Book Recommendations: Positional Play Books

Hello everyone! Today we'll be talking about some great books to improve your positional chess. Here are some of my favorites:

1. How to Reassess Your Chess by Jeremy Silman

     A great book to start off with, this book really ingrains the fundamentals into your brain. It's perfect for players rated anywhere from 1200-2000 USCF. Personally, re-reading this book helped me understand basic ideas such as the power of opposite colored bishops in attacking. Speaking of opposite colored bishops attacking, why don't you try to solve the following puzzle?

2. Positional Play by Jacob Aagaard

     One of the books in Aagaard Grandmaster Preparation series, this book really strives to push you as the player to think about his 3 questions: What are the weaknesses? What is my worst placed piece? What is my opponent's idea? It's really helpful and the exercises complement the book with a nice final touch. I would highly recommend this book.

3. Critical Moments by Paata Gaprindashvili

     This book comes at chess from another angle. It focuses on identifying the critical moments in a game, and getting them right. The philosophy in this book is that there are 4 types of moves in chess, and you have to identify them and make the correct decisions based on that information. I haven't finished it yet, but it's looking good so far.

4. Thinking Inside the Box by Jacob Aagaard

     Aagaard comes back with another great idea, which is not to think outside of the box, but to think inside of the box. I have not yet read this book, but have heard great reviews all around. It focuses on psychology, and helping your brain find the ideas that are seemingly floating right in front of you.

I hope you found this article interesting, and make sure to comment down in the comments section! Thanks for reading, until next time!