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Studying Chess Made Easy
Study is a necessity for competitive chess players, and acclaimed chess author and International Grandmaster Andrew Soltis explains how it should be done. In his trademark witty, accessible style, Soltis provides tips on everything from the need for memorization to the use of computers-and even how to develop that indefinable thing called intuition.
- GenresChessNonfictionGames
256 pages, Paperback
First published August 3, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
April 20, 2012
Stellar guide to using the information that's out there in a coherent way. The biggest problem with trying to improve your chess game is, after the fundamental basics, there's a whole lot of "now what?" Soltis' book answers that question.
Chapter 1 ("Chess isn't school") introduces and reinforces the idea that how you go about learning chess is rather different than other subjects.
Chapter 2 ("Cultivating your chess sense") gives a methodology on how to make your chess understanding more innate than rote.
Chapter 3 ("The biggest study myth") presents the idea that succeeding at chess isn't determined by how well you think, it's how much you know without thinking. Pattern recognition is key here.
Chapter 4 ("The right way to study an opening") explains how to familiarize yourself with an opening, investigate it deeper, and choose the right books once you've decided on the one you want to learn. Without having to know all the variations to move ten right up front.
Chapter 5 ("Two-and-a-half move chess") explains, and demonstrates how you rarely have to think further ahead than the chapter title indicates. It's evaluating what you see when you think ahead that's the key.
Chapter 6 ("Overcoming endgame phobia") explains how to go about learning endgames. There's a lot fewer of them you need to know cold than you'd think. The rest can be managed by guiding principles.
Chapter 7 ("Learning to live with TMI") confronts the issues involved in selecting moves. So often, all the guiding principles you've learned in the fundamentals come to odd here, with no real set of priorities. This chapter simplifies that thinking process. (Coupling this chapter, alone, with chunks of Heisman's "Guide to Chess Improvement" is probably going to increase your rating 200-300 points, assuming you're sub-1400 right now.)
Chapter 8 ("How to learn more from a master game") explains how to actually benefit from the advice everyone receives: "play through the games of the masters!" A list of good compendiums is offered, and how to use those books is thoroughly covered.
I expect this book will have diminishing returns the higher your rating is above 1700 or so, but for those of us in the lower eschelons, it's a must for cutting through and understanding the great heaping mounds of chess information that's available these days.
Chapter 1 ("Chess isn't school") introduces and reinforces the idea that how you go about learning chess is rather different than other subjects.
Chapter 2 ("Cultivating your chess sense") gives a methodology on how to make your chess understanding more innate than rote.
Chapter 3 ("The biggest study myth") presents the idea that succeeding at chess isn't determined by how well you think, it's how much you know without thinking. Pattern recognition is key here.
Chapter 4 ("The right way to study an opening") explains how to familiarize yourself with an opening, investigate it deeper, and choose the right books once you've decided on the one you want to learn. Without having to know all the variations to move ten right up front.
Chapter 5 ("Two-and-a-half move chess") explains, and demonstrates how you rarely have to think further ahead than the chapter title indicates. It's evaluating what you see when you think ahead that's the key.
Chapter 6 ("Overcoming endgame phobia") explains how to go about learning endgames. There's a lot fewer of them you need to know cold than you'd think. The rest can be managed by guiding principles.
Chapter 7 ("Learning to live with TMI") confronts the issues involved in selecting moves. So often, all the guiding principles you've learned in the fundamentals come to odd here, with no real set of priorities. This chapter simplifies that thinking process. (Coupling this chapter, alone, with chunks of Heisman's "Guide to Chess Improvement" is probably going to increase your rating 200-300 points, assuming you're sub-1400 right now.)
Chapter 8 ("How to learn more from a master game") explains how to actually benefit from the advice everyone receives: "play through the games of the masters!" A list of good compendiums is offered, and how to use those books is thoroughly covered.
I expect this book will have diminishing returns the higher your rating is above 1700 or so, but for those of us in the lower eschelons, it's a must for cutting through and understanding the great heaping mounds of chess information that's available these days.
December 5, 2012
F*** this I don't want to study chess. Not this guys fault I guess.
December 31, 2017
Despite what the title suggests not a book for beginners. I'd say it's ideal for intermediate players wanting to start a program to get to the next level but aren't sure what to study or how. Definitely provides a way to focus your studies.
August 20, 2020
A book of practical advice on how bets to spend your chess study time. Like other chess masters, Soltis recommends going over master games, more than once, focusing on the diagrammed positions, and zoning in on what you don't understand. His recommendation is to go over classic games played by Capablanca, Karpov, and Fischer because their styles tend to be the clearest and least complicated. Three times is the charm--first just going over the moves, second reading through the game annotations (the notes) to get an understanding of the key moments in the game, and finally playing through to understand what were the good and bad moves, ie, your understanding of the chess analysis. If you're looking for a quick way to become a master, well, there is no quick way. Soltis's style is very conversational, and there are enough diagrams so that you don't really need a board, as the examples are mostly here to explain a point or theme. Soltis also suggests some books for further reading that I wish were listed as part of a bibliography or reading list instead of just incorporated into the narrative. The editors needed to do a better job proofreading the diagrams, as the positions are sometimes wrong (they don't match the moves, or pieces are on the wrong square, etc). Much of the advice here can be read elsewhere--Dan Heisman, Jeremy Silman--and in other books, such as Chessmaster at Any Age. Soltis's presentation is both methodical and practical. His best advice is to play and have fun!
May 22, 2013
I have now read several chess books, and didn't find this one overly valuable. It's scope is simply too broad. Soltis did introduce some helpful ideas (two and half move chess, studying masters games three times, the priyome, etc.), but most of the book is filled with one set of annotations per idea. In my opinion, working through these annotations simply wastes time, because you can't learn an idea in that little space (I doubt that was his intention, but they really don't add anything). If you read his book without reading the annotations, you will benefit from some new ideas, but far less than you would like in a 250 page book.
In my opinion his book does not make studying chess much easier. In fact, it more just made me of the opinion that you must just jump in studying somewhere and learn as much as you can however you can. Sure, you'll waste some time along the way, but that is inevitable, even with Soltis' book.
In my opinion his book does not make studying chess much easier. In fact, it more just made me of the opinion that you must just jump in studying somewhere and learn as much as you can however you can. Sure, you'll waste some time along the way, but that is inevitable, even with Soltis' book.
March 26, 2020
A well-written and thoughtful little book. There were plenty of typos in the edition I have including some in the diagrams which didn't help but the miniatures and abstracts of longer games were very good for intermediate strength players who already have a decent grasp of tactics and some strategic ideas.
It's debatable how much a novice, or sub-1200 strength player would get out of this book but then again, perhaps they aren't concerned with 'studying' chess and should probably spend most of their time training tactics, or dip their toes into books like Seirawan's Winning Chess series first.
Andy Soltis makes some excellent points about focussing one's study on weaknesses and reinforcing the idea that there is no quick and easy way up the ranking charts - hard work (and particularly focussed work) is still the only way. Chess is hard!
It's debatable how much a novice, or sub-1200 strength player would get out of this book but then again, perhaps they aren't concerned with 'studying' chess and should probably spend most of their time training tactics, or dip their toes into books like Seirawan's Winning Chess series first.
Andy Soltis makes some excellent points about focussing one's study on weaknesses and reinforcing the idea that there is no quick and easy way up the ranking charts - hard work (and particularly focussed work) is still the only way. Chess is hard!
March 17, 2013
I'm surprised by how quickly I got through this book. It is well-written, provides directions rather than detailed game-analysis. I'm not certain that anyone but the most ardent chess players would plough through 200 pages of move-by-move game study, but Mr. Soltis provides basic principles and how to get the most out of those 200-page books of intricate analysis. The answer: don't read them cover-to-cover, they are for reference; move slowly; avoid myths and grandmaster posturing, etc. I will recommend the book especially to beginners who are bewildered by the walls of detailed chess-books in the back of the game shop. Move slowly. Most of us just love the game, several of us will buy up libraries of detailed opening-books and far, far fewer will become geniuses like Morphy and Fischer.
May 9, 2020
An exceptionally good chess book. I really liked the author's discussion of priyome (mini-themes and patterns that repeat).
The author gives post diagrams often enough. I was able to follow the great majority of the book without setting up a board.
The author gives post diagrams often enough. I was able to follow the great majority of the book without setting up a board.
October 3, 2021
An amazing book about how to study chess, a topic which is rarely addressed. For this reason, you'll get a much higher return on your time by reading this book rather than another tactics, opening, strategy or endgame book. It is also very well written. Highly recommended!
December 16, 2017
You'll find a valuable resource of wisdom in this book but I believe only a particular type of audience, such as intermediate players, will appreciate it. The reason? Stronger opponents already passed this phase of learning the fundamentals, perhaps when they were young so it's kinda of boring; and beginners may not like to face the cold truth that there is no silver bullet.
When I started reading this book, I was hoping too for the most efficient way of learning chess, the “ultimate recipe” and most of all, I was attracted to the idea of making it less painful. Instead we are presented to the typical pitfalls of unpractical and inefficient ways of studying the game, and how to avoid them, mostly because Chess has “Too Much Information”. In this respect I think the book title is somewhat maladjusted.
Make no mistake in just skipping the book because of its reviews. The message is very clear and simple: Chess playing proficiency comes with hard work on maintaining a “highly efficient pattern and priyome recognition machine” as fresh as possible. And thus you'll need to memorize a lot of things and be able to recall them “without thinking”. If you want to know why, read the book.
When I started reading this book, I was hoping too for the most efficient way of learning chess, the “ultimate recipe” and most of all, I was attracted to the idea of making it less painful. Instead we are presented to the typical pitfalls of unpractical and inefficient ways of studying the game, and how to avoid them, mostly because Chess has “Too Much Information”. In this respect I think the book title is somewhat maladjusted.
Make no mistake in just skipping the book because of its reviews. The message is very clear and simple: Chess playing proficiency comes with hard work on maintaining a “highly efficient pattern and priyome recognition machine” as fresh as possible. And thus you'll need to memorize a lot of things and be able to recall them “without thinking”. If you want to know why, read the book.
May 14, 2011
While the title probably is nice from a marketing standpoint what GM Soltis is really doing in this book is providing methods to study efficiently, but still require lots of hard work for a very long time.
He provides suggestions on studying master games, the openings, and the endgame. He also gives exercises for improving calculation, move selection, evaluation of positions, and planning. Overall it is a lot of useful information for someone looking to improve at chess.
He provides suggestions on studying master games, the openings, and the endgame. He also gives exercises for improving calculation, move selection, evaluation of positions, and planning. Overall it is a lot of useful information for someone looking to improve at chess.
July 31, 2015
Excellent survey of how strong chess players actually think about the game, and how to use this knowledge to improve your studies. I found the author's advice about treating every diagram as a lesson very helpful, as well as the notion of learning a set of positions and "priyomes" as a way of improving your positional skills. Why didn't anyone tell me this 20 years ago? I want to get Soltis's sequel to this book, 100 Chess Master Trade Secrets to follow up on this idea.
September 13, 2012
If your just starting at chess this should be the second book you read after a "getting started" book. After you've decided to move on to a higher skill level read this book. You can certainly play and figure things out as you go but this book could save months if not years and significant frustration off your progress. Well worth the read.
February 17, 2011
Helpful but I expected more.
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August 3, 2011One of the best chess books I've ever read. It teaches you how to teach yourself better chess. Absolutely amazing.
January 16, 2013
Not as accessible as the title makes it seem. There are easier books.
January 8, 2014
Very good book by GM Soltis. Mostly oriented toward lower to moderately rated players, but there's enough practical advice in here for even strong players.
April 4, 2012
I guess what I have learned is it's better to train than to study...
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews