Apart from tactics, how to improve the middle game.

I have been winning alot lately, and my rating has moved up into the 1450-1470 range.  My wins have almost always been the result of tactics, meaning spotting mistakes or exploitable weaknesses in the enemy position, and winning material.  While I continue to practice tactics, I find that as my rating climbs and I am playing more people in the 1500+ range, those obvious tactical mistakes are becoming fewer and fewer.  Although I will of course continue my tactical work more or less indefinitely, I need to start working on some more subtle issues than just looking for tactical motifs, on how to build up pressure when the other guy isn't giving me a nice tactic to exploit.  Any suggestions on something to read/study?  I received a copy of Silman's Reassess Your Chess, but have not really found the time to dive any to any depth yet.  Would that be a good next step, or can someone suggest something else to pursue?

As for how to improve in the middlegame, I would look into a book like Logical Chess Move by Move, which has grandmaster games annotated for someone about our level. Chernev is really helpful at explaining why the moves are made and as well as what types of moves ought (and ought not) to be made.

Also you might want to consider an endgame book. I am reading Silman's Complete Endgame Course.

try chess puzzles, a lot of them from the easy ones to hard ones. they will help you advance and manage situations. also explore different openings and see what opening/line is best for your type of playing.

my system by nimzowitch

uh, how about meditating for half an hour a day until you enlighten yourself with the fact that strategy is INFINITELY more important than tactics! Every single move you make is a tactic! To have a winning tactic, means your opponet made a mistkae, allowing you to exploit that tactic!And that means his STRATEGY wasnt so good! Its no good if you play chess for tactics. 

Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do; Strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to be done. -Tarkatower Savielly

If "Reassess your Chess" feels like too deep a dive, Silman's "The Amateur's Mind" is a simpler introduction to the same middle-game ideas. Michael Stean's "Simple Chess" is short & digestible and covers some similar ground. Perhaps a good place to start for basic middle-game strategic principles is Seirawan's "Winning Chess Strategies".

I also heartily recommend Dan Heisman's Novice Nook articles, which are archived at chesscafe.com for great, all-round learning for improving players.

You're very wise to keep up the tactics though! All the middle-game strategy in the world doesn't help us if we can't spot a tactic.

How to Reassess Your Chess is an excellent next step. 

Thank you for the first three replies.

FullmetalAlchemist, I think I see what you are saying here, but your advice runs counter virtually all the adice begginers are given.  Tactics first, if for no other reason to avoid blunders and dropping material for no reason.  It doesn't matter how acute one's positional understanding is, if you drop material or fall for simple combinations you get nowhere.

What I am asking, had you ranted less and focused more, is now that I am getting into opponnets who are avoiding simple tactical errors much more often, is how to continue improving my play.  Yes, its called strategy.  I clearly know that I need some.  Yet you have provided no information on how to obtain any expertise in it. 

Bardu, thanks for the recommendation on Chernev.  I will see if the library has a copy.  I do have Silman's endgame book, which I think is a gem for the club level player.  So many lower level players ignore endgames.  I am one of those odd birds who really enjoys a good endgame, and I have often won by being able to recognize when I can reduce a position into a superior endgame.

Edit:  Several more people posted while I was writing my post.  Thank you for those replies as well.

This is so false. The right saying is "chess is 99% tactics".

Sofademon, you're on the right track. I also recommend the Silman books.

I don't know if it is still in print, but I would recommend Pawn Power in Chess by Hans Kmoch. The terminology he uses is sometimes a little odd, but the ideas are excellent.

tack-ticks? :)

I have this book!

The greatest compliment I ever received was from a friend who said to me after watching a game of mine that at one point he saw a position on the board which he thought he remembered as exactly from Pawn Power. It was a great compliment because at the time I hadn't read the book.

 Not trying to stir up trouble (much) but here's a slightly differing opinion,

"Ask a master what he actually does during a game and, if truthful, he'll answer: 'I calculate variations.' He looks a few moves ahead and makes a judgment about the various possibillities at his disposal. He knows the old saying that 'Chess is 99% tactics,' but he also knows that it's inaccurate. Chess is really 99% calculation--the inner game of chess.

GM Andy Soltis, "The Inner Game of Chess" 1994

Soltis' correction basically includes both tactics and strategy -- for what he's saying is, chess is largely the ability to look ahead down (mostly short) variations and be able to evaluate the consequences -- be they obvious (tactics) or a subtler (strategic).  It's probably worth adding that tactical consequences have a way of trumping strategic consequences rather a lot.

Hey, no one has mentioned Artur Yusupov's books. I think they're really fun and good.

 but notice i say every move you make is a tactic; chess is\100% tactics. tactics are important, ill give you that. however, if you dont have strategy, you dont know what your doing. if you dont know what your doing, you lose.

My experience is this: I got Boost your Fundamentals (which I think is the 1 book in the second set -- there are three sets of three if I'm not mistaken) -- and first of all they aren't anything outrageously original by any means...Yusupov writes (very short -- 1 page ) chapters which are focussed on a single topic, gives two or three examples, and then tests you on the topic in ten further positions... so for example chapter one is "windmills" and you get three examples of windmills and then a 10 example test of positions with a windmill to find. I suppose that sounds pretty stupid, or easy, but the all the positions are very high quality and throw some new wrinkle into what's come before. The postions range from good to really extraordinarily interesting and illustrative. I thought I was merely enjoying the book... but I recently lost it (before finishing it) and now I'm going crazy wishing I had it to study. I'm going to have to buy another copy (@$30 for a not very large book!) So I've realized I was more than enjoying it. I'm in love! A++ . Great stuff. Just keep in mind this is a review based on less than 1/2 of one book -- maybe it's just infatuation.  

They're not very accessible. I'm not sure they're accessible to anybody who's posted in this forum.

And this is coming from someone who is a big Yusupov fan and who once had lessons with Dvoretsky.

Hello Steinar,

When Ozzie wrote "accessible" I think he meant the ideas are  hard to understand for weaker players, not that the books are hard to acquire. The ideas in Yusupov and Dvoretsky's books are directed at players who play at a very high level of competition.  Even at my level, a weak master, I don't find them very useful.

I'm currently working through the first sub-1500 Yusupov book (Build up your chess - The Fundamentals) and enjoying it a lot. I've done the first 4 or 5 chapters so far and found them hard, but not too hard - and I'm certainly a good way below 1500 (more like 1200, 1300 on a good day :)

The problem as with all tactics books as well as the Tactics Trainer on this website is that if presented with a position in the chapter "Basic Mates" you know, there is a forced mate for White in this position, or in the chapter on double checks there must be a double check - and in the TT you know at least there must be some tactic - while how do you recognize a tactic in a real game?

You notice the pattern.

After doing a few dozens of smothered mate with Queen and Knight, there's no way you're going to miss that in a game. You won't have to see it, you'll just check if it's there. So thinkink process changes:

Before: Hmm, this position seems good, but I can't see any tactics.

After: Hey, there's a Knight and a Queen in the right position, is there any way I can force smothered mate?

You can read more about spotting tactics in games here: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman05.pdf