Jeremy Silman is the author of choice for the average player seeking better understanding or a more intelligent approach to chess, and THE REASSESS YOUR CHESS WORKBOOK is a great addition to the author’s many excellent works. Perhaps best known for his book HOW TO REASSESS YOUR CHESS, which has made it through three editions, this book is something of a companion to that excellent effort. While it works as a solo book, I think it is best used as a study assistant to Silman’s earlier work.

Silman has made his mark by demonstrating a method for players to approach planning and move selection. While books such as Kotov’s THINK LIKE A GRANDMASTER develop methods for analyzing using candidate moves and trees of analysis, Silman rightly notes that most players do not really know how to select the candidate moves in the first place. Thus, Silman shows players who to assess a position based on its imbalances and then develops useful guidelines for finding appropriate plans and moves based on this assessment. This is a useful method that has proved valuable to many players.

In this book, Silman provides a variety of exercises that can be used to supplement his previous teachings. For those who have not been exposed to his methods, Silman starts with 34 pages on thinking techniques and a crash course on imbalances. While the coverage is not nearly as extensive as in his earlier books, it does give the reader enough to get started on the exercises.

The heart of the book is a series of chess problems followed by extremely detailed solutions. Unlike many puzzle books where the answers are little more than a series of moves, Silman uses each answer as an opportunity to provide a chess lesson. He examines the key imbalances and other things that are “going on” in the position and explains how a player should think through the position to get to the appropriate answer based on his system. This makes the book an outstanding tool for thinking, analyzing, and learning from examining Silman’s thoughts in relationship to the player’s own.
The book provides a nice mix of problems dealing with all facets of the game. It starts with 37 problems dealing with the opening, followed by 62 covering the middlegame, 14 on the endgame, and 15 dealing with the student annotating games or game fragments. Silman and I share the belief that a great way for a player to improve is by closely analyzing master games, and self-annotating is an excellent way to force the student to closely analyze a game.

Each of the problem areas is split into a separate chapter, and Silman provides a nice introduction that discusses the key aspects of that part of the game. Each problem is also prefaced by material that sets the stage for the player. While some books inadvertently provide clues to the solution in the preface, Silman avoids this crutch while using these introductory comments as a way to further press his teaching methods.

As noted above, the solutions are what make this book different than other books of this genre. Silman is relentless in his dedication to make the solutions a learning experience each and every time. He generally specifically discusses the imbalances, gives lots of explanation about why the correct solution is the best choice, and then summarizes the key points from the example. A player who approaches each exercise with the necessary fortitude to analyze and then learn from the solution will likely gain much from this book.
It really is difficult to do justice to the amount of effort the author has put into the problem solutions. Perhaps the numbers can give you some idea: there are 131 problems and 220 pages for the solutions – nearly two pages per solution. Besides the sheer amount of material provided, there has obviously been a great deal of effort spent picking the examples. They provide excellent learning opportunities, and that isn’t the case in every game or position one could choose for a book like this.

There are a lot of other nice features to the book. The print is clear and the font just about right for a book of this size. The author lays out his material in a pleasing way, with good use of bold text, frames, and just the right amount of white space. There are some wonderful photos of famous players and a useful glossary of terms. In all, a first rate effort.

There’s not much to quibble with here. You probably won’t get as much out of the book without reading HOW TO REASSESS YOUR CHESS, but that’s like saying you won’t enjoy a great film like GODFATHER 2 quite as much without seeing the original – you’ll still have a great experience with this book and that movie regardless. I do wish the author had settled on just exactly how he would like a player to use the book and laid out his step-by-step plan for the reader. While I agree there are multiple methods that can be used that will benefit many players, there are others who will drift and not get what they could out of the book because of the latitude it grants the reader.

In conclusion, Jeremy Silman has written an outstanding self-help manual that gives the aspiring player lots to chew on. The examples are well chosen and the text explaining the solutions the best you will find in a problem book. In combination with his classic HOW TO REASSESS YOUR CHESS, the player willing to put in the effort will likely see an improvement in his play. Even used solo, the book offers lots of useful material on how to plan and execute in chess.

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