Positional Play (Grandmaster Preparation)

This is a book about positional play which doesn't tell you that rooks belong on open files, or that isolated pawns are weak, etc. The author assumes that the reader already has all that kind of knowledge. Instead, the author tries to instruct the reader how to bring together all that knowledge and apply it in game situations. This is done by a method of 3 questions. The first three chapters are each devoted to one of these questions,followed by a chapter of 150 exercises, followed by a chapter of detailed solutions to these exercises. Chess is a difficult game to play well, and nowhere does the author make grandiose claims about having a thinking scheme that will guarantee instant success.However, anybody who works through the exercises is bound to have a better understanding of how to play chess. I recommend it for players above 150 ECF grading who are certain to get something from this book. In fact, even players over 200 ECF (2200 ELO) will find this book very useful.

Good book with interesting positional exercises.

Great book

"Positional Play" emphasizes that asking the right three questions can help fine-tune your focus in positional chess to concentrate on the heart of the position and notice the right details. Jacob Aagaard wants readers to look for the weaknesses (for both you and your opponent), the worst placed pieces, and the opponent's idea. He illustrates this with concrete examples, sub-categorizing if necessary to help make it clear what he is referring to when introducing important terms (such as weaknesses). Jacob Aagaard's books are generally written mainly for advanced players (2200-2300+ FIDE) and this one is no exception. While "Positional Play" is supposedly the easiest book in the GM Preparation series, that doesn't mean that it isn't challenging. As a 2117 USCF player (2458 blitz peak on chess.com), I was getting absolutely crushed by many of these puzzles. It was not unusual for me to spend 1.5 hrs with a training partner (also over 2000 USCF) to solve 6 puzzles and score 50% or less. Not only were many of the puzzles very difficult, the GMs who played the games often weren't able to solve them when they had the position in their games, including some players in the top-10. One of the puzzles includes an improvement on a Magnus Carlsen game, and Magnus got it wrong! While the puzzles will take the bulk of the reader's study time, the examples shown are very instructive and help prepare you for the puzzles. The puzzles are well chosen and help illustrate the concepts that Aagaard presents. Highly recommended for advanced players. I suspect that players as low as 1800 USCF could also get a lot out of studying this book, but players lower than that should tread with caution. Aagaard's books are not easy and if masters will have to work hard to master his content, it will be much harder for players lower than that. For those that are ambitious but don't feel ready for Jacob Aagaard's "Grandmaster Preparation" series, I recommend Yusupov's 9-book series, which is designed to take an ambitious and talented club player to FM level. Once the student is FM level (or 2000+ and willing to work extremely hard), he will likely be ready for Jacob Aagaard's GM prep series.

GM Aagaard empfiehlt bezüglich positonellem Spiel drei Fragen zu stellen: Wo sind die Schwächen? - Weaknesses Was ist die schlechteste Figur? - Pieces Was ist der Plan des Gegners? - Prophylaxis Das wären schon die ersten drei Kapitel - jeweils mit Übungen. Danach folgen zwei weitere Kapitel mit Übungen mit allen drei Themen und deren Lösungen. Soweit so gut. Was mich sehr beeindruckt ist, dass die kurzen Erklärungen am Beginn jedes Kapitels instruktiver erscheinen als vieles, was man zu diesem Thema sonst zu lesen bekommt. Das liegt vor allem an den Abbildungen der Stellungen: Kreise zeigen die schwachen Felder oder Bauern Kreise (strichliert) etwas weniger schwache Felder bzw. solche, die es werden können Quadrate kennzeichnen die schlechteste Figur Pfeile die gegnerischen Pläne, die es zu berücksichtigen gibt Dieses System ist in den Erklärungen und Lösungen zu den Übungen sehr gut durchgezogen. Weiters sind im Vergleich zu anderen Büchern aus meiner Sicht auch bei Varianten Bilder in genügend engem Zugabstand, dass sogar ich (1700) diesen Folgen kann ohne alles aufstellen zu müssen. Ich bin mit meinen Elo definitiv nicht die Zielgruppe des Autors (ich glaube 2100+) und trotzdem ist dieses Buch ein Gewinn für mich da ich eher visuell veranlagt bin und mir ein markiertes Feld einfach mehr bringt. John Hartman behauptet in seiner Besprechung 1800+ und Motivierte knapp darunter (das bin ich :-). Die Fülle der Aufgaben lassen auch einem schwächeren Spieler Gesetzmäßigkeiten erkennen. Dadurch kann man zumindest einen Plan basierend auf positionellen Überlegungen entwickeln (mein Problem). Ob der Plan dann korrekt ist oder der allerbeste in der Auswahl ist ist wieder eine andere Frage aber ein schlechter Plan ist immer noch besser als gar keiner. Hier ist das Buch für jeden interessant. Einen Auszug als pdf kann man hier finden: [...]

Recomendo não somente este volume mas toda a coleção (6 volumes) por vários motivos: excelente didática do autor, mesmo para estudantes de xadrez com nível intermediário, ele apresenta uma leitura agradável, possui boa diagramação. Em particular este volume, é importante mesmo para os jogadores com estilo mais táticos também desenvolverem habilidades posicionais. Esta é a minha avaliação como instrutor de xadrez e jogador.

Clarity of ideas in this book is amazing. Readers will develope a good intution for positional play by solving and analyzing positions in this book.