What It Takes to Become a Chess Master

London: Batsford, 2012. — 208 p. — ISBN 9781849940269.Учебник шахматной игры на материале партий известных шахматистов.
The title of What It Takes to Become a Chess Master is about as straightforward and descriptive of the contents as any chess book you will find. As Soltis explains, "only two percent of the people who take chess seriously make master." He claims "the answers aren't mysterious"; however, his conclusions as to why this is may still surprise you. For instance, he states that being good in core areas such as tactics and endgames, and having a good general awareness of principles, may have been enough to get you where you are, but getting better at them will not necessarily take you further. The same goes for opening knowledge, memory, overall experience, and calculation, with Soltis writing that there is "a powerful law of diminishing returns in chess calculation," because it is very rare to even have to see, say, six or seven moves ahead.