Recognizing Your Opponent's Resources: Developing Preventive Thinking

Why would anyone not give this book five stars? Mark Dvoretsky is a brilliant author who takes enormous pride in his written work. This book is no exception. Other than Jacob Aagard's book, Practical Chess Defense, there are no other problem books designed to teach you to think for your opponent and incorporate his ideas in your plans. This book fills that void.My rating is 2154 and I find these problems very challenging. There are 476 problems in this book and you can easily spend an hour doing three or four of them, if you take the time to review the ones that you missed. So for $20 bucks you get 120 hours of pure chess enjoyment. What is great about the book is that many of the problems are filled with intermezzos. surprise moves and other ideas for your opponent that you simply must plan for or you will lose.As far as making you a better player, I would challenge you to find a book that will give you more benefit for the effort spent. If you are rated less than 1900, you might find the problems too challenging. But if you take the time to analyze the solutions and understand what you missed you will learn a lot. If you are under 1700, get this book when you get better.

The only book in English, that I have seen that is devoted to develop a skill of thinking like your opponent. The book consists of four chapters, "Paying attention to you opponents Resources", "The process of elimination", "Traps" and "Prophylactic Thinking" Each chapter starts with theoretical section of approximately 12-15 pages that introduces the topic followed by approximately 180, 106 36, 154 exercises for each chapter, bit on the style of Artur Jussupows series of nine books. This book should help players reduce the over the board blunders.If you own the series of three German books by the same author "Aufmerksamkeit gegenuber gegnerishen moglichkeiten", "Ausschlussmethods & Fallenspiel" and "Prophylaktisches Denken" then the only additional chapter you get is :Traps" the other three chapters are identical diagram to diagram to each one of the German books. In the source material section the author mentions his chess cafe articles, bot I could not find a reference to the three German books. This is definitely a good buy, I would have rated it five if I saw the reference to the three German books.

Outstanding! I am an expert bouncing from 2065 - 2150 and this book has helped push my rating solidly into the 2100’s. I wish I had read this book years ago. I have worked every exercise in the book. On a board, timed with a clock. Since finishing the book I am 5 wins 4 losses, and 7 draws vs. 2200 + players. It helped me...I plan to go thru it once more.

If ever there was a missing manual to chess, this is it. Let's face it, many of us chess players purchase Opening and Endgame books all the time. We purchase books on combinations and some of us even purchase books on strategy in general. This book is none of that but may be one of the most important books in any collection. This is one of those books like My System that touches on Prophylactic Thinking. Dvoretsky and Yusupov have been leaders in talking about this subject.

This is obviously a good attempt by Dvoretsky to teach prophylaxis. Unfortunately, prophylaxis is not easily taught by book alone. Nonetheless, a noble effort laden with lots of exercises. The patient reader should benefit something from this book.

I just got this book today, and next to Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual, this might be his most helpful book. The paper is a little cheap, but the material is prime Dvoretsky.As with any Dvoretsky book, if you are under 2000, you may be more frustrated than helped. He material is always aimed very high.

Another great book by Dvoretsky with excellent coverage of prophylactic thinking. This book has lots of exercises.So be prepared to work hard.

Though Mark's instruction is a bit beyond my comprehension I certainly enjoy his writing; trials and tribulations of a highly successful chess coach and a (almost) personal slant to it make enjoyable for just plain reading!

chi conosce Mark Dvoretsky sa che studiare sui suoi libri, se fatto in maniera seria, non è una passeggiata. il piacere che se ne trae, e in mia opinione anche i benefici, sono notevoli.mi è capitato di leggere un commento di un lettore deluso (non su questo libro, ma il concetto è valido perché l'approccio dell'autore è simile sui suoi libri), che criticava Dvoretsky per aver inserito solo posizioni e analisi, e "nessun consiglio". bene, probabilmente la più grande illusione dello scacchista da circolo è che possa esistere, e magari essere trovata in qualche testo, una ricetta sul modo corretto di pensare, di trovare la mossa migliore. niente di tutto ciò! se ci si impegna a studiare in profondità posizioni complesse a poco a poco i risultati arriveranno. non esiste nessuna scorciatoia, così come non esiste in ogni altro sport.tornando a questo libro, la caratteristica è che si tratta di un insieme di esercizi in cui sono presenti delle "false soluzioni". mosse che sembrano funzionare ma che poi vengono smontate da una risorsa inaspettata dell'avversario. ciò è finalizzato, come dice lo stesso titolo, ad abituarsi a individuare le risorse dell'avversario. quante volte in partita si intravede una idea combinativa e la si esegue solo perché ci si è innamorati del tema, della sua bellezza? salvo poi ritrovarsi sconfitti perché non ci si è messi nei panni dell'avversario.in conclusione un ottimo libro, come tutti quelli di Dvoretsky. per trarne beneficio va studiato a fondo (passare parecchi minuti su ogni posizione, senza muovere i pezzi), ma è uno studio che darà inaspettati piaceri.ps: è il primo libro di scacchi che leggo su kindle. l'esperienza è stata ottima, perché l'impaginazione della versione kindle è curata bene. tipicamente se si studia un libro di esercizi si deve stare attenti a non sbirciare la soluzione, mentre magari si ricostruisce la posizione sulla scacchiera. col kindle questo è molto facile, perché le soluzioni sono quasi tutte inserite come nota a piè di pagina. negli altri casi basta coprire la soluzione con un talloncino di carta.

Simplemente un libro que me tiene maravillado, te ayuda a solidificar tus habilidades y ser más atento, un buen paso para profesionalizar tu juego, no sólo memorices líneas y aprende a crear tus posiciones, a comprender con más profundidad las jugadas lo que te ayudará bastante para los blunders en líneas que no conozcas mucho o cuando caigas dentro de una preparación de casa de tu oponente

It's a very nice book for intermediate playersIt goes into deep analysis of positions

Is a great book!!! By the best Chess Trainer of all Times

Excelente