This is probably one of the hardest and most useful chess books you will ever read. Dvoretsky is known as one of very few authors whose books are aimed at advanced and master level players and whose books and exercises in them often cause headaches even to Grandmaster level readers. I think Recognizing Your Opponent’s Resources is his most useful book. It may, in fact, be the only book in existence that teaches you how to navigate positions in a smart way, having what your opponent wants to do in mind without it impeding your ability to also think and play actively and not to defend unnecessarily.
Recognizing Your Opponent’s Resources consists of four chapters, and they all aim to develop your ability to think not only for yourself, but also for your opponent, to put yourself in their place. The problems from the first three chapters, “Pay Attention to your Opponent’s Resources,” “The Process of Elimination” and “Traps” are mainly tactical. The fourth chapter, “Prophylactic Thinking,” is predominantly comprised of positional Exercises. As Dvoretsky writes in the introduction, “…the boundary between positional and tactical play is notional nowadays, and sometimes it is impossible to identify even in analysis of an individual position, never mind in the chapters of a book that contain a multitude of varied examples.”
Each chapter begins with a theoretical explanation of what you should gain by solving the problems and several annotated games with instructive examples of the concepts presented. The explanation of the process of elimination in chapter two struck me as extremely instructive: “What is the standard procedure for using the process of elimination? We determine all the candidate moves that make sense, then carefully look for the strongest responses by our opponent, which forces us to throw out the majority of the candidate moves. If only one unrefuted possibility remains as a result, then we choose it. Which is why training exercises on the theme of the process of elimination simultaneously develop the skill of paying attention to your opponent’s resources.” This piece of advice may seem simple enough and easily applicable, but we’ve all been in countless situations where our opponent makes a move and we’re surprised and worse or losing. Doing what Dvoretsky prescribes helps drill this way of thinking and make it intuitive, which is what true chess skill is all about.
As always, Dvoretsky’s annotations are instructive and easy to follow. The exercises, which are the basis of this workbook, are its true value. Each chapter is accompanied by way over a hundred problems taken from real games and studies. They come from all three areas of the game, opening, middlegame and endgame. The explanations of the solutions are simply remarkable. Dvoretsky explains the move played in the game and why it may have been tempting to play it, why it was wrong (if the correct alternative exists), and shows the correct way to play. Most importantly, the “why” behind the idea, the variations, and the move itself is explained in detail. That’s the part lower quality problems books often lack.
I’m gonna be honest and say that I started this book several times and only managed to go through all the exercises on my fourth attempt. They are very advanced for my level. I think this is a rare case of a book written for masters. That being said, I think solving all the problems, albeit with a low completion rate, has helped my play immensely. Making a mistake and then having Dvoretsky explain how I should have approached the position correctly may be more useful than correctly solving the problem in the first place. I remember solving the first few pages with my friend Milan Jocev. He’s an FM, much higher rated than me. We were both struggling to see all the important ideas in almost every position. He was, of course, way more successful than me, but he made a ton of mistakes too. That should give you hope if you find yourself struggling and spending an hour per position. That’s ok! Solve all the problems on a real board and don’t move the pieces. If you make a mistake, read the solution several times and figure out which element of importance you’ve missed or discarded as irrelevant.
I have no doubt that Recognizing Your Opponent’s Resources will be immensely useful for every ambitious player. Read it and reap the benefits over the board!
