Chess Strategy for Club Players: The Road to Positional Advantage

by Herman Grooten

Overview

Every club player knows the problem: the opening has ended, and now what? With this new edition of his award winning 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 and 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 and king safety. You will master the art of converting a temporary plus into other, more permanent 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. This new 3rd edition has, besides various corrections and improvements, a new introduction and a brand-new chapter called ‘Total Control’ with new exercises.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789056917166
Publisher:	New in Chess
Publication date:	04/28/2017
Edition description:	New 3rd Edition
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	377,161
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Herman Grooten is an International Master and a chess coach with over 25 years of experience. Quite a few of his pupils have gone on to become grandmasters. His equally bestselling follow-up primer ‘Attacking Chess for Club Players’ was published in 2016.

Table of Contents

Foreword Jan Timman 7

Preface 8

Chapter 1 Steinitz's Elements 11

Chapter 2 The eye of the grandmaster 23

Chapter 3 Thought process and line of thinking 36

Chapter 4 Material advantage 51

Chapter 5 Weakened king position 69

Chapter 6 Passed pawn 83

Chapter 7 Weak pawns 102

Chapter 8 Training experiment 114

Chapter 9 Strong and weak squares 128

Chapter 10 The pawn islands theory 149

Chapter 11 The pawn centre 163

Chapter 12 The diagonal 182

Chapter 13 Quiz: strong square 208

Chapter 14 The open file 213

Chapter 15 The bishop pair 228

Chapter 16 Control of a rank 241

Chapter 17 A piece out of play 255

Chapter 18 Quiz: open file 270

Chapter 19 Harmony and coordination 274

Chapter 20 Lead in development 289

Chapter 21 Centralization 308

Chapter 22 Space advantage 320

Chapter 23 Quiz: space advantage 337

Chapter 24 Total control 341

Chapter 25 Solutions 376

Chapter 26 Epilogue 450

Bibliography 455

About the author 457

Index of Names 459

Editorial Reviews

"A highly instructive book for readers who want to improve their chess skills."

Jan Tinman

"An excellent teaching tool with over 400 pages of clear instruction."

Australasian Chess Magazine - Joe Petrolito

"This book will certainly improve your middlegame and boost your results."

Australian Chess Magazine - Gary Lane

One of my three favorite chess teaching books. Grooten supplies nice examples and great explanation in a very structured way.

Chess Education Partners, Chicago, IL - Jan van de Mortel

"If you want to be a better player, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy. It may well be the crown jewel of your chess book collection!"

US Chess online - Jeremy Silman

"Extremely interesting and instructional lectures on the themes: positional elements, positional judgements, and finding the right plan (..) A fantastic book for chess training."

Rochade Europa Magazine - Martin Rieger

"Chess coaches will have a quality supply of superb examples and explanations, and self-motivated students will benefit immensely if they are over, say, 1800 in strength."

ChessLife Magazine - Pete Tamburro

"The entire presentation is extremely well done (..) A fantastic and challenging book for ambitious and advanced club players."

KARL Chess Magazine