by Ivan Sokolov, 260pp. (2009 New In Chess)

 

An Essential Guide to Pawn Structures

 

Ever wondered why grandmasters take only seconds to see what's really going on in a chess position?

 

It's all about structures, as Ivan Sokolov explains in this groundbreaking book.

 

Winning Chess Middlegames addresses the often ignored but extremely important topic of pawn structures, divided into four main types: doubled pawns, isolated pawns, hanging pawns and pawn majorities. With its highly accessible verbal explanations and deep analyses of top-level games, this book helps you to solve the basic problems of the middlegame: space, tension and inititative.

 

Club players studying Winning Chess Middlegames will:

 

·         greatly enhance their middlegame skills

·         develop an accurate feeling as to which particular positions suit their style

·         acquire new strategic and practical opening knowledge

 

Ivan Sokolov explains matters profoundly, honestly and objectively, and includes lots of inside stories from top-level chess, neither sparing his collegue grandmasters nor himself in his comments.

 

From the Foreword by GM Michael Adams:
"This structured approach is quite instructive as often players choose their opening repertoire according to quite haphazard criteria, randomly picking up lines without giving serious consideration to how the resulting middlegames would suit them."

 

Ivan Sokolov is a top grandmaster who was born in Bosnia in 1968 and has been living in the Netherlands for many years. He was Yugoslav champion in 1988 and Dutch champion in 1995 and 1998. In his rich career Sokolov has beaten former world champions Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik as well as current world champion Viswanathan Anand.