Paul Morphy, Reassess Your Chess, and a podcast host.
We are back with another Chess Books Recaptured Bonus Pod. This month, we recap the classic chess improvement manual, Reassess Your Chess (4th Edition), by Jeremy Silman. To help me discuss the book, I enlisted the help of Todd Kennedy. Todd is an adult improver, as well as being a dad, husband, actuary and chess player fan. For lots more details of what we discussed, please keep reading.
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0:00- My guest go-host, Todd Kennedy, shares a bit about his life and his chess background, and discusses why Reassess Your Chess is a favorite book of his.
Mentioned:Robert Katende initiative , Chess Books Recapured Episode #1- Recapping The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal with NM Sam Copeland
12:00- I share a couple reflections and observations about the impact of Reassess Your Chess, from prior guests of the show, IM Sagar Shah , and IM Cyrus Lakdawala, and we discuss some biographical details about IM Silman.
Mentioned: Chess Historian Edward Winter’s post on Chess book sales, Amazon’s Best Selling Chess Books
22:50- To order or find out more about the Chess World Championship Mugs go to Chessmugs.com, if you decide to purchase them, you can save 15% if you use the discount code “perpetualchess”
23:40- We dive into the book, beginning with Todd’s reading the first sentence, and a discussion of the structure of the book and our favorite chapters. Here are the imbalances Silman covers in the book:
Superior minor piece, pawn structure, space, material, control of a key file, control of a weak square, lead in development, initiative, king safety, and statics vs. dynamics.
30:45- We take turns reading and discussing our 3 favorite quotes from the book.
40:00- We each pick some favorite games from the book.
Mentioned: Volokitin-Delchev 2004 (p. 292), Catig-Mills (p.266), Karpov-Yusopov 1993 (p.304) Read Silman’s chess.com follow up post about the Micky Mills game here: https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-greatest-amateur-game-of-all-time
45:00- We discuss our primary takeaways for chess improvement from the book.
Mentioned: The Seven Deadly Chess Sins, Chesssentials.com, Adrien Demuth’s Chess24 London Course
53:00- How useful is this book for chess improvement?
56:00- Do we have any quibbles with the book?
Mentioned: Forward Chess, The Anand Files, E-plus Chessbooks App, Chessify
1:02- Thanks to Todd for his great work recapping Reassess Your Chess. Keep up with Todd on chess.com here.
Puzzle #1- from Reassess Your Chess, page 45, 4th edition, guessing 1400 level
White: King on h1, Pawn on a4, Bishop on a2
Black: King on g7, knight on d8
White to move and win
(repeat the whole thing)
Puzzle #2- guessing 2200 level?
From Pocket Training Chess Book #2 by GM Lev Alburt and Al Lawrence
White- King on c1, Pawn on h6, Bishop on B8
Black- King on h4, Pawn on e5, Bishop on d4
White to move and win
(repeat the whole thing)
Puzzle 1 diagram-
Puzzle #1 solution-
Puzzle #2- diagram
Puzzle 2 Solution-
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Click here to download the episode