Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant Book!
Review: I recently bought this book from amazon.com and I have to say that I love it! I had all of the book knowledge, openings, statagy et cetra. I just didn't have the ability to see more than 2 moves ahead in the game, and usually those calculations were based upon faulty assumptions. His book has taught me how to visualize the board as I calculate, which he actually has you practising in the first chapter! I love this book and I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Does Not Live Up to The Hype
Review: I started reading this book right after reading Silman's "Reassess Chess" Book. I was let down and felt that the book somehow got stuck on calculation and left it up to you to figure out how to do it. Calculation abilities vary greatly, even among GM's. It seems that instinct is used more often in deeper positions than calculation. Not a horrible book, but for some reason, it didn't get me excited with some new revelation in my amateur mind.
Rating:
Summary: Live in the Details!
Review: I've studied The Inner Game from cover to cover three times in the last 2 years, always profitably. My ability to successfully calculate attacking or defending variations has greatly increased because of practicing what Soltis preaches. I strongly agree with his statement "...calculation can be invaluable. It can be a substitute for "book knowledge" you never learned" since few nonprofessionals can know every opening or endgame position. I am surprised at some of the few negative comments in the reviews of the book. I suspect that those reviewers have not read The Inner Game to the end - at least they give no evidence of having done so. One reviewer wrote that "the familiar theme of attacking a castled king" was monotonously used in many examples but really there are few problems that have that as their main theme. Another reviewer said, "There are not enough practical examples. Therefore, I doubt the reader will be able to apply the tips ...in a real game." Actually, there are over 200 examples; most labeled "White to play" or "Black to play" presenting positions from Grandmaster games to analyze before reading the accompanying text. This same reviewer stated The Inner Game has the "right appealing chapter names. But the content ... is not well developed" although he doesn't clarify what he means by that. Yet in every chapter Soltis clearly states his theme and then provides a great deal of examples. For instance, look at chapter 2 ("Ideas"), where Soltis discusses how calculation is inspired by ideas and ideas come from recognizing patterns and weaknesses. Examine chapter 3 ("Trees and How To Build Them"), in which Soltis shows you in a very detailed fashion a possible way of mentally organizing all those ideas. Disagree with the chapter contents but don't say they're not well developed. In that reviewer's opinion the Dvoretsky series of books, Jonathan Tisdall's "Improve Your Chess Now" and Buckley's "Practical Chess Analysis" are all "certainly better than Soltis" - but he doesn't bother to say in what way. My impression is Dvoretsky's books are written for very experienced players, Tisdall is not focused on calculation and while Buckley's book is all about calculation it is far shorter, with much fewer examples and less text. One reviewer said the book was "not coherently organized." Huh? Soltis begins logically enough by defining his terms: what calculation is and isn't. He follows with a second chapter on how ideas inspire calculation. The third chapter presents a method of organizing those ideas. Having set up the basic groundwork, Soltis expands on the methods: finding forcing sequences that make calculation easier, evaluating resulting positions, "monkey wrenches" that upset the calculations, practical considerations. Where's the "lack of organization"? The reviewer claims the book has so many analytical mistakes (he has 2 examples) their "sheer number" proves "Soltis hadn't done his spadework." He cites Piket-Sosonko, 1993 and says 3...Bf5 "holds the game for Black." Well, I'm no GM like Soltis but I do have Fritz 6 and a 950 MHz computer and it begs to differ with that assessment (in one variation winning Black's queen). Similarly, the reviewer says in Ljubojevic-Stein, 1973 the move 11 Qf4 works fine for White but Fritz's deep position analysis finds that 11...f5 12 Nd4 g5 13 Qg3 f4 leads to an uncomfortable White position where his queen is in the path of both Black pieces and pawns. He announces "The examples that are correct are frequently so because they've been pulled, with analysis, from other sources" but doesn't name those sources! He adds "many of the examples are hackneyed" without saying in what way (Perhaps he skimmed the first chapter; saw a diagram from Nimzovich-Marshall, 1927 and another from Reshevsky-Botvinnik, 1955, and didn't realize most of the book's examples are from GM games played circa 1970-1993.) I strongly agree with A.J. Goldsby's review: this isn't a book for novices, a couple of primers on tactics and elementary books like Chernev's Logical Chess should be studied first. I strongly agree with the reviewer who said to benefit from this book you'd really need to study and practice although he is wrong when he says "Soltis emphasizes visualization" since Soltis only has one visualization exercise in the first chapter and rarely mentions it thereafter. Again, read the entire book before you make the claim!
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book on Chess Thinking!!
Review: If chess is a thinking game, why are so few books written for amateurs about how chessmasters think? Andy Soltis remedies this problem with a thorough and comprehensive look at the thinking processes of chess players. Chapters include: where do ideas come from?, how to build a calculation tree (a much clearer discussion than in Kotov's classic: Think Like a Grandmaster), when to play the most forcing moves at the start or end of a sequence, how to actually calculate variations, and what criteria to use to choose between two variations which appear equal in nature. Following are chapters on common and typical problems of chess thinking--monkey wrenches and oversights. Finally, Soltis discusses, in a chapter titled The Practical Calculator, the differences between masters in their thinking and how, what and when to calculate during a game. Soltis makes a convincing case that chess is NOT 99% tactics, an often used phrase, but rather 99% calculation. The reader cannot help but improve his or her chess game by reading about the nature of the thinking processes in the game that challenges us to do just that--think.
Rating:
Summary: ! Brilliant
Review: It took me more then 1 month (2 hours a day) of careful study to finish this book, u can spend hours of fun trieng to find out the best continuation of the diagrams and then read on to see what moves were actually made. If u buy this book u should purchase a chess-set too because unless u are a super-visualiezer u will have to set up the postions on the board.
Rating:
Summary: This book is the best
Review: KOTOV REFUTED AGAIN and AGAIN This made my chess rating go up 300 points from 1500 to 1800!!! Study this book again and again.
Rating:
Summary: Rules of thumb for winning with chess calculation.
Review: Soltis uses current, as well as classical, game
positions to bring out his own ideas of how to
play chess. The book is very
insightful, with plenty of ideas to add to your
personal array of tactical and strategic aims.
His best commentary is in the 'ideas' chapter.
Soltis maintains that if you do not have a general
idea of how you want your game to progress, then
you are merely moving pieces around. You must have a plan. But to have a plan and stick to
it without regard for changes in position and serendipitous events is equally foolish.
Many of his example games, however, use the familiar theme of attacking a castled king. This
could get monotonous, but if you are looking to
brush up this area of your playing, then 'The
Inner Game of Chess' will teach you what you
need to get you moving in the right direction.
- Barry Ball
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but requires serious study and practice.
Review: This book is very good, but I have not read 'think like a grandmaster' yet so I can't compare. It discusses calculation and all of the many mistakes you can make. Soltis emphasizes visualization skills, and has you practicing in chapter one. Recommended, but it takes time and study.
Rating:
Summary: Okay book on thinking process, but not much advice.
Review: This book started strong. GM Soltis started out by describing when calculation is used and when it is not, and in general what the meaning of calculation was. He finished the chapter with an exercise in visualization which I really thought was a great start to a book which would help me calculate better. As the book went along, he discussed different parts of the calculation process, such as ideas, force, counting out, errors, and practical calculating. He used pretty good examples to illustrate his points. At times, he had exercises which helped train tactics and visualization (but not many). He did a fairly good job and "describing" different steps in the calculation process. However, as I went through the book, I found that he didn't really give too much advice as to how to train one's calculation skills other than to describe different mistakes in calculating and some concepts which masters use in calculation. I didn't feel it had many recommendations on how to improve this aspect. In the summary, he finishes by saying that different methods of calculating work well and that we all have to develop our own way! How do I do this? Why did I even read this book? These were questions that the book did not answer. However, despite my criticism, I think it is a decent book. I think by assessing the concepts he presented and comparing it to my own play and thought processes, I thought perhaps I could glean some advice from the book. Also, in this particular case I visualized many of the positions without using a board, so I felt I improved my visualization skills. However, these benefits don't have too much to do with this book in particular, but instead my method of studying the book. In any case, if you want to learn a little about typical calculation errors and different methods of calculation, this book may be okay for you. However, if you want to improve your own calculating and visualization skills, you might be better off studying tactical problems and analyzing your games and assessing your own particular style of calculating. That's what GM Soltis says on the last page anyway!
Rating:
Summary: Good book
Review: This is a very original and interesting book on chess calculation. Soltis has an excellent writing style as well as a deep understanding of chess (he is a GM). 4 stars because it needs more examples and analyzed games and the initial moves leading to the analyzed position have often been omitted, so that it's not clear which opening generated such situation(important information in my opinion).
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