X

X

Your high rating might be why more people aren't responding. My real world playing level probably isn't 2000 but I'll offer what I know.

First, I've never seen that information in a book, and I've looked at a pretty decent number of chess books. I think the closest I've seen is this section in a book with a chapter on swindling, though I didn't like the book overall...

----------

(p. 83)
      8 How to win won positions

   'The rest is just technique' How many times have you heard this cliche?
What does it mean? What sort of technique is involved?

   We all fail to win 'won' positions much more often than we should. In
fact if we were fully equipped with the sort of technique the annotators
seem to take for granted, our opponents could resign much earlier than
they do in real life. But even strong grandmasters let clearly winning
positions slip from their grasp from time to time, so clearly the technique
involved is far from easy to apply in practice.

   There seem to me to be four basic principles which should be borne in
mind, although I must admit it is not always easy to apply them. If you
remember them, however, you should significantly reduce the number of
won games which you let slip away.
(p. 84)
   (1) Keep the initiative

   This is the Golden Rule. The successful Swindler operates by first gaining
the initiative; so the way to foil him is to prevent his getting it. If you have
a positionally won game with everything under control, don't grab the first
pawn your opponent leaves lying around. Instead, continue to turn the
screw until his position cracks at the seams. Remember how Uhlmann did
this against [sic] in Chapter 5. Instead of winning a pawn, he concentrated on
bottling up his opponent's pieces, and after this he didn't need to take any
pawns, because his advance led to a quick decision.

   You may be tempted to win material by playing a combination which you
are sure your opponent has overlooked. Be careful! Look to see whether
your opponent will be able to break out and get counterplay at the end of
it. This is the worst way of being swindled, for you are swindling yourself
if you play an unsound combination which your opponent hasn't even
seen. An 'unsound combination' means one which allows him to come out
with a reasonable initiative for the material lost, even though you may still
have a won game theoretically, for a clear won game is better than an
unclear won game.

   If your opponent sacrifices something you will frequently be able to
refuse it and continue to pile on the pressure, but if you are forced to
accept the sacrifice in order to maintain your advantage, look for a way to
give back some or all of the material gained, in order to regain the
initiative. This can frequently be done in such a way that you end up with
an even more won position than you started with, although level on
material. Above all, don't hang on to your ill-gotten gains at all costs; this
is the perfect recipe for being swindled.

   (2) Give your opponent as little chance as possible

   This really amounts to 'keeping everything under control' (one of my
favourite phrases). Pay particular attention to stopping your opponent's
threats, before continuing with your own active plan. If you are not quite
sure how to make progress, keep him bottled up for a while and wait for
an opportunity to finish him off. He may get desperate and do something
ridiculous to try and break out of your stranglehold. If he just sits there,
however, he will probably run short of time, since cramped positions are
usually rather difficult to play. Your position should be much easier to play,
provided you don't try too hard to find the most crushing moves. Many
(p. 85)
won games have been thrown away in time-trouble because the player
with the advantage spent too long looking for the most crushing win,
instead of being content to maintain his advantage and wait for an
opportunity to increase it. Don't exchange a position which you know is
won for a position which you only think is won. Be patient and stay in
control until you see a clear way of transforming your advantage into a
win.

   (3) Check complications carefully, but don't be afraid of them

   Some players dash headlong into what they think is a winning
combination, without making quite certain that it is sound, frequently with
the idea of winning brilliantly and impressing everyone. As a Tiger,
however, you should not be concerned about whether you win brilliantly
or not, as long as you win. On the other hand, don't go to the opposite
extreme and avoid all complications just for the sake of doing so, or 'in
case you've overlooked something'. If a complex continuation leads to a
clear win, the safest way to play it, rather than to stodge around and give
yourself a chance to make mistakes. You must be certain that it wins in all
variations, however, before you give up a positionally won game for a
complicated tactical line.

   (4) Don't assume the game will win itself

   There is a temptation to relax when you're winning. Resist it! Force
yourself to concentrate as hard as you would if you had that position
against the World Champion! Your opponent may appear to have lost
interest and be playing very quickly, but until he resigns, you have work to
do. If you have plenty of time, use it in looking for the most certain win,
rather than just any old win. Even easy wins have to be won, and if your
opponent seems slow resigning he is more likely to do so if you play slowly
and carefully than if you try and rush your way through to the end. Some
people fail to win the most absurdly easy positions; so make sure you're
not one of them!

Webb, Simon. 2005. Chess for Tigers. London: Batsford.

----------

One heuristic I learned from practice is that win of material is usually followed by losing the initiative, about 85-90% of the time. Given that this is exactly what gambits are about--losing the initiative when you grab material--this shouldn't be too surprising, but I've never seen my related heuristic mentioned anywhere, especially in a book.

So the typical evolution of that situation I encounter is: I win some material, usually one pawn or the exchange, as a result my opponent gets the initiative and attacks, I keep defending and I keep consolidating my position (getting my king to safety, developing any undeveloped pieces, repositioning my pieces, making prophylactic moves, etc.), soon or even immediately the nature of the position seems to force trades of pieces, then my strategy is to enjoy that natural flow of the game and to keep trading off pieces, then I reach an endgame where the plan for how to win is clear and my opponent has little or no chance to create complications or counterplay. If you're not encountering those opportunities to trade down and not encountering that general flow of the game, then I don't know what else to suggest, although admittedly the openings I play tend to encourage exchanges, whereas if you're playing sharper openings that may not happen in the same way.

Study some annotated games by Ulf Anderrson and Kramnik, they are aces at conversions.  It's hard to describe how to convert something, it's something you develop a feeling for.  I'll try however:

Conversion of one advantage into another is part of the dynamics of chess.  

1.The superior side can run the weaker side out of moves until they're in zugzwang.

2.Restriction of the opponent's pieces.  Nimzowitsch even said the heart of positional play is restraining pawn moves.  Also when you place your piece on a disputed square you're offering an exchange, and if it's refused you gain some ground as his available squares become fewer.

3.There are times when you should stop trying to gain advantages, but rather convert the ones you have.  

4.When you are ahead material it typically pays to exchange pieces not pawns.  Keep in mind that it doesn't matter what leaves the board but what stays on.  Are you better off after, even if you exchanged a superior piece for inferior one?  

2100 here. The big thing I've sort of realized is that you really can't just "play safe, trade everything, and win with your extra pawn" like we were taught to do as 1500s and below. It's a really bad habit that probably almost every chess player picks up, because this is exactly how chess works at a sub-1200 level: See who drops the most material, the other player just has to not make any mistakes, and then they win.

Often, you have to ignore your extra material and keep playing according to the typical plans of a position, whatever those may be. The extra material will still help, though, because it is "endgame insurence" - Your opponent may have to avoid trades that would otherwise favor him, because he has to be afraid of the pawn-down endgame. So instead of exchanging your active queen for his passive queen, for example, he may have to retreat, and so on - this makes the middlegame easier for you, too.

It's also been said that it's easier to win with a positional advantage than an equally-large material advantage. If you're up a pawn, that means you can make a typical positional pawn sacrifice at no risk, because you won't even be down a pawn afterwards. Don't do it carelessly, and of course it may give away your biggest asset if done improperly, but okay, the option's there.

Prophylaxis is always important though, and there's no need to take unneccesary risks with a material advantage unless the position calls for it. But "trade everything and win the endgame" should usually be a backup plan or a nice little bonus to having the material - if your primary goal in a position is to "trade everything," while your opponent is busy persuing some actual goal, you may get into trouble.

Conversion is something I have trouble with too, though. If you'd like, check out some of these annotated games I've posted - especially in game 1, I had an advantage but I really wasn't sure what to do with it, and went very wrong even against a low-rated player: http://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/a-bad-tournamentmiddlegaming-understanding-only-extension-of-opening-prep

Feel free to share your thoughts there as well!