What do you think?
Rate this book
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
84 people are currently reading
177 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 15, 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 27, 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
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
August 9, 2024
Good advice for beginner and intermediate players
March 30, 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.
September 9, 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).
October 6, 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.
December 30, 2019
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 - 11 of 11 reviews