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Rating: 
Summary: Good idea but a waste of $10
Review: DON'T SPEND MONEY ON THIS BOOK!
The author's central idea is that the best way to improve at chess for beginners to intermediate players is to improve your tactical play through problem solving. That makes a lot of sense. I DO find almost all of my games are decided through simple tactical mistakes and this book provides a strategy to targeted to improve that critical element of my game. Fantastic!PROBLEM
There is no content!! It does not actually give you the problems it tells you to solve! This book seems like a cheaply made cash-in on a good, freely available, essay. CHEATED?
This book is built from the 2-part article "400 Points in 400 Days". You can read the original version free on the Internet. Basically, the author took the essay he wrote, padded it out, and re-packaged it as a book. The author gives you a lesson plan - solve 1000 tactics problems 7 times - but doesn't do the hard work of supplying the actual lessons! You have to put together the problems yourself. Here is what you'll actually find in this book in addition to the original essay:
4 pages of drills meant to improve you chess vision. (Move the knight around the board, etc)
2 pages telling you to buy CT-ART 3.0 - chess software that specializes in tactics problems. That's it! Really. The rest of the meager 70 or so pages are spent telling the author's personal story, showing graphs of how his rating improved, and telling you about his own incredibly rigorous training schedule. Inspirational but otherwise of little value. INSTEAD
Read the original article, "400 Points in 400 Days", for free as motivation. Put together 1000 tactics problems (buy CT-ART 3.0 or equivalent books) and solve them repeatedly until they are second nature. I give it two stars because I thought the central idea and the original essay, "400 Points in 400 Days" were very good. I just wish I hadn't paid for them.
Rating:
Summary: Read the articles on the web and save $$$
Review: I have nothing against the content of the book, except that it's just a slight expansion of the articles you can find on the web. The chess vision exercises are okay, but if you search for Dan Heisman's articles you'll find better. I wonder about a chess program that takes 1500 hours to jump to 2 grades. Perhaps a bit more insight and less drilling might cut this in half. If your looking for insight skip this book the author has none. So if you want the book in a nut shell practice simple chess positions lots and lots of times. His training method does work, I make fewer dumb mistakes against Fritz 8.0, but why pay for it.
The author recomends CT_ART 3.0 instead of chess book problems. For my money Polgar's 5334 Problems is far better than program.
Rating: 
Summary: A Masterpiece!
Review: I think most of the reviewers absolutely missed the point of De La Maza's book. It's not that he's saying what has been said before, study tactics. It's the method of study. See, not only do you study 1,000 problems. But you study the same problems 7 times over. The repitition is the key, more than anything else. See, what you're trying to do is drill the patterns into your subconscious. If you study it once, yes you'll get better. If you study the same problems twice, you'll get even better. But, if you study it seven times over. It gets to the point where on the seventh time you're instantly recognizing the pattern. THAT IS WHERE YOU ROCK! You are not just learning tactics, you're drilling them into your head, where you instantly recognize them. You'll see the patterns on the board instantly, while other players may not see them at all, or would only see them after intense study. There are tactical motifs that are essential in chess, doing these 1,000 exercises seven times over will drill these into a deeper level of your consciousness than almost any of your competitors. That I believe is the true worth of De La Maza's program. However, I will agree with most of what has been written. You can find the meat of his program online. And for most of us we don't have the time to devote hours every day. But, most of us could take 1/2 an hour pretty easily. I've been putting an hour into tactics a day, and my rating went from a low 1300 to high 1400. So, it's working for me. We'll see where I am in a few months.
Rating: 
Summary: This is an important book to read despite reservations.
Review: I wrote a review over a year ago where I criticized some of the advice. The worst section of the book is the one where he tells you how to think. It is too rigid. The runner up is the chess visualization exercises. I also said that I expected more chess content for the price.
If you followed his program to the letter, you would be spending at least a couple of hours every day on chess, which is more than what most people can spare.
Nevertheless this is very good book for inspiration. It is hard to argue with the success of the author who went up several hundred rating points.
My own success studying tactics is has helped me to have a more favorable opinion of the book. After reading the book I was inspired to study tactics for 20 minutes per day for 12 months. My rating rose more than 100 points during this time. That doesn't sound like a huge rise, but it is significant since I had been stuck around 1800 for years. I am also very pleased at my improved chess vision.
One of my friends read the book and was inspired to study tactics 1.5 hours per day for about a year. Since then his tactics study has been more spotty, but this particular player has gone from about 1100 to about 1700. This included winning the under 1200 section at the National Open.
Although the book provides little actual chess content, it will make you rethink your approach to studying chess. It is also very well written in a style that is informative and entertaining to read. I strongly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't buy this book
Review: I've read numerous negative reviews about this book, which is just fine with me. This actually makes me happy, considering I might play someone over-the-board who failed to read this book, and while he/she is searching for some bishop vs knight imbalance, or figuring out if the e4 square is weak, I will drop a three move combination that wins me the game. So to all you chess players, skip this book and leave the learning (and winning)to me!!
Rating: 
Summary: Software Plug
Review: Many of Michael de la Maza's suggestions sound worthwhile and I intend to try them. The author's recommendations that class players devote a great deal of time to tactical study jibes with advice from Dan Heisman and other fine chess instructors. My reservation here is that a large portion of the book seems to be shilling for a specific brand of chess software. (The software is only available for PC, so that automatically leaves us MAC users out of the game.) Then, the author goes on to say that doing his program from tactical-exercise books is "far inferior" to using the software. This leaves one with the impression that unless you do the "Seven Circles" program with the software, you will be doing it only "half-strength." The author also devotes too much space to customer "testimonials." However, I applaud de la Maza's tenacity and success in boosting his rating so many points in relatively litttle time.
Rating:
Summary: Very Solid Advice for Chess Players Below Expert Strength
Review: This book confirmed for me what most of us probably know but don't act on-that is, for chess players below Expert strength, studying tactics is the best way to improve your game. After completing only the first 600 or so problems he recommends in the first circle (you'll learn about the 7 Circles in his book) I won the B section of a regional chess tournament a few weeks ago. Next month, I'm playing in the A section. I'm convinced I would have missed a few key tactical ideas in games that I won had I not been studying tactics as de la Maza recommends. Here's the thing though, it takes hard work, dedication and discipline to follow the program that de la Maza recommends. Most of us are lazy and we want things easy. Many chess players will find it much easier to make excuses than to put forth the effort it takes to follow de la Maza's program. For the record, I am college educated working professional and I have a wife and daughter and I have made the time and effort to follow a modified version of de la Maza's program. It might be late at night, early in the morning, or at a lunch break but I'm doing it. So put away your excuses, if I can do it so can you. It's no different than finding the time to take a graduate course or coach little league. Even though I may not get through the program quite as fast as de la Maza recommends I believe my game will be much stronger than if I had coninued to play mindless blitz games on ICC and make excuses. Albert Einstein said "Insanity is continuing to do the same things and expecting different results." Let me ask class players this question "How long have you been doing what you are doing and you are still at the same level of chess strength?" Try de la Maza's suggestions. I believe they will work for me and I believe they will work for you too.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece!
Review: This book is an absolute masterpiece and should be required reading. Unfortunately, it's a masterpiece of marketing, not chess, and should be studied in business school, perhaps in "capitalism 101". Somehow, this author has succeeded in writing, publishing, and selling a book about chess tactics which contains virtually no content to speak of. It could serve as a guide to many others in making a quick effortless buck. Here, I'm going to save you a few dollars. This is my chess improvement program:
Buy some tactics books and also a strategy book or two. Set up a few chessboards and maybe a computer or two. Work through all the books for three hours per day, rain or shine, in sickness and in health. Spend 4 hours per day on weekends. Play human players occasionally.
With the program detailed above, I guarantee that your rating will increase by 100 points in only 4 months. Now, here's the most important part: please send $5 to me at: Chess Book Author, PO Box 8825, Baltimore, MD, 21224. My offer is a big bargain-the content is equivalent to de la Maza's book, but I'm charging a lot less.
In summary: De la Maza's book is vacuous and devoid of content. The man is a genius.
Rating:
Summary: Do NOT waste your money
Review: This book lays out a program for developing tactical strength in the chess player's repertoire. The program uses "vision drills" and problem solving. The program requires intense dedication and may not work if attempted with less intensity. De la Maza has testimonials from players that have used the method to improve their tactical play and this is demonstrated by the Fritz scores they generate in their tournaments. Prior reviewers have criticized the reliance on ratings by the author, but the Fritz scores demonstrate the soundness of the approach. To most effectively execute his training regimen, de la Maza suggests the purchase of the CT Art, so there is an extra cost associated with this effort. If you can afford the cost and the time, there seems to be considerable value to doing theses drills.
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