I assume you're talking about Winning Chess Strategies, with Jeremy Silman, published by Microsoft Press.

I agree that the writing is quite lucid, but I'm still undecided about the value of this book (I'm only about a quarter finished).

On page 2 Seirawan elaborates some sententious nonsense about how he tells the parents of his students that chess teaches "the five R's", one of which is aRithmetic. He mentions a case involving a point count of pieces: "...a Rook, a Bishop, a Knight, and five pawns for a point count of 16 (5+3+3+5)". But on page 7, he writes: "...I assume that you are familiar with the numeric values assigned to the pieces - pawn (1 point); Knight (2 points); Bishop (3 points)..."

That was when the first doubts began to assail me. But c'mon, Seirawan is an IGM, so he knows chess. This was just a typo.

Nevertheless, I am not impressed by the Simple Simon tone and the amount of padding which characterize the book so far.

When I say "padding" I'm not talking about pedantic repetition, which can be a good thing for students trying to absorb new material. Chernev's Logical Chess is somewhat repetitive yet full of information; and showing the same principles at work in the context of different games played by masters over decades, in addition to assisting absorption of the material, helps the student to see that the principles he elaborates are universal and important. But Seirawan could have written the book (so far) in 1/4 the space without losing anything. And I note a tendency for his examples to contradict rather than illustrate the principles he has elaborated.

Fortunately I got this book used, essentially for free. I'm still hoping, however, that it's going to improve. If Nunn's "Chess: Move By Move" had been available, I would have picked it up as a follow-up to Chernev (which is what I had hoped the Seirawan would be).

You're right that Seirawan's writing is NOT compact. But for me, it's EXACTLY that "padding" that makes this book a great read. If you ever delve into the math literature, there's an infamous book on analysis by Walter Rudin. I've heard various mathematicians call it "a classic," "the paragon of elegance," "beautifully terse," etc. Whereas, I could not stand the book. I *want* that other "junk" that some readers consider unnecessary. I *want* the unrelated stuff about cats, dogs, pepperoni pizzas and the like. But that is me.

For example, see his section on the Bishop in Chapter 4. Pages 48 to 50 are spent telling me things such as: If White had eight bishops, all of them light-squared, they couldn't threaten Black's King on a dark corner square; and: Bishops are easily blocked by pawns; and so on. All of this leading up to the revelation (presented in Italic type in a pull-out paragraph on page 50): "The strategy here is, Place a bishop on an unobstructed diagonal; the rewards will pour in immediately." Well, really. This advice seems to have been inspired by the vague and hyperbolic language of a get-rich-quick pamphlet.

As one example of his tendency to employ illustrations which ignore or contradict, rather than emphasize, the principles he's elaborated, see page 62, where he uses a section of the Fischer-Petrosian game. In illustrating a point about rooks, he chooses a game where White destroys his own strong knight outpost in order to capture a "bad" bishop of his opponent's. Now, there are some instances where there are compelling reasons to trade a strong, active piece for an opponent's blocked piece, but the illustration chosen does not seem very well chosen to do this, at least not for the book's intended audience. The subsequent rook penetration seems fortuitous, dependent upon poor play by Black rather than following logically from the exchange of knight for bishop; perhaps this is an illusion stemming from my own ignorance and inexperience, but Seirawan, in flouting his own principles, should really have done a better job explaining just why this was necessary and appropriate. There are other even clearer examples of this tendency of Seirawan's, but this was the most recent (in my reading) and thus most easily located.

Here's another dreadful typographic error. The book contains a lot of them! See my kibitz for:

Seirawan vs Timman, 1980

The trade in material is supposed to occur when it can be done safely and without compromising positional integrity. That is the point of consolidation and king safety.

I do think Seirawan made some good points about the importance of stopping enemy counterplay. But you will note my added emphasis in the following quote from page 31: "WHEN victory is in your grasp, always keep things simple and safe. If possible, take your opponent's weapons away from him so that he can't shoot you in the back." That's a good philosophy for trading pieces off.

The "consolidation" part is perfectly consistent, and states that you should avoid going off half-cocked while neglecting your own defensive considerations, because while you play aggressively, your opponent may regard counterplay (a good offense) as the best defense; and IF your adventuring leaves you vulnerable, you may end up losing more in material and positional advantage than you've gained materially.

On the subject of Seirawan, I must confess that his habitual use of gruesome metaphors in this book annoys me. It isn't strong, merely revolting and barbaric.

He is a prime example of how a super GM should act towards his fans.

He often plays at playchess.com, or kibitz games when there are tournaments around the world.

Also from time to time he play anyone who challenges him. I once lost horibel to him, i hung a piece after about 8 moves or so lol. I was so exited to play a real GM, that i played really bad.

His live audio analys on playchess.com is also superb. When he explains things it really makes it so easy to understand why the players chose those moves they are making.

About his books.

I have two of Seirawans books, Winning tactics, and winning strategies. Unfortuanetly i am not all that exited about them. I gues there are much worse books, but they are not that good eather.

This is not the point. Fischer does not play as he does to torture his opponent: he plays to win. The first REAL guiding principle here is: when you have your opponent in a weak spot, take the time to cut off counterplay which might permit him to revive, before taking further aggressive steps. That is, aggressiveness must assume its proper place, and prudence should dictate what that place is, because only after counterplay is crushed does aggressiveness serve its proper function of winning the game.

The funny thing is, Seirawan makes this point himself explicitly in other parts of the book. I haven't counted how many times Seirawan uses the word "torture" and advises the reader to "torture helpless opponents endlessly" etc. -- about a dozen times at least -- but it's quite annoying and frankly poor chess advice. The point of chess is to win as efficiently as possible. If your moves are good they may discomfit your opponent, but they are not played with that as their goal, though there is indeed such a thing as chess psychology (but even that has winning as its point). If you prolong play merely to be an irritating dumbf*** you may end up pissing away an advantage.

Even if Seirawan's underlying point is something more benign, his language here is revolting and undermines both his points and his authority.

If you see losing chess as something which can undermine your ego, etc., then you are obviously approaching it in the wrong spirit; and if this is so, then it negates the argument of those who claim that winning chess is a joy because it crushes their opponents' egos, etc.. (Of course, if you're playing professionally, and rely on chess for your income, then it's something more than just a game.)

Attempts by degenerates to frame it as a matter of personal aggression are clearly merely expressions of the weakness of their own egos, and all attempts should be made to prevent chess from being ruined by them as they ruin every other sphere of activity which they are permitted to characterize. This is why good sportsmanship must be encouraged in both players and fans, and bad sportsmanship discouraged and summarily dismissed as invalid. I for one do not want the equivalent of soccer hooligans running around chess sites and turning real fans off by dripping their slimy soul-pus all over everything. If they are permitted to slime whatever they come into contact with, then those things become sullied *through association* (NOT because the false characterizations of the slimers are accurate).

Seirawan said something very beautiful during his commentary yesterday. He was analysing the Adams-Topalov game, and he noticed that he has had the position wrong on the board for the past 20 or so minutes. Do you know what he said? He said that when he was 19 he was analysing a game with a Grandmaster and the Grandmaster later points out to him that the pieces weren't in the right position all along. Seirawan got embarassed, but the Grandmaster quickly let him know that ALL analysis is GOOD. So even though he had the position wrong on the Adams-Topalov game he has been analysis with us for the past 20 minutes, it's still a good thing because we still were learning things that could be utilized to our advantage.

I like to make them squirm. – Bobby Fischer

<Fischer does not play as he does to torture his opponent: he plays to win.>

<As long as I'm on this subject, chess is an intellectual challenge, not a clash of egos, and only inferior, degraded types talk about the "pleasure of crushing their opponent's ego">

I'm working through Chapter 7 at present, and really liked the strategy of creating a weak square and the example he used to illustrate it:

Karpov vs Browne, 1972

which he used only the first nine moves of to illustrate his point. (And I'm glad, too, because another complaint I have about the book is his tendency to make the reader follow long games or long sections of them in order to illustrate strategic points which would be better served with more focused, concise illustrations. There are of course instances where it is useful to illustrate the longer-term consequences of a particular strategic action, but a lot of his material in these games seems like padding to fill-out the book.)

I'd seen the idea of weak squares before, in Chernev's Logical Chess, but here Seirawan explicitly introduces the (potentially very useful) theme of *creating* such squares and securing them.

There are some other ideas in the book so far which are interesting and worthwhile. All of this merely modifies, however (rather than negates) my earlier criticisms.

"...Your opponent will make these mistakes, you will make these mistakes, and I will make these mistakes. Remember yet a third chess saying and you will be able to get through these mistakes with a smile on your face: 'The winner is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.' Good luck."

Now, that is gentlemanly, humble (in a realistic rather than self-degrading way), optimistic, and useful advice. Too bad the book is tainted by the other stuff.