Problem #4

This is not the kind of problems you are used to. This is more like a "positional chess problem" than a tactics problem. Even though the position is one of attack and defense, it doesn't have anything to do with it. So I warn you: don't look for mates, or forks, or stuff like that.

The game was played in 1990, and is between Kamsky and Petursson. The game started with a King's Indian Defense.

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Kamsky - Petursson, 1990

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White to move

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To see the solution, just highlight the hidden text below.

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Solution:

1. h6 Bh8 2. f5!, and the Bishop is in a prison. White effectively played "up a piece" for the rest of the game, and Black eventually resigned in an opposite-color bishop ending. Black's Bishop never left its cage.
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Panov Formation

The Panov formation gets its name from Panov (duh), who played it for the first time in 1929 in a game against Mudrov, as White. As you maybe already know, Panov has a line in the Caro-Kann Defense named after him, the Panov-Botvinnik Attack, which goes 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4. The Panov formation is characterized by the pawn-chain formed by d4 and c5, and Black generally has his own pawns on e6 and d5.

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The game continued: 4. ...Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Nf3 Bf5(?) 7. c5! (Diagram)

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It is GM Andrew Soltis in Pawn Structure Chess (which will be the subject of a future book review) who annotates 6. ...Bf5 with a "?". He writes that White would have thought twice about playing 7. c5 had Black played 6. ...Bg4!, since in the Panov formation, the d-pawn is a permanent weakness in a fixed center. We will see that attacking the d-pawn is one of the three main options Black has against that formation.

So, why did White play c5 ? Let's look at the pawn structure which defines the Panov formation:

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We see that White has excellent outposts on e5 and d6, which means for him "excellent use of the black squares in the middlegame and a trump in the ending" (Soltis). Indeed, according to Soltis the reason as to why Bf5 is not nearly as good as Bg4 is because it lacks control over the dark squares (notice that Bg4 would have removed the f3-knight's capacities of defending the dark squares). The main drawback -- besides the fixed backward d-pawn -- is that it is Black who has the potential now to make any pawn-move to contest the center, with ...b6 or ...e5.

Black has three main plans:

1. contest the center with ...e5;
2. contest the center with ...b6;
3. attack White's d-pawn with Bf6 and Ne5 (or simply play Ne4 and f5 and attack on the kingside).

White doesn't have to fear ...e5 all that much, because it comes with its own consequences: after dxe5, White has gotten rid of his backward d-pawn and has created an isolated d-pawn on Black's camp, thus having an outpost on d4. Whether White's c5-weakness is better or worse than Black's d5 isolated pawn depends on your style of play (and your opponent's) I guess.

As for ...b6, White has two main options: he can take it with cxb6 or let Black capture on c5, and in both cases White can control the c-file with heavy pieces; or he can support his c-pawn with b2-b4, and maintain a passed c-pawn. (But beware!, use your head before playing b2-b4: ...a5 could make it look kind of bad, because a3 doesn't always succeed in defending the b4-pawn, if your rook on a1 is not protected and would thus be captured after ...a5xb4 axb4. Make sure your a-pawn wouldn't be pinned.)

Note that the Panov formation doesn't have to come from a Caro-Kann Defense. Even Black can obtain a Panov formation. For example, in the Tarrasch Defense of the Queen's Gambit Declined: 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 e6 3. c4 c5 4. Nc3 Nc6 5. cxd5 exd5 6. g3 Nf6 7. Bg2 h6 8. O-O Be6 9. Be3 Ng4 10. Qd2 c5 (Diagram)

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YouTube Phenomenon

The YouTube phenomenon generally refers to the huge amount of videos being posted everyday by plenty of people about plenty of things. But of course, I don't mean it that way here...

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We know what a chess lecture is. For instance, ICC offers some on http://www.chess.fm/ (some don't require your being registered on the ICC). Simply defined, a video chess lecture is a video about chess (an annotated game, the discussion of a specific theme such as the endgame, etc.), in which a player explains or describes something. They most commonly have an educational aim.

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Have you guessed what I am going to talk about yet? Oh, yes, chess lectures on youtube... this time though, it doesn't go through any selection process like there is on ICC. On ICC, the lecturers are either IMs or GMs. It would be senseless to let any random user publish their own little video... Enter youtube. Very few are decently rated -- I saw one FM, one NM and one USCF class A player, but as for the rest, they are not what I could call "rated high enough to make a video chess lecture with an educational aim". Oh, but they do anyway, they do :)

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Some of them are just painful. I will mention a few of them, so that you can bleed with me.

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1) Slattster (http://www.youtube.com/user/slattster)

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There are videos from him in which he is rated in the 800s on FICS. So, I mean, whatever he says, it's to be taken with a grain of salt :) He has now a 1200-something USCF rating... muuuuuch better.

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One nice thing to look at is his videos in which he is commenting a game while playing it, i.e. you get to see what his thought-process looks like, for one; and for two, it means that it is all spontaneous, he didn't prepare his analysis whatsoever. Oh, priceless. Mates-in-2 being missed are awkwardly common, and so are pieces being hung (he sometimes notices it afterwards and says things like "let's see if he'll take it"... of course he'll take it!, you just hung a piece for no reason).

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Not to mention, many of his games are being played on Yahoo! Chess, in the beginners' room... I mean, who plays there?

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2) JRobi (http://www.youtube.com/user/jrobichess)

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Painful too, but in another way. He doesn't do any live games, and you can tell that his analysis are prepared (I won't say "well" prepared, but that's just because he and I don't have the same quality standards for a chess lecture). That gives a much better initial impression: it has been demonstrated (Petty & Wegener, 1998) that the message is more credible when the person speaks fast. And I'll have to admit it, the content is not too bad.

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The main problem is that it comes from a 1400 player. That's for the recent videos; in the oldest, I believe he is rated around 900-1000. He has a great variety of harmful videos: opening analysis, annotated games, endgame studies (for example, the Philidor Position), etc. One particularly irritating series of videos is his "Grandmaster Chess Tactics: Can you spot the line?". I just have one thing to tell him: it's not because it was found in a game between two grandmasters that it is a grandmaster level tactics (pins exist at all levels).

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The guy himself is somewhat irritating. The most frustrating thing is that he calls a game a "match", systematically. A match is a set of games between the same players -- it is not a synonym. His pronunciation of "bishop" and "position" gets on your nerves very quickly too, but what are you gonna do...

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Unfortunately, reinforcement comes from everywhere, since many, many, MANY beginners appreciate his videos. His videos attract an enormous amount of comments, most of them being extremely positive.

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It makes me cry at night.

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3) Chessplayerdan (http://www.youtube.com/user/Chessplayerdan)

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I thank Mother Earth everyday that he only made 4 videos. He is rated 1000 on FICS. Just like Slattster, he made a live game analysis too. Since he was on FICS he had to wait a lot before a game popped up, and it's nice to see him try to fill in the silence during that time.

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Note that if you try to listen to his videos (you shouldn't), you will have to turn your speakers really loud, because that guy doesn't seem to quite get how a microphone works. Oh well.

Update...

Long time no see!

Unfortunately, my internet connection went off on last Sunday, and it's only yesterday (Friday) that someone came here to fix it. Now I will be able to start posting again.

But still, messages won't be as frequent and as of good quality as they should be. For those who didn't read that message, I'll repeat the reason: I have a huge rush at university right now, and I won't have any real free time until May 15. You can still check out the aforementioned message, I gave in it some of the articles that will be soon published. (I can't wait for those about cognitive psychology!)

In the meantime, I'll keep posting problems and easy stuff like that... perhaps bigger articles too, but they might be slightly more rare until May 15 than they used to be :)

Problem #3

What's impressive about this problem, is that White saw an incredible combination, very hard to see. I guess he thought his position was so huge that there most likely was something forcing to do, but he definitely had to search deep to find it. And White is not even some kind of top GM -- just a "regular" grandmaster, rated 2518 (around 2510 at the time of the game).

The following position arose:

White played the incredibly strong 1. Nxc6!! Nxc6. Black didn't have much choices there: not only would he have lost a whole lot of material had he not captured, but he'd still have to deal with a very strong attack. Chessmaster XI gives White a minimum advantage of the equivalent of 6 pawns (+6.00), no matter how Black responds.

Can you see why Maksimenko sacrificed his Knight?

Maksimenko - Nielsen, 2003

White to move

To see the solution, just highlight the hidden text below.

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Solution:

2. Qxh7+! Kxh7 (2. ...Kf8 3. Qxg7+ 4. Ke7 Qxf7#) 3. Rh3+ Kg8 4. Ng6!, and Black will get mated with Rh8#.

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Caro-Kann Defense, Advance Variation: 3. ...g6 Line

The Caro-Kann Defense is known as one of the most solid systems against 1. e4, and a good one too against ruthless attackers. It also tends to offer a good endgame for Black, who generally ends up in a pawn structure similar to the one in the Scandinavian defense after 1. e4 d5. Note that the great Karpov is a big fan of the opening.

The Caro-Kann, as you most likely know, starts out with 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5. From there, White has three main choices, which are 3. Nf3, 3. exd5 and 3. e5. We will talk about the Advance Variation, 3. e5 :

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This is a reasonable line for both players. In the PGN from the PGNMentor.com website (see article PGNMentor.com PGN Library), a total of 12 042 games are to be found. Of them, 41,1% were won by White, whereas Black won 30,7% of them -- the 28,2% left were drawn.

In my own practice (I play the Caro-Kann), the Advance Variation is what I meet the most. But as White, when confronted to the Caro-Kann, I never play that. I find that it lacks flexibility, and that it's hard to keep that central bind for a long time anyway -- but that's another story. What interests us is the Black side here.

This can pose some problems for Black. If he doesn't react properly, he will get spatially crushed. The main idea in the Caro-Kann is to allow Black's light-squared Bishop on c8 to develop before closing the pawn structure with e6. Notice that initially, that's the main difference with the French Defense (1. e4 e6). So it makes sense that Black's main move is 3. ...Bf5 :

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That line has been played almost exclusively in response to the Advance Variation: 10 367 games out of 12 042 followed with 3. ...Bf5 (86% of the games!). And yet, it is not the line that statistically scores best! White won 41,0% of the games, whereas Black won 30,7% of them (28,3% were drawn). Unfortunately, for those who are afraid of moves like g4 (attacking that f5-Bishop) and h4, the 3. ...Bf5 is not an option.

So what are the other options? The second most popular response is 3. ...c5, which was played in 1 177 games out of 12 042 (9,77% of the games). At this point, the decision as to whether you prefer 3. ...Bf5 or 3. ...c5 is more of a stylistic decision, because results in practice are very similar for both lines. The latter scores perhaps slightly better: W 38,4% ; B 32,0% ; Draw 29,7%.

I find the third option for Black much more interesting though. It has been played a mere 214 times (1,78% of the games), but is the third most popular response nonetheless. Of course I am talking about 3. ...g6 :

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This line makes things much more exciting. The draw percentage drops by 4%, and is now of 24,3%. That 4% though, it is Black who takes it home: White won 40,7% of the games, and Black, 35,1% -- the highest percentage for Black's wins so far. Moreover, this gives kind of a problem to White. White isn't used to dealing with Black's light-squared Bishop, but now it is still waiting to get developed! For instance, 4. Nf3 Bg4, and e6 is coming. Note that Black isn't afraid of exchanging his Bishop for the Knight, because the position is closed and Knights are said to be slightly better than Bishops in closed position, and that anyway, given the e6-d5-c6 formation, Black could consider his light-square Bishop to be his bad Bishop.

Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, Black's other Bishop is going to get on g7, an incredible diagonal given White's pawn structure. Black can push his c-pawn to c5 whenever he wants, and White might just start to regret 3. ...e5 altogether. I have played many games with the 3. ...g6 line, and have had very good results.

Other third moves for Black include (in order of frequence): 3. ...Na6, 3. ...e6, 3. ...h5, and 3. ...Qb6. Although only played in 22 games out of 12 042, Qb6 led to 6 wins for White, but 8 wins for Black (and 8 draws). Maybe Qb6 is worth an investigation, who knows...

P.S.: 3. ...e6 leads to disaster;
P.P.S.: Karpov plays 3. ...Bf5, so it can't be all that bad :)

PGNMentor.com PGN Library

PGN Mentor is a program "for working with PGN files", but that's not what I am going to talk about here. I didn't try that program, and after a trial you need to order it.

But on their website, they have a huge database of PGN files of various Players, Openings and Events.

1. The PGN files with specific players' games are classified in alphabetical order (the first one being Michael Adams and the last one, Vadim Zvjaginsev).
2. The PGN files classified by openings are tremendously useful, and they seem to cover virtually all possible openings. They are classified based on the first moves, thus the 5 categories: Modern Queen Pawn (1. d4), Classical Queen Pawn (1. d4 d5), Modern King Pawn (a.k.a. semi-open games; 1. e4), Classical King Pawn (1. e4 e5), and Flank and Unorthodox.
3. The PGN files classified by the type of events offer three choices: Tournaments (from 1851 to 2007 (!)), Candidates and Interzonals (from 1948 to 2007), and World Championships (1886-2007).

What's incredibly impressive is the large amout of games in each PGN. For instance, Kasparov.pgn has 1968 games, while SicilianGrandPrix.pgn contains 6616 games!

So here's the address to the page with all the PGN files: http://www.pgnmentor.com/files.html; and this is the address of the PGN Mentor website, where you can download their software: http://www.pgnmentor.com/.

Have fun!

Lack of time & what's next...

As you might know, I'm a psychology undergraduate student. And unfortunately, the students of the faculty of social sciences of my university (as well as of many other faculties) went on a strike for 8 weeks. The sad part about it is that only 3 weeks were added to the initial calendar for the semester, so we are now stuck with 4-hour classes, and condensed readings to do. I have exams every 2 or 3 weeks now, depending on the course in question.

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All in all, what I mean to say is that time lacks incredibly. It is for that reason that the posts here have become slightly more spaced, and slightly less long. As of now, I am not doing much else than reading for my classes or studying -- even sleeping has become a luxury.

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But don't you worry!, I'll continue posting here anyway. It's just that if there are slightly more "Problems" than other types of articles (they take less time to prepare and to publish), or things like that, you'll have to forgive me. Still, I'm giving here a short list of soon-to-be-published articles. Of course, this list is not exhaustive: some articles that I had not planned as of now will be published. But these will be available here for sure, eventually:

• Book review: Perfect Your Chess (Volokitin);
• Book review: Silman's Complete Endgame Course (Silman);
• Book review: Rethinking the Chess Pieces (Soltis);
• Book review: Chess Pawn Structure (Soltis);
• Book review: Fundamental Chess Endings (Müller)
• YouTube Phenomenon (you'll see...)
• Caro-Kann Defense, g6 line

Also, as soon as time allows it, I will post articles of another kind, which I'm sure you'll find interesting. These articles will be about cognitive psychology, and will involve studies made on chess players. Being a psychology student, I have access to huge databases of scientific articles published in recent periodicals. I already have one of these articles saved on my computer, so you'll hear about that one for sure :)

(P.S.: I said before showing Problem #1 that it was an easy problem, and that subsequent problems should not be as easy. Well, I had feedback on Problem #2, and it's indeed much harder! Mission accomplished =) )

Problem #2

The first World Computer Chess Championship was held in 1974 in Stockholm. It was won by a computer named Kaissa, at the time rated around 1700.

At the end of the 1970s, computers reached the expert level (ELO 2000). And in 1977, in another World Computer Chess Championship -- this time in Toronto --, Kaissa found its match. It played against Duchess, and you'll have understood it by now, it is Duchess that won the game.

In the assistance were around 500 people, among which we could find computer-specialist IM Levy, and former World Champion GM Botvinnik. Rumor has it that nobody (or very few) had seen the variation that was played. But let's cut to the chase, and see what the fuss is all about.

Duchess - Kaissa, 1977, Toronto

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White to move

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To see the solution, just highlight the hidden text below.

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Solution:

1. Rxd6 Qxd6 2. Qa8+ Kg7 3. Qf8+!! Kxf8 4. Bh6+, and mate follows.
Of course, being a computer, Kaissa didn't resign nor move its king to g7; instead, it just played 2. ...Re8, and went on to lose the game, without much surprise there.
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Problem #1

This problem has kind of an obvious solution, but the future problems should not be as easy, so you might as well like it while it lasts.

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Bogey-Patou (ICC), August 2006

3-minute game

Black to move

To see the solution, just highlight the hidden text below.
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Solution:

1. ...Rxd5! 2. exd5 Qf4!! 3. dxe6 Nf1+ 0-1
Black resigns in view of 4. Kh1 Qh2+!! 5. Nxh2 Ng3#. A weird variant of what looks like a smothered mate.
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Movement-limitation patterns in pieces

Arrangement between two pieces (or more) can result in limitation of movement for one of the pieces, or both of them in mutual-movement limitation. That's well known. The typical example is the Bishop and Knight separated by two ranks or files (see Diagram below), where the Knight sees all of its movements stopped in the direction of the Bishop. As for the Queen, being on the adjacent square leads to the same result -- the limitation of the Knight's movements towards the Queen.

One less well known pattern is the one involving the Rook and Knight. Perhaps you know that a Rook and Knight on two adjacent squares on the same diagonal leads to the limitation of the Knight's movements in the specific direction of the Rook (i.e., it blocks two squares; see in the Diagram below and imagine the Knight one step closer to the Rook). But there is another important pattern: when the Rook and Knight have a square between them on the same diagonal. In that case, the Knight sees four of its available squares taken away, with devastating results when the Knight is on the side of the board. When in the corner, this is the way to trap the Knight with a Rook (see Diagram below).

I remember using this pattern during a middlegame, where my opponent's Knight was on the side of the board, and my using this pattern led to the trapping of the Knight (and eventually to its capture). You might also be interested in the game Karpov-Ftacnik, Olympiads 1988 (you can search on http://www.chesslive.de/), which involves a pawnless Rook vs Knight ending.

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The last pattern I will discuss here is of another kind. It shows the cooperation between two Knights separated by two ranks or files, given that they are on the same file or rank (see Diagram below). In that case, both dark- and light-squares in-between them are under their control, except for the squares directly aligned with the two Knights.

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In the game Harikrishna-Volokitin, 2005a, White could have used this pattern to win a pawn:

1. Bxf5! Bxf5 2. Rf4 Kg5 3. g3!!

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This move protects both the Rook and Knight, but most importantly now, whatever Black plays, White's next move is to take back the Bishop with the Rook and then throw the powerful Ne4+, winning back the material. A possible continuation is 4. ... Ne6 (attacking White's Rook and defending Black's own Rook) 5. Rxf5+ Rxf5 6. Ne4+ (see Diagram below).

And we see the pattern. Black needs to move his King, but due to the configuration of the Knights, it can't go anywhere to protect the Rook, and White ends up being a pawn-up in a two-knights-vs-two-knights ending.

Queen sacrifices in openings

Queen sacrifices are fairly rare, and one might say that they're generally made in mating combinations. Still, some openings involve Queen sacrifices, and some of them are even established in theory. Here are three lines in which one of the players sacrifices their Queen -- note that the two first ones have been reasonably tried in practice, whereas the last one is neither popular nor efficient; more like a eye-candy, if I might say.

1 – In the Kholmov Variation of the Pirc Defense

In this line, White sacrifices his Queen and two pawns for two Knights and the dark-squared Bishop.

1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 4. Bc4 White’s last move is called the Kholmov Variation. 4. … Bg7 Just so you know, instead of Bg7, or at any point with that configuration still on the board, Black has the possibility of 4. … Nxe4 5. Bxf7+ Kxf7 6. Nxe4 =. 5. Qe2 Nc6

6. e5! Nxd4 7. exf6! Nxd2 8. fxg7 Rg8 9. Ngxe2 +=

(9. …Rxg7 10. Bh6 Rg8 11. O-O-O +=)

White scores excessively good with that line. With 129 games from Chesslive, White scores an impressive 74 wins, 35 losses and 20 draws (W 57,36% ; B 27,13% ; Draw 15,50%). Instead of entering that variation, Black should simply play 6. … exd5 or 6. … Nd7, with perhaps even a slight advantage.

2- In the Saëmisch Variation of the King’s Indian Defense

In this line, it is Black who sacrifices his Queen for a pawn and two Bishops, with relatively acceptable results, although White still scores better.

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. f3 O-O 6. Be3 e5 7. d5 Nh5 8. Qd2 Qh4+ 9. g3 Nxg3 10. Qd2

10. … Nxf1 11. Qxh4 Nxe3 +=

Out of 184 games from Chesslive, White wins 86, loses 54 and draws 44 (W 46,74% ; B 29,35% ; Draw 23,91%). As we can see, this line has been slightly more tested than the one in the Kholmov (this one is still booked at move 11 where it is not in the Kholmov at the moment of the Queen sacrifice, given that Black did not play the best moves).

3- In the Botvinnik Variation (Main Line) of the Semi-Slav defense

This one is here more for the anecdote that will follow than for the actual line. Chesslive gives only 8 games with the Queen sacrifice in this line, with 7 wins for White and only 1 mere loss. The line goes thus :

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. Bg5 dxc4 6. e4 b5 7. e5 h6 8. Bh4 g5 9. Nxg5 hxg5 10. Bxg5 Nbd7 11. g3

This is still booked, and g3 enters the Anti-Meran Gambit / Lilienthal Variation of the Queen’s Gambit Declined. Chesslive shows 990 games after g3, ranging from 1944 to December 2007. Lilienthal seems to be the first one to have used it – against Botvinnik himself – and lost… anyway. In this position, Chesslive gives only 9 games (0.09% of the 990 games) that continued with 11. … b5, which GM Soltis annotates with "?".

The interesting story behind it is that GM Vladimir Bagirov played as Black in this position in 1971, and White answered with the less forcing 12. Ne2, and Black eventually won the game. This game is the only one out of the 9 games reaching 11. …b5 which did not lead to the Queen sacrifice.

GM Bagirov was once again confronted with the position in 1980, with more disastrous results, where he did indeed sacrifice his Queen. So, instead of 12. Ne2 after 11. …b5 (see Diagram above), White answered with 12. Ne4 Nxe4 13. Bxd8 Kxd8 14. Bg2 f5 15. exf6(ep) Ndxf6??

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GM Bagirov is reported to have said that he had chose this line because all the manuals gave the advantage to Black, and that he had prepared the continuation 16. Qe2 Nd6 17. Bxc6 Rb8. But then, he was thrown off when his opponent played 16. Bxe4 Nxe4 17. Qf3!, winning instantly. Four of the 8 games that got to 13. …Kxd8 followed this exact variation, one of them as recently as 2003 (Black resigned on his 17th move).

Remember : 8 games that got to the Queen sacrifice, 7 of them were won by White. So you know what I suggest? I might surprise you but… don’t play it as Black.

Chesslive.de

Chesslive.de (http://www.chesslive.de/) is an online database of chess games (Java Applet), provided by Chessbase.com (the creators of the program ChessBase – for more info, just visit their website). What is wonderful with Chesslive, is that it’s immensely large : 4.2+ million games. Moreover, that database is updated weekly, but also includes old, old games (e.g., from the 19th century).

The search is easy : you can search with position, and/or with either one of the players’ names, or both names. In Advanced mode, you can search by year and/or site where the game was held.

You can go through the moves of the game, but also explore variations of your own. You can always go back to the main line when you are done. There is also the great possibility of selecting games from the list of results your research has brought, and seeing them in a PGN notation, just by right-clicking the game in the list and clicking on the button View * as PGN.

But the most amazing thing about Chesslive… oh, the most amazing thing – besides that it’s always easily available on Internet -- … it’s completely free!

Book review: Excelling at Positional Chess

Title: Excelling at Positional Chess
Author: IM Jacob Aagaard
Pages: 176
Publisher: Everyman Chess (2003)
Phase of game: Middlegame (mostly)

Rating: ~ 1700+

Description and review:
The book is divided into two informal parts, namely theory and exercises.

The theory on positional chess is very brief, and covers the first 66 pages of the book. This part seems to be aimed at any player level, but I feel as though it is rather aimed for beginners than anyone else. The first 66 pages don't say much at all; let's face it, if you buy that book, you buy it for the exercises, not the theory. The first 6 chapters of the book are Simple Truths; Primary Concepts (comparing pieces, ideal squares, one move away from the ideal square, improving your worst placed piece); Defining Weaknesses (and creation of weaknesses); Squares - and how pieces exploit them (knight, bishop, heavy pieces); Analysing your own games; Positional Sacrifices.

The first chapter is -- in my opinion -- useless. As for the rest, there is very little theory. Positional rules are written in italics (perhaps 4-5 at best). The examples are well explained, but very rare. Moreover, the theory is, I think, to take with a critical mind: Aagaard gives a very dogmatic vision of the chess game. For instance, he writes that heavy pieces (rooks and queen) win in power and value with every exchange (due to the higher number of empty squares on the board). Without going into details, GM Andrew Soltis clearly demonstrates in Rethinking the Chess Pieces that things are not that simple, and that no straightforward law can be extracted from such exchanges. But then again, if you consider that the theory part is more for beginners, it can't be too bad not to mix them up with exceptions...

If it was for the first 66 pages, this book would be a no-no. But there comes chapter 7, Positional Exercises, followed with complete, detailed solutions up to the end of the book. There are 108 positional exercises, and fortunately, they're much more aimed at intermediate/advanced players than they are at beginners. Even though Aagaard says that the exercises are related to the theory exposed in the first chapters, it doesn't feel like it's the case -- which is a good thing anyway, otherwise it would be a book for beginners. The exercises are the heart of the book, and they are very useful, and well explained. They are taken from real games, from all kinds of openings. Most exercises show a middlegame position, even though some are taken from an opening or endgame position.

This book is highly recommendable, not only because the exercises are instructive and well explained, but also because positional and strategical decisions have to be made during all the course of a chess game. As opposed to tactics, which happen every now and then (without saying they are unimportant to practice of course), moves with no forced variation happen very often. And although plenty of moves are good in a given position, some are better than others; and these are the precise subject of this book. Overall, this book will make you used to, and better at, evaluating a position abstractly and finding plans when there is no tactics exploding right away.

All in all: a must!, for any player who wants to improve their middlegame
Grade: 9/10

Exchange sacrifice

In his book Rethinking the Chess Pieces, GM Andrew Soltis gives the following guidelines to know when an exchange sacrifice works:

• when it changes the impact of the minor pieces (e.g., taking a bishop to enhance the power of your own bishop of that color);
• when rooks can't act like rooks (i.e., blocked files);
• when there are many minor pieces left;
• when it destroys the opponent's pawn structure;
• when you thus get the bishop pair.

The following example is taken from Ridli-Volokitin, 2004, and can be found in Volokitin's excellent Perfect Your Chess, which will be discussed in another article, along with Soltis' book mentioned above. The following position arose after 15. axb3 Ra2:

White responded with 16. Ba1, when Black threw the excellent positional sacrifice 16. ... Rxa1! 17. Rxa1 Bxd4

This not only technically loses the actual value of only one pawn, but mostly, it prepares to shatter White's pawn structure and completely block in White's other bishop. The rook being attacked, White had to move it, giving Black the opportunity to take on e3, which was the key to the whole combination.

18. Ra8?! Volokitin suggests Ra3, to protect the b3 pawn; 18. ... Bxe3! 19. fxe3 Qxd1 20. Rxd1 Nxb3.



White's hemmed-in bishop proved to be a problem, and Black went on to win the game.