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Guide to Chess Improvement
A Guide to Chess Improvement features the very best of Dan Heisman’s multi-award winning chess column Novice Nook, which has run for the past ten years at the popular website ChessCafe.com. This book is full of valuable instruction, insight and practical advice on a wide range of key general improvement, thought processes, planning and strategy, tactics, endgame play, technique, time management and much more besides.
Heisman has thoroughly revised, expanded and updated his work to produce an easy-to-navigate guide. He has also included brand new and exclusive columns. Any player from beginner to expert who is serious about improving their chess should read this book!
*An essential guide to chess improvement
*Covers in depth all the key areas of chess
*Written by a distinguished chess instructor
Heisman has thoroughly revised, expanded and updated his work to produce an easy-to-navigate guide. He has also included brand new and exclusive columns. Any player from beginner to expert who is serious about improving their chess should read this book!
*An essential guide to chess improvement
*Covers in depth all the key areas of chess
*Written by a distinguished chess instructor
- GenresChessNonfictionReference
384 pages, Paperback
First published November 23, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 30, 2012
A superb chess book! It's more conversational in style, i.e. there are not pages of diagrams and notation. In fact is possible to read dozens of pages at a time before needing a board to analyze continuations. "Novice Nook" is the name of the author's online column and shouldn't dissuade a better player from picking this up. The text's techniques are valid for any average or beginner player. Players rated 1800-2000 will most likely also find some good reinforcement here.
The material covered includes the importance of time management, tactics, choosing good candidate moves, analysis and evaluation, properly prioritizing to maintain won positions, among other topics. Aside from the author's own improvement guidelines what I found extremely useful were his recommendations of follow-up texts to this book, of which there are dozens. Yes, some of the recommendations are the author's own works, but after the strength of this book I don't feel that is self-serving. Most of the book recommendations are from other writers and are ranked according to difficulty. There are a few points where the collections of follow-up books are even listed in the order they should be read -- very useful. If you're focused on bettering your game then this book clearly offers a very good starting point as well as direction for furthered reading and improvement.
The material covered includes the importance of time management, tactics, choosing good candidate moves, analysis and evaluation, properly prioritizing to maintain won positions, among other topics. Aside from the author's own improvement guidelines what I found extremely useful were his recommendations of follow-up texts to this book, of which there are dozens. Yes, some of the recommendations are the author's own works, but after the strength of this book I don't feel that is self-serving. Most of the book recommendations are from other writers and are ranked according to difficulty. There are a few points where the collections of follow-up books are even listed in the order they should be read -- very useful. If you're focused on bettering your game then this book clearly offers a very good starting point as well as direction for furthered reading and improvement.
April 2, 2012
While primarily a restructured compilation of the author's column on ChessCafe.com, it does work well as a book, and Heisman is good at pointing you to the right places for more information. This book will help any player rated under 1600 for sure, and probably those under 1800 will get a fair bit out of it as well.
One thing you'll want to do after reading this book is create a reference card of sorts for quick refreshers later on.
One thing you'll want to do after reading this book is create a reference card of sorts for quick refreshers later on.
December 25, 2019
Great book. I've been a long time fan of Dan Heisman. This book is full of lots of great advice.
December 10, 2020
بهت ماهیگیری یاد میده دقیقا. ولی من ترجیح میدادم یه چندتا ماهی هم نشونم میداد
August 23, 2026
Chess is a beautiful game, but also a very complex one.
These days, in my 50s, I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it. I still enjoy playing, especially online blitz. But I am clearly not the player I was in my 20s. These days I'm usually around 1800 Elo at my very best (but nothing better!).
So the question for me is simple. Do I still bother to improve in a serious way? Or do I accept what I am and just enjoy the game, mistakes and losses included?
With that in mind, I read Dan Heisman’s A Guide to Chess Improvement (2010) and created detailed notes on it. It is easily one of the best chess books I’ve read in recent years.
The book is not hard to read but is much deeper than it first appears.
Heisman is very good on the practical side of improvement. His message is find your repeated mistakes, fix your thought process, manage your time better, review your own games, improve tactical safety, and practise the skills you use on almost every move.
His approach is especially useful for older adult players. It gives you a practical way to think about improvement that is realistic. Maybe when I eventually "retire", I will try to follow his training advice properly and see whether I can improve again. But for the moment I can say this: if you are an adult chess player returning to the game later in life then then this a truly excellent book.
Practical, clear, and quite profound.
4.5+ stars.
Heisman’s top 20 for chess improvement (my words, not his):
1. Fix repeated mistakes before collecting more chess knowledge.
2. Improve the skills you use on almost every move: tactics, calculation, safety, evaluation, and time management.
3. Review your own games carefully, especially your losses.
4. Analyse your games yourself before using an engine.
5. Keep a simple mistake log and look for recurring patterns.
6. Do not rely only on blitz if you want to improve. Play some slower games too.
7. Use blitz for pattern recognition, opening familiarity, and quick decision-making.
8. Use slower chess to practise proper thought process, calculation, and evaluation.
9. Always ask what your opponent’s last move changed.
10. Before making a move, check your opponent’s possible checks, captures, and threats.
11. Avoid “Hope Chess”: do not make a move without checking whether your opponent can refute it.
12. Do not play the first move that looks good. Compare candidate moves when the position matters.
13. Spend more time on critical positions and less time on routine ones.
14. Treat safety as a basic chess skill. A move is not good if it allows a simple tactic.
15. Make basic tactical patterns automatic through repeated practice.
16. Study openings from your own games. Ask where you would play differently next time.
17. When you are winning, think defence first. Stop counterplay and simplify when it helps.
18. Diagnose what kind of mistake you made: board vision, visualization, tactical vision, calculation, time use, or evaluation.
19. Choose study material that fixes your actual weaknesses, not material that only looks advanced.
20. Improve playing strength first. Let rating follow.
These days, in my 50s, I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it. I still enjoy playing, especially online blitz. But I am clearly not the player I was in my 20s. These days I'm usually around 1800 Elo at my very best (but nothing better!).
So the question for me is simple. Do I still bother to improve in a serious way? Or do I accept what I am and just enjoy the game, mistakes and losses included?
With that in mind, I read Dan Heisman’s A Guide to Chess Improvement (2010) and created detailed notes on it. It is easily one of the best chess books I’ve read in recent years.
The book is not hard to read but is much deeper than it first appears.
Heisman is very good on the practical side of improvement. His message is find your repeated mistakes, fix your thought process, manage your time better, review your own games, improve tactical safety, and practise the skills you use on almost every move.
His approach is especially useful for older adult players. It gives you a practical way to think about improvement that is realistic. Maybe when I eventually "retire", I will try to follow his training advice properly and see whether I can improve again. But for the moment I can say this: if you are an adult chess player returning to the game later in life then then this a truly excellent book.
Practical, clear, and quite profound.
4.5+ stars.
Heisman’s top 20 for chess improvement (my words, not his):
1. Fix repeated mistakes before collecting more chess knowledge.
2. Improve the skills you use on almost every move: tactics, calculation, safety, evaluation, and time management.
3. Review your own games carefully, especially your losses.
4. Analyse your games yourself before using an engine.
5. Keep a simple mistake log and look for recurring patterns.
6. Do not rely only on blitz if you want to improve. Play some slower games too.
7. Use blitz for pattern recognition, opening familiarity, and quick decision-making.
8. Use slower chess to practise proper thought process, calculation, and evaluation.
9. Always ask what your opponent’s last move changed.
10. Before making a move, check your opponent’s possible checks, captures, and threats.
11. Avoid “Hope Chess”: do not make a move without checking whether your opponent can refute it.
12. Do not play the first move that looks good. Compare candidate moves when the position matters.
13. Spend more time on critical positions and less time on routine ones.
14. Treat safety as a basic chess skill. A move is not good if it allows a simple tactic.
15. Make basic tactical patterns automatic through repeated practice.
16. Study openings from your own games. Ask where you would play differently next time.
17. When you are winning, think defence first. Stop counterplay and simplify when it helps.
18. Diagnose what kind of mistake you made: board vision, visualization, tactical vision, calculation, time use, or evaluation.
19. Choose study material that fixes your actual weaknesses, not material that only looks advanced.
20. Improve playing strength first. Let rating follow.
January 12, 2021
I have read several of Dan Heisman’s books and this one was one of my favorites! It was a collection of previously written articles published in the Chess Cafe and put together in a nice book format that covers a lot of ground! It was the perfect book for me at this time, as I’m getting back to playing some online chess and needed a good review of a lot of chess concepts and principles. It was nice to have them all in one collection! Every chess player would benefit from reading this book as there are lots of golden nuggets in here! Pick up a copy and enjoy!😎
February 5, 2022
Fantastic practical advice, I'm sure I'll revisit mant of the articles again and again
January 20, 2026
Dan Heisman is a great chess teacher and gets his point across very well.
August 9, 2024
Good advice for beginner and intermediate players
March 22, 2022
This book gives you practical tips on how to improve your chess game. I have already seen an improvement in my game from the book.
August 12, 2025
Lots of practical advice. Focus is on how you should be thinking during a chess game. Studying tactics is a key to building a foundation for increased playing strength. Stresses the need to build board vision and to be methodical in your thought process as well as in how you go about studying chess (tactics, review your games with a strong player, check an opening reference to see what you may have missed, use a chess program to check on missed tactics, go over as many master games as you can).
March 7, 2022
This is a great book for the chess enthusiast who wants practical (not theoretical) advice. This book acts as mostly a collection of National Master Dan Heisman's old Novice Nook articles, which he wrote about issues concerning amateur players. You will not find many diagrams in this book, though there are a few, to illustrate his points. More important is all of the ink spilled on problems or conundrums that plague the average club player. Things like "WHEN should I stop calculating?" and his answer: "when the position reaches 'quiescence'" is extremely poignant. Then he gives multiple examples of how this would work. But also, he emphasizes the importance of being able to play intuitively.
Another important aspect that he tackles is psychology. The segment "Traits of a Good Chess Player" is a nice primer to the kind of person one needs to be in order to become a strong player. Heisman manages to be incisive without being cantankerous about it. You might see yourself in some of the good or bad things he says about certain traits, and that's the kind of advice that a lot of players don't have at their fingertips.
One infamous thing about chess learning advice is that the body of good advice often appears contradictory in certain principles. For example: "Don't move a piece more than once in the opening." Well, what if your opponent is threatening to win a pawn? Following that advice would lead to you breaking another generally sound principle: "Don't give away stuff for free." Or, here's another: "Castle early", but it's contradicted by the fact that if you castle right now, your opponent is going to checkmate you on the h7 square with a queen and bishop battery. How do you figure out what's more important or less? How "strong" is X principle? When should it be ignored? Heisman has a chapter dedicated to practical issues like this, possibly the best chapter in the whole book.
This is a great book for the improving player. If you're, say, rated 1000 on chess.com or 1300 on lichess.org (blitz, rapid, or classical), it's probably right up your alley. I was a class C player (~1500 USCF, 1700 chess.com, 2000 lichess.org) and this book was like eating candy. You can't hurt yourself to try it.
My one caveat has to do with the translation from the online Novice Nook articles to kindle format. There are a lot of missing spaces between words and it's a bit annoying. But the quality of the advice is not damaged at all, that's mostly presentational.
Great book, get it if you like chess and consider yourself anywhere from a hobbyist to a serious improver.
Another important aspect that he tackles is psychology. The segment "Traits of a Good Chess Player" is a nice primer to the kind of person one needs to be in order to become a strong player. Heisman manages to be incisive without being cantankerous about it. You might see yourself in some of the good or bad things he says about certain traits, and that's the kind of advice that a lot of players don't have at their fingertips.
One infamous thing about chess learning advice is that the body of good advice often appears contradictory in certain principles. For example: "Don't move a piece more than once in the opening." Well, what if your opponent is threatening to win a pawn? Following that advice would lead to you breaking another generally sound principle: "Don't give away stuff for free." Or, here's another: "Castle early", but it's contradicted by the fact that if you castle right now, your opponent is going to checkmate you on the h7 square with a queen and bishop battery. How do you figure out what's more important or less? How "strong" is X principle? When should it be ignored? Heisman has a chapter dedicated to practical issues like this, possibly the best chapter in the whole book.
This is a great book for the improving player. If you're, say, rated 1000 on chess.com or 1300 on lichess.org (blitz, rapid, or classical), it's probably right up your alley. I was a class C player (~1500 USCF, 1700 chess.com, 2000 lichess.org) and this book was like eating candy. You can't hurt yourself to try it.
My one caveat has to do with the translation from the online Novice Nook articles to kindle format. There are a lot of missing spaces between words and it's a bit annoying. But the quality of the advice is not damaged at all, that's mostly presentational.
Great book, get it if you like chess and consider yourself anywhere from a hobbyist to a serious improver.
February 3, 2013
Re-read this in 2019 on the ForwardChess app. Great practical advice for chess improvement. (also would highly recommend using the ForwardChess app for chess books!)
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews