer
Review: ...beware. This book is way over my head and I didn't understand that from the reviews I read here on this book. It sounded like just the book for me as I progressed as a beginner. This is not for a beginner! Much better for my purposes is the series of Yasser Seirawan books. Now, Silman's Reassess is famous, no doubt, and it sits on my Chess shelf awaiting the day I might get something out of it. But that day is some while off!
Rating:
Summary: Good book.....
Review: This is a very good book on the middle game in chess. Most authors tend to either oversimplify or overanalyze this area of the game, but Silman does a good job of doing neither, while still giving you the ideas and thinking tools you need to really improve your game. My only complaint in the book is Silman's amazing ego. Almost every book he recommends is one he has written himself, and almost all of his examined positions are positions from his own winning games. Still, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who's seeking to become a competitive chess player.
Rating:
Summary: For the Class C player and below.
Review: Those above Class C (USCF 1400-1599) will also benefit but I believe this book will help the Class C and below player the most! I'm half way through this excellant teaching book and I want to read more stuff by Silman. His word explanations of a situation and then the technique of how he executes is truly remarkable. I'm getting better in my correspondence games and in my games againt Fritz because I have no worthy opponents here on my ship at sea. My only complaint about the book is that I've found some of the games he uses as examples in other books (Modern Chess Strategy by Pachman) and one game, Kavalek vs Karpov where he tells us one thing but something else really happened although the variation he quotes as game is really just variation. A good investment! Buy this book and study it! Your game will improve!
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