Pawn Structure Chess

I am reading Pawn Structure Chess right now. Here's the scoop. I have this book for about a year or so, skimmed it when it arrived, and then shelved it like so many others. A typical scenario I guess. I am an endgame player and until now have always spoken negatively about openings. Many authors such as Soltis himself, Dvoretsky, Aagaard, Giddins, and Nunn, just to name a few, have stated that (paraphrasing) openings are fashionable, or exhaustible. That is to say that what is here today may not be here tomorrow, but this in no way means that one cannot adopt any line of one's choosing and play it consistently. In Studying Chess Made Easy, also by Soltis, he pointed to the "paradoxical" (his word) relationship between memory and understanding i.e. between the openings, and the middlegame. He says 'what good is remembering how to reach a position, or tabiya, if when you get there you don't understand what is going on'? And conversely, what good is learning a middlegame position and its typical plans, if you don't remember how to get there in the first place? To my mind this is not paradoxical at all if the game is viewed as an organic whole. (I am not offering criticism of Soltis in any form. I am simply going to state that for me things took a different course. I have nothing but praise for Soltis and I recommend all of his books. I have six or seven. He is the only American chess author I read. He is a wonderful writer in general, and he really understands his audience). What Pawn Structure Chess does is familiarize you with typical methods of play that are organically connected to the opening. For example, I have (intuitively) played a Slav many times for both colors. But I did NOT know about Tchigorin's ...e5 Plan until Soltis brought it to my attention in Pawn Structure Chess. This 'plan' is well over a hundred years old! What does this mean? Well, it means that I have a lot of research to do. Sometimes, as it is this time for me, a chess book comes along at the right time and fills a gap. And so it is with Pawn Structure Chess. Basically the book is about typical methods of middlegame play based on pawn structure. This is why incidentally Pawn Structure Chess is not an openings book, but a middlegame manual. The layout is highly instructive, simple, and beautiful.

Andrew Soltis delivers a powerful teaching vehicle for understanding basic pawn structures and the strategic objectives for them. The book focuses on chess strategy as a consequence of the pawn structure; it does not concentrate on tactics or end game issues, and previous reviewers that knock the book on those points neglect the author's goal.His teaching technique is synthetic rather than analytic. He discusses a pawn structure and possible strategies to consider and illustrates his thesis with one or more games. I like this approach because it allows the reader to see the pawn structure as it develops and then observe its influence on the middle game and the end game. This style also allows weaker players to study pawn structure without getting bogged down with technical issues like tactical concerns or trying to memorize a bunch of do's and dont's.Soltis makes no claim to exhaust the topic, though the many applications seem comprehensive enough for the non-master. An excellent book for the 1500-2000 player.

There are plenty of books on pawns out there that examine doubled pawns, iso's, and hanging pawns etc..., but this one is different. It explores the pawn structures that arise out of the opening families and explains the character of the middlegames that are encountered with the plans and counterplans for each side.I find this particularly instructional for the white side of the board since as black you can always buy a particular opening book to play against king or queen pawn openings. But, as white, you will encounter a wide variety of openings from your first move, and its expensive to buy a bunch of queen (king) pawn opening books and not much use since you are more interested in the basic ideas instead of trees of variations that you won't retain. That's why this book is special. Its sort of a painless way to know your openings, just by knowing basic plans to pursue. it will give you insight into what to play based on the given structure of your pawns (kingside play vs queenside play, when to push to c5 or e5 in the Slav/Caro , how to attack the base or head of chains [in some instances] in the French, how to play with and against Sicilian Boleslvsky Holes, the QG Exchange Variation and its minority attacks, the Isiolated d pawn game and how to play with and against it, etc...I remember seeing the first version several years ago in a Library and picked through it a little, I got this one when I learned he came out with a revised edition. It is basically the same book with more modern games and ideas woven in. The only reason I won't give it 5 stars is that it is rather terse in its analysis throughout and the supplemental games aren't too helpful since they contain very little to no analysis. This is probably done on purpose and is Soltis' style but deeper analysis in key places would have been nice. But overall its a painless, interesting read and whether you are Class C or Expert you will gain understanding and hopefully improve your play from the book.

after you have learned the basics of chess, get this book

Everthing fine

Soddisfatto del prodotto...e ottimo servizio puntuale come sempre, ragazzi educati volenterosi gentili alla consegna 👍

Muy buen libro a muy buen precio, actualizado, imprescindible, junto al de Mauricio Flores, para quién quiera estudiar las estructuras de peones.

This production is completely faulty - not a page or even a single diagram can be seen. It's a FRAUDULENT PURCHASE !!!!!!