"...it is mainly tactical oversights that lose games." C. J. S. Purdy, first world correspondence champion.

De la Maza's book doesn't help you to improve your UNDERSTANDING of chess. All he does is to teach you tricks to hack your way in chess. To cite Jeremy Silman:

"Mr. de la Maza starts out by doing something I can’t stand: he tells you, over and over and over (page after page after page), what he’s going to do for you without teaching you anything. This technique is popular in many self-help and how-to books. It serves as page filler, it revs the reader into a frenzy, and it obscures the fact that the author actually has very little of worth to say. In short, RAPID CHESS IMPROVEMENT is less instructive than motivational. It incites emotion, promises far more than could or should be promised, and ultimately is nothing more than pie in the sky in view of the true lesson he’s imparting: Study Tactics and Work Your Ass Off!"

The "thought process" he suggests in his book is hilarious:


Opponent’s threat: No significant threats.
Decide move: 1.e4 of course!

1.e4 c5

Opponent’s threat: No significant threats, but watch out for …Qa5.
Decide move: No tactics. 2.Nf3 or 2.Nc3 are both reasonable.

2.Nf3 d6

Opponent’s threat: No significant threats.
Decide move: No tactics. 3.e5 is most shocking. Continue development with 3.Nc3.

3.Nc3 Nf6

Opponent’s threat: No significant threats.
Decide move: No tactics. Continue to develop with 4.Bb5+.

4.Bb5+ Bd7

Opponent’s threat: No significant threats but light-squared Bishop is attacked.
Decide move: No tactics.

5.Bxd7+ Qxd7

Opponent’s threat: No significant threats.
Decide move: No tactics. 6.e5 continues to be quite interesting, at least in part because it creates a crazy position that Black will not know: 6…dxe5 7.Nxe5 Qe6 8.f4. Stay safe with 6.0-0.

6.0-0 Nc6

Opponent’s threat: …Nd4 is unpleasant.
Decide move: No tactics. Exchange pawns and open up center with 7.d4.

Is this guy kidding? Is he trying to turn us into soulless chess machines made of flesh? I half expected him to write (once a threat finally appeared): “Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!”

Read the rest of Silman's review here: Rapid Chess Improvement: A Study Plan for Adult Players

though i am also highly critical of what the book presumes to do for you, i can say that at least the inspiration to work hard and focused study has some good points in it. that actually is the only good thing about the book.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain how he expanded a 10 page article (which I'm willing to defend as useful, even though I don't recommend following his advice to the letter) into a full length book. I think Silman's comment quoted above about how it's more inspirational than instructive, and loaded with filler, probably sums it up.

--Fromper

I actually blogged about this, but I won't torment you by making you read my blog! I will quote, but one paragraph from it that I believe sums it up.

Hope my 2 cents helps!

While sound in theory, I believe that is in a way, stating the obvious. Any exposed tactical advantage is a negative to the player who missed the chance at exploiting it.

But it must be explicitly stated! Therefore learning tactics is vital. Under 2000 playing strength, it is more important than learning a specific opening or deep endgame theory (remember I not saying they are not important).

The biggest "bang for your buck" is achieved by eliminating tactical oversights from one's game.

I teach two things:
1) how to understand the requirements of a position, and
2) tactics

It works.

Bela

A better title for this book rather than 'Rapid Chess Improvement' would be 'How To Learn Tactics: The 7 Cirlces Method.' The claims de la maza makes are too big and incorrect, however, this doesn't mean that his method of studying tactics is bad. This is where people stumble I think. His method is GREAT for learning tactics, which EVERY player must do! However, it won't make you into a Master in 4 months.

Many people, myself included, find his study plan to be too intense. I've alternatively created a plan that follows the same guidelines as de la maza's, however I go through each difficulty level in CT-ART seven times individually, rather than the whole program all at once. My modified schedule is slower and if followed correctly will take a little less than a year to complete as opposed to the 3-4 months it would take to complete de la maza's study plan that he advocates in his book.

BONUS! This is a great method to study endgames as well! The book 'Endgame Challenge' I'm studying using the precise methods described above and in de la maza's book! Endgame Challenge presents endgame study in the form of tactical puzzles. This takes all the boredom out of endgame study and is ensuring that I thoroughly understand critical endgame positions!

If anyone is interested, I'll post my modified study plans in .xls format. I track my progress including a line graph that automatically charts my performance. As of now, I'm about halfway through difficulty 4 (out of 9) in CT-ART.

Exodus5000 - agreed!

There are probably 200,000+ book.
There is nothing new about learning tactics.
An old Barnes and Noble book, (publisher) was Reinfeld's 1001 Chess Combinations. Reinfeld wrote many more books about a similar subject.
Znosko Bprovsky wrote a book about tactics even earlier.
Znosko-Borovsky, Eugene . The Art of Chess Combination. Dover
Wikipedia says 1977. Quite wrong. The book by Dover was edited probably by Reinfeld in the 60's. One of the first chess books I read.
When you want to learn chess from books you start with the endgame.
You get a good endgame manual. There are new ones, and old ones. And revised ones. (Fine's BCE, revised by Benko).
The idea of tactical training may have become popular from Spassky and Tal. In several of books about the two players they had personal trainers who specialized in tactical chess.
There are even websites on the subject.
Chess Tactics Server
(You get rated on solving. A website located in Berlin).
Questions you have to ask when learning chess whether you are 10, 15, or 25 where do you want to go, what will you know about chess 20 years from now. It will not come from tactical training. It will be from the endgame.
I have to imagine, Capablanca, Alekhine, Reshevsky, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Karpov, Kasparov and others it was the end game. Studying the later games of Fischer it was the end game. (See the Roman DVD on Fischer).