Author: Andrew Soltis

Batsford (2005)

www.chrysalisbooks.co.uk

240 pages

$21.95

Reviewed by John Donaldson

Grandmaster Andrew Soltis is not only one of the most prolific writers in chess but also one of the best. One can safely say that any of his non-opening books are worth buying. His latest, HOW TO CHOOSE A CHESS MOVE continues his recent emphasis on instructional works. Last year he wrote RETHINKING THE CHESS PIECES – also published by Batsford. The title HOW TO CHOOSE A CHESS MOVE bears some similarity with an earlier Soltis book – THE INNER GAME OF CHESS: HOW TO CALCULATE AND WIN (McKay 1994), but they are quite different. Making a quick glance through both of them, the only overlap I spotted was Vasiukov-Popovic, Vrsac 1979. In fact most of the examples Soltis has selected to support his points are quite recent with many games from 2003 and 2004 – almost all involving very strong Grandmasters.

HOW TO CHOOSE A CHESS MOVE is divided into 11 chapters:

Your move

Candidate Cues

Move Triggers

How Much Analysis?

Trees, Checkers and Worst Cases

Evaluation and Expectation

The Four Thinking Models

Reality Check

Juggling, Tweaking, Rechecking

Clarity and Risk 

Clock Consciousness

I think the chapter players will find the most useful is The Four Thinking Methods (prioritizing, thinking like Kotov, elimination and back and forth) where Soltis covers Kotov’s method (1.draw up a list of candidates moves 2. analyze each variation once and only once 3. having gone through step 1 and 2 make a move) and attempts to refine and improve it. Several authors have attempted to improve on Kotov’s method since HOW TO THINK LIKE A GRANDMASTER first appeared in English in 1971. Jonathan Tisdall in IMPROVE YOUR CHESS NOW pointed out that most humans are incapable of following the rigidity of thinking that Kotov’s system calls for. More recently in Amatzia’s THE GRANDMASTER’S MIND, several world class players discounted Kotov’s theory of selecting candidate moves first and analyzing second as impractical and ineffective. Their point was that you often don’t think of a candidate move until you have looked deeply into a position.

Soltis covers these points and also deals with some other shortcomings of the “tree method” by using tricks that many good players routinely employ without being conscious of it. One of these is the process of elimination.  For example you spot four candidate moves and immediately see that three lose on the spot – don’t spend much on the fourth just play it. When drawing up a list of candidate moves, it makes sense to first analyze the one that intuitively seems right to you instead of putting it down the list. If you’re right, you have saved valuable clock time. HOW TO CHOOSE A CHESS MOVE is filled with practical advice like: “The longer you study a position the less likely you may see tactically.” Soltis attributes this to a phenomena he calls tactical fatigue.

HOW TO CHOOSE A CHESS MOVE is no substitute for spending time each day studying combinations and endgame studies to sharpen one’s calculating and visualizing ability. However, it definitely identifies some ways of thinking that will help the aspiring player analyze more efficiently and effectively.