The Inner Game of Chess: How to Calculate and Win

Evaluation of chess books suffers from an incredible amount of subjective judgment. There are people who are quite skilled after playing for years who seem to be rather critical of this book. I, on the other hand, am a proudly proclaimed intermediate level player. For the short time in college (10 years(?!?) ago when I played regularly, this book boosted my chess competence and ability to the consternation and suprise of fellow players. This was the very *first* chess book I read. It has spoiled me. I've read about 12-15 books since this one and what I've found is that that vast majority of books in this area are boring. Dry. Lacking tempo. Soltis's book is *not*. It flows! Has life! It doesn't limit itself to an endless series of positions and problems; rather, Soltis approaches the game from a *thinking* perspective. But not a development of grinding calculations--no: a problem is addressed from the simple but key angle of: "I sure would like my queen to be 'there'. In what way may that be accomplished?" This may sound overly simplistic but this idea is built upon in various manners until you see a variety of ways in which you can attack and feint. Drawing from poker in a sense, Soltis gets into a player's head. In my opinion, the book will help get you into yours. I credit the reading of this book to one night where I saw how to checkmate my opponent 32 moves before it happened, and it started with an obscene looking sacifice of my bishop just to move his pawn. I've recently gone through a few chapters again and the material just clicks all over again. Chess is a *hard* subject to make for interesting reading. Soltis is one of a few that makes the pages fly. :-)

I've studied The Inner Game from cover to cover three times in the last 2 years, always profitably. My ability to successfully calculate attacking or defending variations has greatly increased because of practicing what Soltis preaches. I strongly agree with his statement "...calculation can be invaluable. It can be a substitute for "book knowledge" you never learned" since few nonprofessionals can know every opening or endgame position. I am surprised at some of the few negative comments in the reviews of the book. I suspect that those reviewers have not read The Inner Game to the end - at least they give no evidence of having done so. One reviewer wrote that "the familiar theme of attacking a castled king" was monotonously used in many examples but really there are few problems that have that as their main theme. Another reviewer said, "There are not enough practical examples. Therefore, I doubt the reader will be able to apply the tips ...in a real game." Actually, there are over 200 examples; most labeled "White to play" or "Black to play" presenting positions from Grandmaster games to analyze before reading the accompanying text. This same reviewer stated The Inner Game has the "right appealing chapter names. But the content ... is not well developed" although he doesn't clarify what he means by that. Yet in every chapter Soltis clearly states his theme and then provides a great deal of examples. For instance, look at chapter 2 ("Ideas"), where Soltis discusses how calculation is inspired by ideas and ideas come from recognizing patterns and weaknesses. Examine chapter 3 ("Trees and How To Build Them"), in which Soltis shows you in a very detailed fashion a possible way of mentally organizing all those ideas. Disagree with the chapter contents but don't say they're not well developed. In that reviewer's opinion the Dvoretsky series of books, Jonathan Tisdall's "Improve Your Chess Now" and Buckley's "Practical Chess Analysis" are all "certainly better than Soltis" - but he doesn't bother to say in what way. My impression is Dvoretsky's books are written for very experienced players, Tisdall is not focused on calculation and while Buckley's book is all about calculation it is far shorter, with much fewer examples and less text.One reviewer said the book was "not coherently organized." Huh? Soltis begins logically enough by defining his terms: what calculation is and isn't. He follows with a second chapter on how ideas inspire calculation. The third chapter presents a method of organizing those ideas. Having set up the basic groundwork, Soltis expands on the methods: finding forcing sequences that make calculation easier, evaluating resulting positions, "monkey wrenches" that upset the calculations, practical considerations. Where's the "lack of organization"? The reviewer claims the book has so many analytical mistakes (he has 2 examples) their "sheer number" proves "Soltis hadn't done his spadework." He cites Piket-Sosonko, 1993 and say

Until you reach the 1900 to 2000 level the only thing that you should be studying is tactics and calculation. The reason for this is simple, if you can see 90% of the combinations on the board during a game, you will not have to even use postional advantages. Don't get me wrong positional play has a very important role, but more at the higher levels. If you can calculate efficiently and quickly you will have a huge advantage over all those people who just memorize opening moves, because after move 10 they're lost. Why are some children so strong at chess? It's because they can calculate well and can visualize the board. The bottom line is get this book along with a set of practice problems, like Reinfeld's 1001. Solve the problems, write down all your candidate moves and analysis, and you'll be amazed by how quickly you improve.

If chess is a thinking game, why are so few books written for amateurs about how chessmasters think? Andy Soltis remedies this problem with a thorough and comprehensive look at the thinking processes of chess players. Chapters include: where do ideas come from?, how to build a calculation tree (a much clearer discussion than in Kotov's classic: Think Like a Grandmaster), when to play the most forcing moves at the start or end of a sequence, how to actually calculate variations, and what criteria to use to choose between two variations which appear equal in nature. Following are chapters on common and typical problems of chess thinking--monkey wrenches and oversights. Finally, Soltis discusses, in a chapter titled The Practical Calculator, the differences between masters in their thinking and how, what and when to calculate during a game. Soltis makes a convincing case that chess is NOT 99% tactics, an often used phrase, but rather 99% calculation. The reader cannot help but improve his or her chess game by reading about the nature of the thinking processes in the game that challenges us to do just that--think.