zezpwn44

Mar 18, 2015

0

#1

We've all seen book after book and online resource after online resource about calculation, attacks, and tactics, but are there any resources that feature good explanations of a large collection of well-known positional ideas (or priyomes) from many different openings and positions?

I'm not talking about books on "positional play" in general, I'm talking about learning very specific, but very useful in many different situations, ideas.

Examples:

-meeting white's b5 in the minority attack with ...cxb5 axb5 ...a5 to create a passed pawn - when this is good, when it is not, with examples

-meeting white's b5 with c5 in the minority attack - when it's good, when it's not, examples

-playing ...b5 based on tactics involving white's e4 pawn, as sometimes occurs in the benoni, pirc and accelerated dragon

-striking at black's a6-b5-c5 pawn structure with a2-a4 as in the ruy lopez - when it's good, when it's not(examples where the b4 square can be exploited, for instance), examples, and how it varies from playing a2-a4 when black hasn't committed the c-pawn to c5 yet.

-Exchanging a g7 bishop with Be3-Bh6-Bxg7 - When it's good, when it's not

I feel like there are so many of these ideas that it would be useful to have a source that features tons of them, but I can't really think of any books like this. It seems to certainly be an underappreciate part of chess study, even for advanced players. The best example of something that approaches this would be some of Soltis' books, but not quite. Any thoughts?

SilentKnighte5

Mar 18, 2015

0

#2

Entire books are written about just a small selection of what you want covered. If you want a primer about the Carlsbad in general, Middlegame Strategy by Leininger is a good one, although you have to get used to it's very sparse algebraic notation (no notation for checks, captures, etc). I don't know if there's a proper term of that style, but it seems "cheap" would be the best way to describe it.

All of that aside, it covers just about every plan and counterplan for White and Black that arises from the Carlsbad.

http://www.amazon.com/Middlegame-Strategy-Robert-Leininger/dp/1886846073/

I don't think you'll ever find a book that is written along the lines of "you should always play a4 here, no matter what, but not here because of this". It's too rigid. Priyomes are ideas, not laws.

SilentKnighte5

Mar 18, 2015

0

#3

Improve Your Chess Pattern Recognition by Oudeweetering is another one. It's not a list of rules, but ideas you might see in the middlegame.

I_Am_Second

Mar 18, 2015

0

#4

As chessmickey pointed out - "Techniques of Positional Play" is very good. Another good book on what youre looking for is:

Chess Training for Post-beginners: A Basic Course in Positional Understanding

-Yaroslav Srokovski

VLaurenT

Mar 18, 2015

0

#5

@OP : I think what you're looking for exists only in the brain of some titled players

However, you can find collections of typical positional ideas (books have been quoted above), as well as ideas related to some specific pawn structures like the Carlsbad as you asked.

zezpwn44

Mar 20, 2015

0

#6

hicetnunc wrote:

@OP : I think what you're looking for exists only in the brain of some titled players

However, you can find collections of typical positional ideas (books have been quoted above), as well as ideas related to some specific pawn structures like the Carlsbad as you asked.

Haha, well yes - so I guess I just have to buy tons of books for this, there's none that has a large amount of them?

VLaurenT

Mar 21, 2015

0

#7

As far as generic ideas/manoeuvres go, this one has a lot of them :

http://www.amazon.com/Chess-Middlegames-Laszlo-Polgar/dp/3895086835/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426929483&sr=8-1&keywords=polgar+middlegames

They are organized by theme, but no explanations, only examples, so you'll need to do the synthesis yourself (as is often the case in chess)

zezpwn44

Mar 24, 2015

0

#8

hayabusahayate16 wrote:

Chess.com has a large collection of videos on these ideas in specific openings and also on pawn structures.

Yes, but most of them seem geared towards club players / begginers.

I bought Solits' "100 Chess master trade secrets," but there was very little in there I don't already know - I don't need to be told to bring rooks to open files in rook endgames, or what the lucena and philidor positions are, or that the minority attack itself exists. At least there are some decent examples though.

zezpwn44

Mar 24, 2015

0

#9

hayabusahayate16 wrote:

What you are trying to find is probably more suited to endgame study where such ideas are usually more concrete, cut and dried. Probably Endgame Manual by Dvoretsky would be good. There is also My System by Nimzowitsch if you haven't read that yet which covers alot.

I'm talking more about middlegame ideas, but I do have Dvo's Endgame Manual

TheGreatOogieBoogie

Mar 24, 2015

0

#10

Advanced you say? You may want the Baburin isolated d-pawn book and Shipov's Hedgehog series. The Berlin Defence from Chess Stars will have some advanced priyomes. You should start with basic priyomes first of course. You also can't go wrong with annotated master games. Tal, Alekhine, Tartakower, Keres, Karpov, Shirov, Judit Polgar, Kasparov, Larsen, Petrosian, and others have good game collections.

holden_54