Overall Rating: 6/10
Format: Paperback
Cost: $9
I will start off by saying that I’m not sure I would really consider this a chess book. It’s not going to broaden your understanding of the game. Rather, it’s a mnemonic memory system to memorize your opening repertoire. Will it improve your play? Possibly, but it’s just a memorization tool. It probably provides value to someone if they take the time to fully understand it and apply the method. However, I’ll be honest, this was a tough one for me to follow.
The system in a nutshell consists of associating words with squares and the movement of pieces to specific squares with a story tying it together in your head. One example would be walking through a train station seeing a lion roaring with a snowman riding on its back followed by a robber running away from the lion with a skull in his hands. As you continue to walk down the train platform different visual stories take place to remind you of move orders within your opening repertoire with different hallways in the station being different variations. It’s a little more complex than that, but that’s a basic example.
I think the book starts off too quickly and gets a little off the rails in the first chapter. The first chapter explains the picture notation system and how to associate mental pictures with the squares and pieces. For instance, “roar” is associated with the d4 square. The “r” is associated with the “r” in four and there are four letters to associate the word with the “d” file and thus the lion in your “mental palace.” Yeah, it can be a little complex.
The author clearly has a system that works for him, and I’m sure it will work for some people. However, the explanations are too short and do not adequately explain the system. I would have preferred a few more examples to clearly explain the system, especially in the first chapter. I must have read and reread the first chapter 3 or 4 times before I “thought” it made sense to me. It turns out that it never did. That said, I think there is still value to the book. The author’s system has the most value if adapted by the reader to make it their own. The author recommends that in fact.
Bottomline: For $9 price, it’s hard to argue that it’s not worth the read. It’s also a quick read for that matter. It sets out a model system that could be incredibly beneficial to recalling opening lines, but the devil is in the details. The real value is how the end user creates their own system using the mental palace framework. I understand the above sounds a little negative, but it’s not meant to be. I think the author provides a system that works for him to the reader, but it’s hard to follow because it’s a system he created for himself. It’s only going to make sense when the reader makes it their own. I’m going to give it a try, but I’m going to hopefully create an easier method to describe the squares and piece movements.