Jeremy Silman

Jeremy Silman (born August 28, 1954) is an American International Master of chess. He has won the US Open, the American Open, and the National Open, and was the coach of the US junior national chess team.

Silman has authored over 35 books, mostly on chess but also on casino gambling, and has written articles for chess magazines such as Chess Life and New in Chess. He has also authored many chess mentoring puzzles on the chess.com website.

Silman is the professor in a video chess course produced by The Teaching Company as part of its Great Courses series.

Silman served as a chess consultant on the 2001 Harry Potter film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone,Monk, and Malcolm in the Middle.

In his books, Silman evaluates positions according to the "imbalances", or differences, which exist in every position, and advocates that players plan their play according to these. A good plan according to Silman is one which highlights the positive imbalances in the position. The imbalances are, in rough descending order of importance according to Dana Mackenzie:

Silman proposes in How to Reassess Your Chess a five-fold procedure that he recommends players to use. This procedure is to be followed after checking for tactical threats for both sides.

The list makes sense, but to many it may seem quite advanced. Michael de la Maza, proposed an alternative method using threats and calculation. The work of de la Maza was in turn criticized by Silman himself.

...
Wikipedia