In the spirit of a title I recall fondly from my youth, “Better Chess for the Average Player,” I humbly offer the great authors of the chess world the following titles, aimed at the “know all the rules and tactics but still can’t seem to break out of beginnerdom” crowd:
How to Spot Your Opponent’s Best Move
What Am I Missing? Questions for the Low-Level Player to Ask Himself Again and Again
Find the Best Opening Systems for You: A Problem-based Quiz and Strategy Guide
Switching Gears: How to Transition From Opening to Middlegame
I hereby pledge to purchase any of these titles that makes it to print, especially if it’s written by Neil McDonald, Bruce Pandolfini or Sunil Weeramantry. Those guys know how to write for my brain.
Reasses Your Chess by Jeremy Silman probably answered that question better than any other book I’ve gone through.
[What Am I Missing?]
Its not really a beginners book though, although I think anybody rated 1300 and up could benefit from it. Although if your rated under 1600, it might be fairly slow going, but still very insightful.
I don’t have time, but someday I’d like to go over the book again.
It’s not perfect. There are some errors in it that could stand to be corrected, but too many.
Its good for improving the middlegame. In any event, no matter what type of book someone writes, its not going to appeal to everybody… if only because different people have different learning styles.
Lets take this example (not chess related). In networking, one of the key things a person has to learn is how to subnet. One guy posted a “subnetting circle” that helped him alot to learn how to subnet, and I don’t have the faintest clue how that can help anybody.
-BTW I can subnet in my head, although its marginally faster to do the simple math on a piece of paper. Calculators are banned while testing. (and anything else remotely electronic).
[aa] When it is my turn and I am seriously considering a particular candidate move, how can I spot what my opponent’s best reply would be?
[bb] When it is my turn, how can I spot what my opponent’s best move would be IF it were again his turn (meaning he gets to move twice in a row, skipping my present turn)?
Neither strikes me as an interesting question (sorry that sounds harsher than I intend). The answer would be the same as for the mundane question — During my turn, how can I spot my best move?
To me a more interesting question is:
[cc] When it is my turn, if I were legally allowed to see the move that Fritz would recommend for my opponent IF my opponent were allowed to move again (meaning twice in a row, skipping my present turn), how much higher would my Elo rating be?
I tested this question and got an interesting answer. Before I poison/bias the thread with my test results, does anyone else have any information or predictions?
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For the last item, How Chess Games Are Won and Lost by Lars Bo Hansen does devote separate chapters for opening to middlegame and then middlegame to endgame transitions (and treats these phases as separate concepts / parts of the game.) Since all the reviews of it mentioned this, it’s why I bought it. Now if I can only find it.
Titles I’d like to see:
Great Chess Games Annotated Without 1,000 Variations in Excruciating Detail, and Annotated in Simple and Plain Language.
Reading the Other Player’s Mind [not calculation, but telepathy…]
A Chess Book to Read When You’re Tired and Not Studying
Neil McDonald’s game collections are pretty light on the variations, and try to be in the tradition of Chernev’s Logical Chess: Move by Move. I have read Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking and I am currently working through The Art of Planning in Chess.
answer. Before I poison/bias the thread with my test results, 
does anyone else have any information or predictions?