A Workbook isn't Meant to be Gospel By Steven B. Dowd
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Mastering Chess Strategy, by Johan Hellsten, Everyman 2010, Figurine Algebraic Notation, 489pp. $29.95 (ChessCafe Price: $25.95)
Book
The preface of Hellsten's tome signals a nice start for those of us interested in pragmatic approaches to the game: "This book has its origin in my classes as a chess trainer in Chile and Ecuador. The objective of this book is purely practical: to help the reader to improve his skills within chess strategy. It does not pretend to fulfil any scientific, historic, or ar tistic functions."
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One of the great things about Everyman books is that they provide excerpts excerpts of of the books they publish, to let you see inside before ordering. In the early days of online ordering I used to feel like something of a cheat in that I would go to my local bookstore to see the contents before ordering the book online; this sort of approach by the publisher is welcome and at least makes me feel like less of a criminal. (Well, I did buy the overpriced coffee once or twice, in my defense.)
Studying Chess Made Easy by Andrew Soltis
However, one negative drawback is that already in the review process this copy is cracking and pages are falling out; this is a deficiency I would encourage the publisher to explore. I suspect the size of the book may have been a factor, along with normal "tough" "tough" usage of trying to get the pages to lay flat and the book to stay open so I could review the exercises. The contents of the book are as follows: ●
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Amateur's Mind Mind by Jeremy Silman
Chapter One – Basic Basic Concepts of Strategy Chapter Two – Improving Improving the Pieces Chapter Three – Exchanges Exchanges Chapter Four – Pawn Pawn Play Chapter Five – Prophylaxis Prophylaxis Chapter Six – Miscellaneous Miscellaneous Exercises
The author asks the reader to approach the book as one would expect: go through the examples and then solve the exercises, comparing the reader's answer with the one given in the book. He also gives advice for trainers, and this book can be especially useful for chess teachers, who can take some time reviewing the examples and exercises, and make their own explanatory notes for students, which as we will see later, may be needed. One good question is: at what level should a player be before he can benefit from Hellsten's book? I certainly would say that the average club player could wade into the book without feeling threatened and could use it as a tool to strategic thinking; I would of course hope that he has read some of the basic material on strategy first (such as The Amateur's Mind by by Silman or Winning Chess Strategies by Seirawan) but again, one should never underestimate what a motivated student can do! And with that comment be warned – this this is not a book that does everything for you, you really have to take the time to study the material to get the full benefit. Viewing the examples and exercises with a critical eye is recommended. In some cases it will pay, on the other hand, to not be too critical of the continuations given and instead try to impress the general strategical pattern
Solitaire Chess by ThinkFun
into memory. Sometimes when Fritz protests, you just let him protest. You need to realize that these are games between humans, in the heat of battle, and cannot be expected to always follow "best engine play." In chapter one, we learn that Hellsten is going to rely on Dvoretsky's view of strategy. How often teachers seem to use and emulate Dvoretsky! This is as it should be, as he is the great teacher/thinker of our age in chess, and good teachers always copy, as much as possible, other good and great teachers. It was also amusing to note that Hellsten subscribes to Soltis' dictum (see Studying Chess Made Easy) that the secret to success in chess is again – "practice, practice, practice." And just as much of your practice has been learning tactical patterns, Hellsten believes chess strategy can be learned by studying patterns that involve strategic thinking. What is strategy, according to Hellsten? Basically, it is everything tactics is not. Tactics are our first stepping stone in improving in chess, learning about pins, forks, and so on. Strategy involves essentially four things: improving pieces, pawn play, exchanges, and prevention or prophylaxis. Here I would have liked to have seen a few examples of what strategy is in general – that is, outside of chess. Not because I am of the "life mirrors chess" set, but the opposite: "chess mirrors life." A few real world examples – and I mean just a few, as it can be overdone – is a good set-up to understanding strategy as it is used in chess. But that is a minor complaint, and perhaps Hellsten feels that such analogies do not improve the learning process. One of the best lessons in the first chapter is understanding how tactics and strategy interlink. At some point, the best laid strategic plans almost always have to have a tactical component, f or example, and conversely, you can formulate an excellent strategic plan that fails miserably to some simple tactic. Hellsten's discussion of dynamic play is also wonderfully practical and pragmatic, calling it "a force that changes the long-term characteristics of a position," or even more simply, the creation of something "new" in the position. Again, I understood that right away, and could move on to the next topic. A good teacher knows how to explain things simply without oversimplifying to the point of inaccuracy. I was impressed by Chapter Two as it not only discusses how to improve individual piece play, but how to coordinate two or more pieces. The examples used throughout the book are mostly game fragments with a few complete games that show several of the concepts presented in that chapter. Occasionally, the author will tell you which opening a game fragment came from; this is of course useful as it connects the opening to a specific middlegame strategy. In my opinion, extending the improvement of piece play to piece coordination is a much needed discussion, as many of us already have some knowledge of how to make a bad bishop better or open lines for our rooks, but when it comes to things such as coordinating heavy pieces or effectively using the bishop-pair, we do exactly what Hellsten noted earlier: we rely on intuition. In strategy, intuition can be invaluable but nothing substitutes for knowledge; this knowledge being of course knowledge of specific strategic patterns used by the masters. Chapter Three covers exchanges, and understanding when to exchange has always been, in my experience, one of the most difficult portions of the game. I remember well one of my fellow players and teachers from my youth noting that "fish always screw up the exchanges somehow!" This tongue-in-cheek observation reflects that weaker players often prematurely release the tension with exchanges (this is a weakness I have had my whole chess career), or exchange pieces incorrectly – the classic example being exchange of bishop for knight in a position that doesn't warrant the exchange. The best part of this chapter is the section on dynamic exchanges, which he defines as those that alter the pawn structure. However, it is also a bit short. I would have liked to see more examples. Pawn play is discussed in Chapter Four. If exchanges are one of the most difficult part of strategy, I will go out on a limb and say that pawn play is the
most difficult of all. As Hellsten notes, pawn play covers about every possibility involved in strategic play. A single pawn move can cripple our pieces for the long-term, and unless some dynamic solution presents itself, they stay crippled for the whole game. Flinging a pawn forward in the middlegame can put a wedge in the opponent's king position, leading to an eventual mate, or it can simply be made easier for the other side to capture that same pawn. I've always felt that what separated many of us from the grandmasters was their innate understanding of pawns and pawn play. Prophylaxis starts out a bit confusingly, as Hellsten correctly notes, it can have several components; the trouble is he uses "prophylaxis" as one of the components! Possibly "Prevention" would have been a better title and overarching term for the components, which are restriction (prevent opponent's plans and movements); prophylaxis (prepare for the opponent's plans but negate their impact), and provocation (forcing the opponent to take unwanted action). The final chapter covers everything about strategy that couldn't be fit in previous chapters, and concludes nicely as it should with that link between strategy and tactics. I reviewed as many of the exercises as I could, with an engine by my side. I couldn't find any major mistakes that would be seen as ruining the value of the example or exercise, although I did have some disappointments with what I thought were analyses that were too brief and didn't consider other options that may be equal or better than the given continuation. For example, in this position:
[FEN "r2r2k1/pp2bppp/2p5/2n4b/2P1PP2/ 2N1B1P1/1P4BP/R4RK1 w - - 0 18"]
Coming from the game Karlsson-Hellsten, Swedish Teams 1995 (a loss by the author!), he correctly notes White's best plan. 18.e5? won't cut it, nor will 18.b4??, which will actually work out to black's advantage. 18.Ra5! is White's only try for an advantage, to work against the c6-pawn since 18...b6 is the only good defense to the loss of the knight. The loss of time with moving the rook again of course does not bother White. 19.Ra2 and now 19...Rd3? – Hellsten gave the move it's question mark, thinking it a poor attempt at counterplay, but "!?" is more in order. He notes of course that 19...f6 gives Black good chances to hold here, but after 19... Rd3?! 20.Re1 instead of the game continuation 20...f6 21.e5 Be8 22.Nb5! and White is very close to winning, if not already winning, why not 20...g5!? 21.fxg5 (21.e5 gxf4) 21...Rxe3! 22.Rxe3 Bxg5 with what looks like good counterplay for the exchange? If my assumption is incorrect, and this doesn't work, it should have been mentioned, as it would have been an example of tactics interfering with a well-laid strategy.
Another is the game Nikolic-Van Wely, Groningen 1993.
[FEN "r1r3k1/p1pq2pp/4pb2/1p1n4/3PN3/ P2R4/1PQB1PPP/2R3K1 w - - 0 23"]
Despite White's IQP, he has, as Hellsten correctly notes, the better pawn structure. He gives 23.Rh3! as best, since 23...g6 (the move White wants to see) is forced, 23...h6? being bad. With that, he convinced me that 23.Nc5 is a bit premature, since Black can play 23...Qf7 24.Rh3 h6! 25.Re1 Re8, and although the engines don't like it much more, the author's assessment of "an inferior but solid position" seems corr ect. And why does White want to provoke g6? 24.Nc5 Qd6 25.Qd3 Rf8! 26.Re1 Rae8 27.Rf3 c6 28.Bh6! Rf7 and now with 29.g3! White looks to prepare h4-h5 with a majority attack. Certainly a good plan, although there were others along the way as well. To return to the reason why 23...h6? is bad, it is not solely because of the continuation given by Hellsten. He gives "Black is forced to weaken his dark squares since after 23...h6? 24.Nxf6+! Nxf6 25.Qg6 he has a problem with the h6-pawn – Van Wely" When you see a quote such as that you wonder whether the author has simply accepted such analysis as fact, whether he simply considered it "good enough" or any number of reasons. But in this position White can best maintain his pressure by not exchanging the knight for the bishop – moves such as 24.Qd3! and 24.Nc5 both look better and White will maintain Black's problem child h6 – as well as e6 and other squares firmly in sight. In fact, this seems to violate the idea that one should not exchange when it may simplify the position for the opponent. At times, Hellsten's "nice and simple" explanations seem to violate Sir Winston Churchill's dictum - However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results! And that is the reason I cannot recommend the book without reservations. In conclusion, this is a good book, though not without what I see as a few flaws. I recommend its purchase as a workbook for those interested in learning strategy, given the reservations noted above. The more you can trust yourself to be a critical reviewer of the material who can at the same time remain open-minded of the general pattern to be shown, the fewer reservations I would have about referring it to you. A workbook isn't meant to be gospel; it's meant for practice, practice, practice.
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