R.I.P. IM Jeremy Silman

[Neil Frarey]

No words ... sigh.

Such a loss.

[Hans Jung]

Yes - a living legend is now a legend. I remember great chats from him at North Bay and hundreds of students asking to analyse games from his incredible books. RIP Jeremy.

[Aris Marghetis]

Yes - a living legend is now a legend. I remember great chats from him at North Bay and hundreds of students asking to analyse games from his incredible books. RIP Jeremy.

Right on Hans, I also loved watching him in North Bay ... RIP Jeremy

[Hans Jung]

https://www.chess.com/news/view/jeremy-silman-1954-2023 Great article. How he was remembered: never boring, one of the most hilarious people I ever knew, accelerated Dragon player, irreplaceable influence - wonderful way to be remembered. Two noteworthy pictures: Jeremy Silman entertaining Yasser and a young Judith Polgar, and Jeremy Siman and Misha Tal at Disneyland. Reassess Your Chess 4th edition one of top 25 chess books in sales at Amazon of all time.

[Hans Jung]

ignore please

[Hans Jung]

[Hans Jung]

The position above is from Jeremy Silman's Reassess Your Chess 3rd Edition (There should also be a black pawn on f7 - this old dog - me bad. Still learning)
On pg 52 this diagram appears with - Black to play. Silman only says: "Black's Bishops look nice, but his center is under a lot of pressure. Who stands better here?"

[Hans Jung]

Im glad that my first ever diagram on chesstalk is to honour Jeremy Silman, a great chess teacher, author and coach.

and it also shows you can teach an old dog new tricks as long as its not too complicated.

[Hans Jung]

Jeremy Silman, a great teacher, used the diagram above in post 6 as a thinking exercise for students/readers. Let them work it out on their own. He posted it as the last problem in the section Calculations and Combination. His answer to the position in the diagram: Both kings are still in the center, but Black's pieces are much more aggressively posted and he has a lead in development. (assessment). and then: If you suggested 1...0-0 then shame on you! This is much too normal and lazy a move to be correct in a ripe position like this one. Of course he wrote a lot more good stuff about the position as well. See book for further details.

[Hans Jung]

The diagram in post 6 is from one of my all time favorite teaching games. Where did I find it? In Irving Chernev's The 1000 Best Short Games of Chess. I've been teaching it to hundreds of students since the 80's. I had it on display at my chess celebration in June with a green post it sticky attached that read: My favorite teaching book for students. I would translate a short game from here into algebraic notation and add good teaching notes. The game is on page 113 (Game 250) Meesen - Muller Correspondence 1928, 1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.d4 exd4 5.Nxd4 Bb4 6.Nxc6 bxc6 7.g3 Qe7 8.Bg2 Ba6 Here I would wax on about pins and point several out from this position on the demo board. 9.Qd3 d5 10.b3 and we have the diagrammed position in post 6.
10...d4! the tickler! (its also a pawn sacrifice) 11.Qxd4 (white could also play Bxc6+ Kf8 as a zwischenzug or inbetween move but the resulting play should still win a piece) 11...Rd8 challenging the queen, 12.Bxc6+ Kf8 13.Bd5 to block. (White could also play the mundane Qe3 but after Qxe3 removing the defender of c3 then the bishop on b4 will mop up) 13...Rxd5 14.cxd5 Qxe2 checkmate. A real eye opener for students. I had a lot of fun teaching this game.

[Francis Rodriguez]

The diagram in post 6 is from one of my all time favorite teaching games. Where did I find it? In Irving Chernev's The 1000 Best Short Games of Chess. I've been teaching it to hundreds of students since the 80's. I had it on display at my chess celebration in June with a green post it sticky attached that read: My favorite teaching book for students. I would translate a short game from here into algebraic notation and add good teaching notes. The game is on page 113 (Game 250) Meesen - Muller Correspondence 1928, 1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.d4 exd4 5.Nxd4 Bb4 6.Nxc6 bxc6 7.g3 Qe7 8.Bg2 Ba6 Here I would wax on about pins and point several out from this position on the demo board. 9.Qd3 d5 10.b3 and we have the diagrammed position in post 6.
10...d4! the tickler! (its also a pawn sacrifice) 11.Qxd4 (white could also play Bxc6+ Kf8 as a zwischenzug or inbetween move but the resulting play should still win a piece) 11...Rd8 challenging the queen, 12.Bxc6+ Kf8 13.Bd5 to block. (White could also play the mundane Qe3 but after Qxe3 removing the defender of c3 then the bishop on b4 will mop up) 13...Rxd5 14.cxd5 Qxe2 checkmate. A real eye opener for students. I had a lot of fun teaching this game.

Awesome Hans! I'm sure you know Meesen - Muller is also the first quoted example in
Vukovic's classic "Art of Attack" p. 15 (attack against the uncastled king:). Yes 10....d4
stings some as Black transfers his offensive to the weakened diagonal a5-e1. Sweet.

[Hans Jung]

Yes - the multi purposes that game was used for in teaching purposes never fails to astound me. Thanks Francis.

[Hans Jung]

Silman's own choice of best all time game was against Cyrus Lakdawala, fellow author and friend.

[Frank Dixon]

IM Jeremy Silman's book 'How To Reassess Your Chess' is certainly one of the all-time great teaching / learning books ever published. I learned a lot from it.
RIP IM Jeremy Silman.