What It Takes to Become a Chess Master (Batsford Chess)

GM Andy Soltis states, in the introduction to his wonderful book, an astonishing fact: less than 2% of chess players who take chess seriously ever reach master strength. (For US chess players, using the Elo rating system, a master rating is 2200 or higher.) Read the statistic again, it's not less than 2% of people who play chess, it's less than 2% of people who play chess seriously! Our chess experience is common--we engage in an endless cycle of study and tournament play. Yet, year after year we see no real improvement in our rating nor our chess skill. Soltis' book sets out to discover what seperates chess masters from the rest of us. What is missing from our chess experience that keeps us from improving to master strength? Based on my reading of the chess literature, I believed the answer to be chess masters are better in four areas: 1) tactical vision, 2) positional judgment, 3) calculating variations, and 4) endgame technique. (The first three are covered in detail, including training methods, in Kotov's book, Play Like a Grandmaster.) Add a few psychological factors such as will-to-win, concentration, and awareness, and you have a complete chess player. Apparently I was wrong. Soltis addresses these skills and states that while they are needed, they aren't enough. Soltis lists 9 skills, one per chapter, he believes seperates chess masters from other players. Some of the skills I had heard of, some I had heard of but didn't believe, and some of the skills were new to me. Based on my years of teaching experience and study of how expertise in a discipline is achieved, I believe Soltis' list is groundbreaking in chess literature. (I'm a complete skeptic on most everything, but I have to wonder if there has been some sort of chess conspiracy to keep this knowledge from the us ordinary players!) An example of a skill that Soltis examines is: What Matters Most. In any chess position there can be a confusing variety of tactical and positional elements to consider. In addition, general chess principles are often contradictory. This makes selecting the right move/plan difficult. Chess masters have the ability to focus on the one or two relevant elements of any position and exploit those elements. They see through the "noise" of a position to get at what is most important, what the position is calling them to do. (For the other 8 skills, you'll have to buy the book.) You may think that masters and GMs are born with these skills. Soltis disagrees. He claims that each skill can be taught and learned. To illustrate, each chapter is filled with study and training techniques. Specific GMs, e.g., Kramnik or Anand, are mentioned in connection with specific skills. Study their games because they show a particular skill particularly well. Numerous quizzes (test positions) at the end of the each chapter allow you to test your ability at mastering the skill being described. Soltis' book has had a profound effect on my chess. I have personally changed my study routine. I "see" chess differently. In examining GM games, I keep a list of the 9 skills to see what the GM was doing at a certain time. Many times when I play through GM games, certain moves were unclear to me. After reading Soltis' book, the number of confusing moves I see in GM games has been reduced greatly. I believe GM Andy Soltis is best chess author in the history of chess. He doesn't have a "bad" book, and if he did, the book would still be better than 90% of what is out there now. I also believe this is his best book ever. If I had read this book 20 years ago, I would have been a chess master by now. There is simply no better book on real, meaningful chess improvement. I fully expect my chess skill to better a year from now. Buy the book, and your's will be too.

I have read every word in this book, set up every position on a board and studied it, written answers to 52 questions about the positions in the quizzes, and created a ChessBase file containing the games of those 52 positions. I shall soon go through the book again, digging more deeply. I don't yet know what improvement will come from this study, but I do know that Soltis's approach seems spot on, and I do know that I thoroughly enjoyed every moment, despite its difficulties and despite my many blind spots and incorrect or incomplete evaluations of quiz positions. Never before have I so eagerly anticipated studying a chess book for the second time. We who are not chess masters must change something (or many somethings) if we are ever to become masters. But what do we change and how? Soltis gives us plenty of guidance along that path. My only negative comment on this book is the frequent advice along the lines of "It's easy to find well-annotated games with examples of what I just explained [targets, pawn structures, priyomes, etc.]." Maybe it's possible, but it ain't easy. One serendipitous moment came, though, right after I finished two Spassky games in the final chapter and found an eerily similar priyome in the latest ChessBase coverage of the Russia-China match. Thanks, GM Soltis, for another great book. Once I judge that my ChessBase file of the quizzes is ready for primetime, I'll ask your permission to make it public.

American GM Andy Soltis is a long time very popular chess author. He is not so fortunately known for pumping out some, to put it kindly, rather hastily pasted together opening manuals of dubious value, but is even more well known for putting out some gems of the chess literature that are of lasting value. 'Pawn Structure Chess' and 'The Art of Defense in Chess' are just a couple of numerous gems he has written. The volume under review is closer in tone to the latter kind of work, but I do not think it is destined for classic status. The advice is often valuable, but sometimes borders on being worthless. Telling me that a chess master is not just better than me because of his deeper knowledge of openings, middlegames, and endgames, but because of his better chess 'sense' (a better sense of chess danger, eg) gives me virtually nothing of actionable value. What he is saying to me is that you have to play and study a whole lot more to develop this sense, but I already knew that, so he is filling pages in places with what is essentially just that: page filler. But there are many gems given as well, so the work certainly has its value. His chapter on playing for easier positions, for example is rather unique in my experience, and gives real food for thought, as I have been trapped in the past by playing for positions that were considered good by theory, but turned out to be beyond my ability to comprehend and thus come up with an effective plan for. So this is a good book, but I think that there are better works available for the non-master who is looking to improve. Yermolinsky's 'The Road to Chess Improvement', for one example, does a better job, in my opinion of offering practical and insightful advice.

I am a club player and have been actively playing tournaments for about 15 years. Like many players, after a rapid initial increase in rating, my progress plateaued. I tried lots of the usual improvement methods--lots of work on tactics, replaying master games, examining my own games with Fritz, etc. It helped a little, but I still didn't have a simple way to prioritize what was important in a game. This book may have been the missing link. My rating is at a new high after many years of stagnation and I believe it is partly due to this book. I found the sections of what is important, when to calculate, when not to calculate, and how to think about transforming a position very useful. Besides the written discussions, GM Soltis includes plenty of examples and exercises. The first time through the book, some of these were mystifying. I could not see how to get from point A (a position with nothing going on) to point B (a position where one side had a noticeably better position). But after a couple more times through the book, I began to develop a sense for how positions can be transformed through little tactics. GM Soltis also has some very specific ideas on how to study master games and how to continue to improve and I am looking forward to finding the time to work on those as well. I probably have a couple of dozen chess books on general improvement and this one is among the best.

My rating improved, but I'm not a master. Definitely insightful but discipline and persistence are prerequisites.

Obviously, most of us are never going to be masters (or even experts), and a 200 page book is not going to help a lot. I can understand that with so many chess books out there you have to put on a little spin to sell. On the upside, this book makes the point that being a great player requires a lot more than just memorizing openings without understanding "why." Soltis provides many good examples of why a club player move and the master move in the middle game can be wildly different. Why? Because the master understands the position. Buy it today! It reminds me a little of the now ancient "Judgement and Planning in Chess" by Max Euwe, also good.

BACKGROUND: In the past few years, I've gone from being nothing more than a very casual online correspondence chess player to one who is now starting to play in USCF rated tournaments. My current (albeit still provisional) USCF rating is in the 2000s. My "actual" playing strength for 'slow' chess is probably in the 1800-2000 USCF range. I've now played my share of speed games (1|0 bullet and 5|0 blitz) against players ranging from Class E to Expert (and even one master). To date I've completely read through at least 16 chess books, as well as half-finished at least a dozen others (probably the same as most other 'serious' chess players). Done loads of tactics problems. Read and still read dozens of annotated master games. Etc. Suffice it to say that while there are still far better chess players on this Earth than me, compared to the average club player, I'm not a complete slouch either. In other words, I have some idea of what passes for good chess literature and what doesn't. REVIEW: Anyone familiar with author Andrew Soltis' previous books will recognize the format of this one as well. Basically this is a collection of game fragments, organized thematically into a chapter which (here) is about the prime differences between an amateur chess player and a master. Soltis will repeatedly tag-team between explanatory prose and a game example, using the one to support the other (at least in theory). After finishing one game example, he'll move on to another. Until the next chapter of the book. Ad nauseam until the book is complete. Chapters include: 1.)'What Matters Most' - Soltis argues that a master doesn't necessarily calculate better or farther than an amateur. Rather, the master has a better idea of what matters most in a position and hence, what's even WORTH calculating to begin with. Although I disagree with some of Soltis' claims here, this is one of the best parts of this book I admit. 2.) 'Targets' - How a master will always look for targets to attack, and if he doesn't have any, he'll try to create some 3.) 'Little Tactics' - How masters won't immediately give up on a promising line just because of a small tactical flaw. Rather, the master will try to use 'little tactics' to make his idea work, if possible. 4.) 'Sensing,' - Discusses a master's superior ability to sense things over an amateur, like when zugzwang is approaching, when a position is becoming critical, etc. Soltis' main suggestion for developing better sense is going over more annotated master games. There's also a chapter (the name of which I forget) that discusses how experienced masters will often forgo objectively better, but more complicated, calculation-intense lines in preference to simpler, more practical moves, so long as the more practical choice still does whatever the master is looking for in the position (win or draw). All of this is well-and-good-sounding and indeed, much of Soltis' prose is rather engaging, instructive, and practical. Unfortunately, Soltis has the rather annoying habit of trying to support his good prose with bad, or at least considerably-less-than-ideal, examples. In one part of his book where he's discussing prophylactic moves, for instance, he wants you to guess a move that Carlsen played in a Sicilian Defense game. Did you guess Ka1? If not, then you obviously didn't see all the far-fetched (for me, at any rate) plans that Soltis discussed for black that would make such a move worthwhile for white. A frustrating experience when the same thing happens time and again throughout the book. So much for the prose explanations, I guess. What's worse is that the majority of Soltis' 'quiz' positions have the same not-very obvious solutions to them, ones that will likely take you minutes (more than 20 quite conceivably) to even come close to solving. Maybe it's because I'm still not quite where Soltis' target audience is (presumably 2000-2200 level players); maybe it's because Soltis' examples overwhelmingly draw from the absolute best players in the world, who themselves are/were many cuts above plain ol' masters. I'm not sure. CONCLUSION: Like most of Soltis' books, the topics sound good, the prose sounds good...but the specific examples that are meant to support the prose fall short. Instead of giving examples where the solution move is challenging, yet logical and illustrative, Soltis consistently goes for examples where the solutions are just baffling, if not outright over-the heads of most strong club players. Maybe I'm still not quite strong enough of a player to fully "appreciate" his examples or something. At any rate, this book, like the other Soltis books I've read, isn't total trash and does have its good points. Unfortunately, it also has more than its share of bad ones.

One of my favorites. There's a lot to know if you want to play chess at a high level. It takes more than simple book knowledge. If it didn't, anybody who reads enough books would be a master. That being said, you do still need book knowledge, but it's only one piece of the puzzle. This book mostly covers the other stuff. It covers how masters THINK, and what they look for. Of the various chess books I have, this one has probably helped my game mature the most. I'm not quite at master level yet (mid-to-upper 1800's at this point), but my play has become much more consistent, and I've gotten a better handle at What Matters Most. If you've got plenty of games under your belt but can't seem to get ahead, this may be the book you're looking for. You will also want to pick up Pawn Structure Chess (same author) if you don't already have it.

un chapitre très utile sur le sens de la position avec le timing. . Notions difficiles a cerner .Je recommande vivement des quiz apres chaque chapitre

In this book, Soltis examines nine subtle areas of chess thinking, some of which I have never seen explained in any chess book. I use the word "subtle" because I think these are more advanced ways of thinking about chess that are natural for a chess master but which are probably unexpected and surprising for non-masters to learn. It made me think of something Josh Waitzkin wrote in his book Attacking Chess:- "The writing of this book has forced me to look analytically at what for the most part came naturally. It has been a trip into parts of my mind that I never bothered to consider. ... Having to explain what comes intuitively was infuriating and made me want to give up these words and go back to playing moves." -- Josh Waitzkin This is genuinely interesting and practical material, ideal for players below expert level. 9 chapters are used to examine the kind of things a chess master is looking for, what he knows and wants, his techniques, habits: 1. What Matters Most 2. Habits 3. Little Tactics 4. More 5. Sense 6. Winnability 7. Easier 8. Comp 9. Knowing For example, in the first chapter Soltis says: "A master can figure out what future position he wants to play because he can isolate one or two factors that are most important: He knows what matters most." There is just enough detail and clarity for a non-master to understand these concepts. Soltis does not go overboard with vast amounts material - and in my opinion this is a strength of the book since I find many books contain masses of information when the minimalist approach is often best for transmitting the essential ideas. Each idea is explained with sample positions taken from top level games. A small quiz is provided at the end of each chapter, e.g. 5 positions to solve (with answers at the back of the book). The quiz sections work really well because they allow you to test your new knowledge and reinforce the ideas discussed in the chapter. I think the material definitely goes *some* way to justifying the title of the book. How much it succeeds is for each reader to judge for themselves. As an intermediate player, I enjoyed working through each chapter and then working on the Quiz sections. I found the Quiz positions to be challenging and I learned something of value to improve my game. This book is ideal for intermediate players and above. This book will definitely help you fill in some blanks in your chess understanding, or at least make you more aware of master-level thinking. This is very much the type of book (like My System) that really should be re-read at a later date to refresh your memory, especially if some of the ideas were new. I think natural talent is required to become a chess master, but studying this book is good training and will introduce plenty of new ideas to take your chess to a higher level.

Dem Leser wird klar gemacht daß er bei seiner Planfindung die Notwendigkeiten und Möglichkeiten der Stellung beachtet werden sollten. Insbesondere daß kleine Schwachstellen in seiner Stellung dem Gegner bei ungenügenden Konterchancen den Weg zum Gewinn der Partie eröffnen.

I libri di Andrew Soltis sono veramente ottimi. Questo è una dei migliori che ha scritto, a mio parere. Consigliabile.

Amazing book!!! Guys seriously don't hesitate. Order it now. I have 2096 elo and every page is new for me...