Reddit reviews Modern Chess Strategy

Modern Chess Strategy by Ludek Pachman is fantastic for gaining a basic understanding of many general positional themes in chess. Many illustrative games relevant to each theme with great insight and analysis provided by Pachman. It is in descriptive notation, but that's not too hard to learn.

https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Chess-Strategy-Ludek-Pachman/dp/0486202909

I'm asking for Ludek Pachman's Modern Chess Strategy as my first chess theory book. I guess I wanted a cool chess clock too, but I figured the book is simpler for others to find and get. I also had Lev Alburt's opening books in mind.

Silman is notorious for making numerous claims on how simple chess can be. Just create some imbalances and win!

"How to Reassess Your Chess" is at best a mediocre book, based on a dubious hypothesis, and laid out in a far from satisfactory way.

Instead of Silman, read Ludek Pachman: Modern Chess Strategy, the book Silman cribbed from and watered-down. It is still out there, selling for much less money, and delivering 10 times the chess acumen.

https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Chess-Strategy-Ludek-Pachman/dp/0486202909/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=S09TM1ZR22BSP6XEV110

I've only read a couple chess books, but I found both of them very helpful as a beginning player. I find Jeremy Silman very good at explaining strategy, tactics, and openings in a way that's easy to comprehend. I got Modern Chess Strategy, by Ludek Pachman, from my grandfather's library. This book is much more dense, but it breaks down chess strategy very well and is organized better than Silman's in my opinion (Opening, Midgame (Tactics + Strategy), Piece by piece strengths + weaknesses, Endgame, Mental game, etc.).

Yeah, I've got my head around it now. I'm not finding it TOO difficult but definitely slows my reading down a bit. The funny thing is that the book still uses normal notation as we know it when referring to specific squares (f2 square, c3 square etc), so it is surprising that it uses a different format when referring to moves.

Aside from that I'm really enjoying the book so far https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Chess-Strategy-Ludek-Pachman/dp/0486202909

I'm a bit embarrassed to have missed that pawn.

I would like to finish reading The Game of Chess simply so that I don't just hop from book to book all the while getting nowhere in particular. However, after that I will definitely study some positional chess. Tarrasch focuses almost purely on tactics in his middle game section. Also, keep in mind that I posted a game that I lost in. I've had plenty of games where I've built successful attacks out of tactics that Tarrasch teaches. I'll defend that book because it helped me grow from where I was, but I agree that I have almost no positional understanding right now.

I already own Pachman's Modern Chess Strategy. Is this sufficient as a positional book, or is Silman's book that much better to warrant buying it?

I like Modern Chess Strategy