Improve Your Positional Chess

Throughout a game of chess, the players must constantly make judgements and decisions that cannot be determined simply by calculation. They must then rely on their positional judgement. Good positional skills are primarily developed by experience, but they can also be learnt. In this book, Carsten Hansen provides a wealth of advice and ideas that will help give readers a helping hand up to new levels of positional understanding. Paramount in this discussion is the player's need to weigh up positional elements at the board, and decide which are most important for the situation at hand. Topics include: the quest for weaknesses, "what is the initiative?", understanding imbalances, the relative value of the pieces, decisions regarding pawn-structures, structural weaknesses, and where and how to attack.

Russia boasts a long and rich tradition in chess education and Russian chess teachers and trainers are simply the best in the world. The Complete Manual of Positional Chess is the latest and most comprehensive product of this Russia striving for perfection. This handbook, probably the most thorough grounding in the history of teaching chess, was recently created for chess teachers at the DYSS, the special sports school for young talents in Russia. Konstantin Sakaev and Konstantin Landa present a complete set of instructions and tips for trainers and self-improvers. It teaches you not only how to enhance your fundamental knowledge and technical skills, but also how to work on your physical and psychological conditioning. If you complete this course you will be able to assess virtually any position you are confronted with. With its all-encompassing approach this ground-breaking book allows everyone to reap the fruits of the long tradition of instructive excellence in Russia.

Opening preparation is useful, but understanding the middlegame is much more important. This book, an improved edition of a Russian classic, teaches amateur chess players 45 extremely effective skills in a crystal-clear manner. Quite a few of the ideas presented here will surprise the reader, because they offer solutions for problems the club player is only subconsciously aware. How do you activate your rook pawn? How do you prevent your opponent from opening a file? How do you restrict the efficacy of your opponents pieces? Which rook belongs on the c-, d- or e-file? What is the best way to exchange a piece? How do you castle artificially? In most cases the techniques are easy to understand and memorize. Bronznik and Terekhin do not burden the reader with deep analysis and only present those variations that are really necessary to get the point. There is a special training section at the end of the book where you can test your skills.

This new 3rd edition has, besides various corrections and improvements, a new introduction and a brand-new chapter called ‘Total Control’. In this 35-page chapter Grooten adds the final instructive brick to his formidable, yet very accessible, building: inspired by Tigran Petrosian’s playing style he explains amateurs how to exploit small advantages. With a new set of exercises. ---- Every club player knows the problem: the opening has ended, and now what? First find the right plan, then the good moves will follow! With this book, International Master Herman Grooten presents to amateur players a complete and structured course on: how to recognize key characteristics in all types of positions how to make use of those characteristics to choose the right plan His teachings are based on the famous "Elements" of Wilhelm Steinitz, but Grooten has significantly expanded and updated the work of the first World Champion. He supplies many modern examples, tested in his own practice as a coach of talented youngsters. In Chess Strategy for Club Players you will learn the basic elements of positional understanding: -- pawn structure -- piece placement -- lead in development -- open files -- weaknesses -- space advantage -- king safety -- exploiting small advantages. The author also explains what to do when, in a given position, the basic principles seem to point in different directions. Each chapter of this fundamental primer ends with a set of highly instructive exercises.

Learn to develop a more powerful strategic game. Key squares, bad bishops, pawn structures, other examples appear in ascending difficulty, with cross-references. For players at every level. 495 black-and-white illustrations.

In this unique book, International Master Jacob Aagaard selects many original examples of positional chess, the crème de la crème of those that he uses for training and study.

"If you want to reach the heights, you should study the entire history of chess. I can't give any clear logical explanation for it, but I think it is absolutely essential to soak up the whole of chess history." - VLADIMIR KRAMNIK In this book Lars Bo Hansen shows how chess understanding has evolved and explains how and why a study of the great champions of the past and present will significantly improve your chess. Although modern chess is a highly concrete game where calculation is paramount and principles often appear to take a back seat, Hansen argues that the principles have become implicit at top level: "you cannot win games only by following Steinitz's or Nimzowitsch's principles, but you will certainly lose games if you don't know these principles!" Hansen shows that pattern recognition - one of the most vital aspects of chess mastery - is built up highly effectively by studying historic games, and cites many examples which will immediately form part of your armoury. Building upon the structure of his acclaimed work How Chess Games are Won and Lost, Hansen also argues that the transitions opening-to-middlegame and middlegame-to-endgame are best understood by studying the games of the great champions. Throughout the book, the emphasis is firmly on improving your chess, and equipping you to improve your chess further by studying on your own. At the same time, you will enjoy a feast of the most instructive chess games of all time - both classical and modern. The final chapter discusses the future development of chess style.

After you have learned the rules of chess and developed some tactical abilities, how do you go from there? You are now ready to tackle basic issues of strategy, but what is the best way to improve and win more games? Of course, you have to train. But chess training only makes sense if it fits your level of play and if it is structured in an accessible way. Experienced chess trainer Yaroslav Srokovski has developed a practical, well-structured, compact first course in positional understanding. You will learn two fundamental skills: how to assess a position on the board and how to decide which long-term objectives you should aim for in what sort of positions. In 12 chapters Srokovksi teaches you things like: how to handle your pawns, what weak squares and strong squares are, bad pieces and good pieces, why it is important if your king is in the middle or not, why and how to get an open line, the problem of knight against bishop, what piece coordination means and why everyone talks about the bishop pair. This course, which includes many exercises, is tried and tested and ideally suited to bring post-beginners at their next level.