Customer comments on this selection.
 This is the Best Chess book ever written BarNone!!!
This book is awesome. I'm only 1/3 of the way through it. I have a bunch of chess books. The value of this one book exceeds them all. There is so much information packed into these pages. Each puzzle is like taking chess classes with a grandmaster for a month. The best piece of advice in the book that I've read so far is to do self annotations. It forces you to improve your game no matter what. I've gotten so much better just by doing this. Don't waste your time, get this book and throw all your other books in the trash.
 An excellent companion to "Reassess"
"How To Reassess Your Chess" (hereafter referred to as "Reassess") was, for me, the single most important book of my chess "career" (I'm not a professional, just a casual player). Without going into depth about "Reassess," I can simply say that it helped me to master all areas and facets of chess, and, as a result, my rating has been going up since I recently reread the book.
"The Reassess Your Chess Workbook" (hereafter referred to as "The Reassess Workbook") is an excellent companion volume for "Reassess." Although "Reassess" does have exercises at the end of each section, this workbook will help you to further hone and employ the things that you have learned. Additionally, many of the exercises are very difficult, as they require advanced thinking, and thus, this book can also be viewed as a chess puzzle book as well.
Before the exercises comes a written segment on "thinking techniques," followed by a section dealing with many of the major points of the entire game (this section is not very thorough - it's not supposed to be - but it is useful for reviewing what you've learned from "Reassess").
After you've read this section (which shouldn't be a problem since Silman is such a humorous, fun-to-read writer!), you will do some opening exercises, a quiz on imbalances, middlegame and endgame exercises and even some self-annotations (which are actually quite fun, trust me!). In the back are the answers, so that none of the problems will be left eternally unanswered. And if you ever come into contact with a term you don't know, simply consult the glossary in the back of the book for a definition.
The content is well-chosen: Silman uses positions from actual games as well as position he himself has created. Futhermore, each position is like a mini-lesson, so approximately 130 lessons in one book is quite a deal! The answer key is very well-written, as Silman helps us to mine the secrets and subtleties (and to spot the mistakes) of each game so that we can become better players in the future.
In conclusion, "The Reassess Workbook" is a fine volume, but not an essential book for a chess-player's library. If you have read "Reassess," you will find this book to be very helpful, and I wholeheartedly recommend the purchase of these two books together, as this workbook utilizes much of the material learned in "Reassess".
Original and useful, but some odd quirks
IM Silman's "imbalance" method of chess instruction is justly popular. I shows the amateur--usually for the first time--what is *really* going on in a high-level chess game: to wit, the creation and exploitation of different imbalances (superior pawn formation vs. two bishops, say) around which the two sides make their plans.
This book begins with a summary ("crash course") of his thinking techinque and imbalances from "How to Reasses Your Chess" (HTRYC). Then, a selection of over 110 problems (comprising opening, middlegame, and endgame positions as well as complete games to annotate); and, finally, their solutions. The book's great strength is in this last, very detailed, part. Every solution gives not only the correct move, but explains why: how the move helps one side use his positive imbalances or minimize his negative ones, and how the move fits with his overall plan. In addition, the solution of course offers data about the game: players, date, tournament, etc.
Clearly, Silman put a lot of effort into his book: not only does he give original and detalied analysis of every position (including a re-analysis, from the point of view of his "imbalances" method, of some of the most famous games in chess history), he also chose a very wide range of players--from Fischer and Morphy to obscure correspondence players to 1500-level amateurs--if the game edifies the reader. I wish more chess writers would do this: one learns just as much (and more) from Silman's down-to-earth "Why is this move, which looked perfectly logical to the 1500-rated player, simply wrong?" than from the typical "What marvelous combination did Fischer find here?" one usually finds.
To those who want to learn or practice Silman's thinking technique, which is well worth knowing if only in order to understand masters' games better, this is a very good book. Apart from the hard work and originality, I commend Silman for not being greedy and trying to squeeze more sales out of a previous book: instead of referring the reader to HTRYC for an explanation of his method, the Workbook is a stand-alone book that includes a detailed explanation of it, even if it might hurt sales. (It also has a larger, clearer format and far fewer typos than HTRYC). Such ethical behavior by authors should be the (Grandmaster) norm, but isn't.
One problem, though, is the quirky design: candid photographs of famous chess players are printed in the book apparently at random, and the "solution" section reprints every question before giving the solution to it. The first oddity is due to Silman's desire to show chessplayers as they really are. The second is probably because, on the one hand, Silman doesn't want people to read the problem with the solution "tempting" them on the bottom of the same page, while, on the other, once they *do* decide to look at the solution, he doesn't want them to go back and forth between different pages to make sure they see what bishop or pawn the solution is talking about. In my view, it would have been better on balance to omit both as unnecssary and distracting rather than helpful. That said, this is a minor issue, and perhaps a matter of taste.
If you are interested in chess strategy at all, this is a great book to get.
Excellent
This was a great book to get after I read "The Amateur's Mind" by Silman. Silman's system of looking for and creating imbalances, then exploiting the imbalances, has given me a framework for thinking about chess. Much better than books like "How to Think Like a Grandmaster," which really didn't teach me anything.
A good compliment to Silman's previous work, but also useful by itself
I do not believe one can get a true appreciation for Silman's 'Reassess Your Chess' without also working through this Workbook. The games examined provide many opportunities to exercise the knowledge of imbalances acquired in the previous book. As a stand-alone instruction manual, it dispenses copious useful insights into the game of chess, including a VERY enlightening tutorial on endgames involving Bishops of opposite colors. Although also quite time-consuming, it is a good improvement over the long-winded ways of 'Reassess Your Chess' with most of the middlegames studied much more to the point (see my review on 'Reassess Your Chess').
Alas, it is not without flaws. Besides minor issues like typos and misspellings, there are a couple of incorrect analyses; most notable is the one in Problem 131 (the very last in the book). Silman insists in the question that White had missed a great opportunity, namely a Bh7+, or "Petrosian check," which would ensure a quick win for White. However, after investigating the position with Chessmaster 10, I do believe Silman is incorrect. In fact, the follow-up position actually gives Black a winning game. These misdiagnoses are annoying, but also can be very confusing to a lower-rated player.
Even with its faults, the many in-depth tactical and position dissections should not only heighten a chess player's senses to the issues he needs to look for and be aware of in every phase of the game, but, if nothing else, add to his intuition, a very important weapon in the player's arsenal.
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