Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #399088 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

Self-diagnosis made easy.
The basic premise of this book is to assess the the strengths and weaknesses of your game. It does this through a series of 100 positions, with multiple-choice answers for which you're assigned points. Each puzzle will be assigned at least 3 categories (e.g. a position might assess endgames, counter-attacking and strategy). Wrong answers can lose you points, or gain partial credit if you chose an option which was good, but not quite correct.

The problems are 2 to a page, and the second problem is related to the first. Overleaf is a full solution which breaks down the position thoroughly for you, and gives reasons why the other choices weren't as good. The analysis is instructive in itself, allowing you to find flaws in your own thinking.

There are 10 sections, with 10 problems (5 sets of 2)in each. These are mixed up (i.e. you won't get 10 openings in a row for example.) After each section there is a "fun" puzzle, and a provisional rating.

At the end of the 100 problems, you tally up he points in each category and reference it to a table which converts this to an approximate rating.

The beauty of this is that it allows you to focus your reading on your weak points. For example, it exposed my relatively weak tactics (around 1400) compared with my strategical play (around 1750). The overall rating closely corresponded with my estimated elo.

At the end of the book, there are recommendations for exercises and further reading to improve each element of your game. The weakest part of my game was "calculating", for which I was recommended to set up a critical position from a games collection, calculate all variaitions as well as I could and compare analysis. Also recommended were Kotov's "Think Like a GM", working on a combinations book, and playing blindfold.

Highly recommended!

Book for each chessplayer
Typical chess exam.
This book gives you a lot of information about your weaknesses in chess ( 100 puzzles, 200 questions, detailed answers).
Test covers 12 areas, but for me to little information how to improve your chess.