Please excuse the lengthy preamble but I wanted to make my relationship with this book clear and also to make it clear that I have actually thoroughly read the book. Many of the reviews seem far too generous to me, given the book's many deficiencies.

Many have already pointed out, and I agree, that there are far too many typos. It is also true that for a book that claims to be "a complete course to chess mastery" that the endgame section is too skimpy and there is virtually nothing about tactics. Another negative is the unengaging format. The pages are single columned with very long paragraphs. Many pages look like a solid mass of words. You have to really want to study this book because it does not beckon you.

Thanks to Amazon for this reader review section. The opinions of others have started me in the right direction on several occasions. One of the main reasons I didn't just jump back into HTRYC is because of several reviews that suggested the book contained flawed analysis when checked by a computer program and also that much of the material came from Euwe and Kramer's Middlegame books. So I decided to find out for myself.

I found that 22 games & diagrams are identical to those found in Euwe and Kramer (20 from Vol I and 2 from Vol II). I also found 8 from Pachman's "Modern Chess Strategy." I only have the abridged l volume Pachman book. If I had the 3 volume complete set, I suppose I would find more. Silman doesn't add anything to the original sources except for a lot more words. I very much prefer the Euwe and Kramer and Pachman explanations.

Next, I went through some of the Silman games with Fritz 7. I didn't bother with the non-Silman games because most of them are games by world class GMs who don't make so many errors and also the analysis has been made by world class GMs as well. I was amazed at how many errors there are in the Silman games and how misleading the annotations are. I didn't go through them all, but enough to satisfy myself. Two very troublesome things are constantly repeated: 1) Silman gives one of his own moves a "!" or "!!" with no explanation. Since Fritz analysis often does not even consider Silman's move best, it is nearly impossible for the student to figure out why a move is worth a "!" 2) Silman's opponent makes a serious error or blunder and Silman does not give it a "?" Sometimes it is a game-losing blunder but Silman ignores it and that gives the false impression that the game represents a triumph for whatever stragegical theme is being demonstrated. Both of these situations greatly short change the student. This is especially true when it is one of the Problems in the book where the student might get a wrong answer that is actually right or the reverse. Here are 3 examples:

In the "Solve These Problems" section of page 240, there is Diagram 151 a position taken from Silman-Fedorowicz, Lone Pine, 1976. Silman is up 2 exchanges, is down a pawn, has doubled pawns and Fedorowicz has the 2 Bishops. The "right" answer is Rxe6 (with the ubiquitous "!"), giving back one of the exchanges. At this point I put Fritz 7 into Shootout mode and let it play the game out against itself. Allowing this 2600 playing program to play against itself should get closer to the "truth" of the position than a game between Silman at 2310 and Fedorowicz at 2200 (he later became a GM but at the time of this game he was 17 or 18 and rated 2200 per my database). In Fritz 7 v. Fritz 7, BLACK WON. Getting back to game as played, Silman gives himself several "!" moves which are unexplained and not supported by Fritz analysis. More importantly, Fedorowicz makes 2 major blunders. The first comes at move 32 where he plays ...d5 instead of ...a4! which will create a WINNING endgame for BLACK. Of course Silman does not give this move a "?" or even comment about it. Later, with the game essentially even, at move 37, Fedorowicz makes the game-losing blunder, ...a3. Again, no "?" or comment from Silman (37...h6 keeps everything pretty even). So the "solution" to this problem is totally misleading and not very helpful to the student.

On page 288, there is Diagram 184, R. Ervin-Silman, Berkeley 1976. In this game Silman plays 15...Nd3!! This is actually a major blunder giving White a big advantage (15...Rb2 gives Black the advantage). At move 16, Silman plays ...f5! This is actually a game losing blunder (16...Nf4 would keep White's advantage to a minimum). Then Silman is saved because at move 18 White plays 18 Rxf4--a total blunder. Silman does not give this move a "?" either, instead he points out that 18 Rg1+ also wins for Black. Maybe so, but 18 Qg5+ convincingly wins the game for White. Another totally misleading game. It is incredible that Silman could miss this analysis because 18 Qg5+ is quite easy to see. You would think he would consider it, after all it is a check!

At page 267 there is a Problem to Solve, diagram 167, Silman-Petranovic, American Open, 1989. In this problem Black is nearly lost already and it is a matter of how White should finish him off. Silman gives the "right" answer as 1. h3! I have no problem with 1. h3 being a good move but in analyzing the position with Fritz, the best 5 moves in order are: Kb1 and Rdg1 (tied), g3, h3 and Nb5. They are all evaluated at approximately the same strength (+1.22 to +.94). For what it is worth I had Fritz play out the position after both 1. h3 and 1. Rdg1. In this case Rdg1 won much quicker than h3. I'm not quibbling that the point is that Rdg1 or the other moves are better than h3 but simply that Silman considers only 1. h3 (with "!" yet) as the "right" answer. He doesn't discuss any other moves. Doesn't this do a disservice to the student who decided that Rdg1 or Kb1 or g3 was the "right" answer?

In the interest of keeping this already very lengthy review from getting any longer, I'm not going to list the other examples I have. You get the idea. I picked the examples at random and did not begin to check them all. I can say that I found serious errors in every game I checked, however. The most common theme would be a Silman opponent error that is not acknowledged by Silman and therefore undercutting the instructional value of the game. Silman makes some errors as well but since his opponents are usually rated 100-250 points lower than him (and some of them are less than Master level), they make a lot more.

Including the Silman games with the games of world class GMs and World Champions is a mistake in my opinion. This is doubly true when the annotating isn't honest.

I give the book 3 stars because it does have some very useful instructional information. Silman has put Steinitz's classic theories in a convenient and somewhat usable form.

Since the Silman games make up such a large portion of this book, re-reading HRTYC is not a real option for me.

Thanks to those of you who alerted me to this problem. Now I only have to decide whether or read Pachman or Euwe and Kramer.

242 of 251 found the following review helpful:

I liked this book  Jul 24, 2006

Certain situations that the author feels are important are covered. They become example positions and the planning and ideas that are mainly for one side to get to a goal is well covered. There are some limits to what this book can cover as these are only some examples of some of the many things that can occur in games. I feel that good books to go along with this one would be on positional chess like "My System" a book on attacks like "Art of Attack" and a book on opening traps and tactics like "Winning Chess Traps for Juniors", then you will have covered the most important all around situations that may occur. I think this book is, by far, the best book Jeremy Silman has written!

48 of 51 found the following review helpful:

Important Concepts explained for the Intermediate Player  Nov 27, 2006

This is an overall good book covering various concepts that the author feels are important. There are a lot of good lessons in this book. Perhaps a little bit of grammer improvement and a little more clarity could be used in a few cases. I liked the part about if you have a bad Bishop to try and get the Bishop on the other side of the Pawns. The author's "How to Reasses your chess workbook" is good and I think the game analysis books, "Unbeatable Chess Lessons for Juniors" and "Logical Chess, Move by Move" also go well with this one.

This is a book for an intermediate player.

96 of 107 found the following review helpful:

Warning: Not very good.  Jul 27, 2006
By Chess amateur
It's hard for me to understand why this book is so popular. Maybe it is because this was one of the first imbalances chess books? The book is well written including the part with the first imbalance - minor pieces, where Silman lay out a set of guidelines for the minor pieces. But in the rest of the book Silman does not do this. That's confusing, it's seems like Silman got lazy. Silman "game-comments" are very often not very good and it is often not related to the subject (imbalance) discussed. Often Silman manage to confuse the reader instead of guiding him. An example is the chapter about doubled pawns. Silman tells us that one advantage with doubled pawns is the possibility to attack in the open file, and he gives us some examples. In diagram 109, in the chapter about doubled pawns, this is not a subject at all, Silman tells us that white only could attack on the queenside only if white's pawn-structure on that side was intact. Silman never explain why white couldn't attack in the open b-file (because of the doubled pawns).

There are some exercises in this book. What differs between a tactical exercise and a positional exercise is that a tactical exercise very often has very few alternative solutions (often only one), but a positional exercise seldom has just one clear solution. Silman give just one solution to each positional exercise. Positional puzzle book as this book should explain why other alternatives are wrong/less attractive. So in addition to this book you will need a teacher, who can explain why your solution to a puzzle from the book is wrong.

This book gives you almost nothing, except listing Silman's imbalances. It doesn't explain deeply how to use the imbalances together. And Silman's imbalances you can get for free from many different Internet sites. An irritating thing about this book, is that many positions are present from the middle of a game after move for instance after white's move number 23. And then the game continues for 15-20 moves. That means that you very often have to set up a specific position on the board, and that is very time consuming. Silman could instead always use complete games.

This book was original from 1993. I think that the idea about imbalances is great, and my hope is that the next revision from Silman is more complete and "up to date".

41 of 43 found the following review helpful:

A classic every chess player should own!!  Jun 04, 1998
By David Dathe
The word "classic" should be reserved for those few book which fit the criteria, and one criterion is that everyone should own a copy. Silman's book fits that description. His style and detailed explanations hit his targeted audience exactly--the average chess player. The book describes his method for improving: a thinking process using "imbalances"--any difference between the white and black position (Silman's definition). Silman then devotes about eight chapters explaining in detail the elements of strategy which will likely lead to imbalances: minor pieces, space, the center, weak and strong pawns, weak squares, material, temporary imbalances (lead in development or the initiative), and open lines. He closes the book with "Three Keys to Success" and a discussion of how imbalances look in the opening, middlegame, and endgame. Any chess player who repeatedly studies the material in this book, and plays regularly against strong players, will certainly rise to Expert level of play. Silman is to be congradulated for both writing a modern treatise on chess strategy and for explaining to amateur chess players how to employ such strategies in their games.

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