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In announcing their shortlist for the fourth Guardian Book of the Year award, Ronan Bennett & Daniel King write that books such as Chess Strategy for Club Players often "follow a tediously familiar pattern. The author selects a number of fairly recent games from a database, annotates them – with Fritz lurking in the background – throws in a few diagrams and groups them in whatever thematic arrangement suits his ostensible purpose. "Grooten's book is different. The focus is on strategy rather than tactics. It's about what happens when the opening is over. ... But, even for more experienced players, finding a good plan once the opening phase is concluded is not easy." ChessCafe.com is pleased to bring you this excerpt ... Chess Strategy for Club Players Herman Grooten Steinitz’s Elements 1.1 Introduction In present-day chess, every self-respecting player uses a computer with the most popular chess programs. Besides the known databases, in which millions of games can be found, most chess fans use strong engines to scrutinize their own games. Ever since Kasparov lost his match with Deep Blue and Kramnik went down in a match with Deep Fritz, it looks as if humankind has definitely lost the battle with the machine. According to the Dutch grandmaster and columnist Hans Ree, this is a blessing for chess. ‘We human beings are finally on our own again’, he once quipped with great satisfaction. This book is all about the question with which every club player and tournament shark is struggling: the opening is over – how to continue the game? As long as we don’t play against computers, we can permit ourselves to make (tactical) mistakes. At club level, but also in the international tournament arena, nobody is capable of turning out a perfect game. And this is just as well, since that’s what makes our game so exciting and fascinating. Precisely at such moments, when the mistakes crop up, the game is all about outwitting your opponent. How do games develop in general? After the opening a struggle unfolds where the main purpose is to play your pieces to good squares. But which squares are good? And how do we determine this? Several times in the game – of course, depending on the type of position we find ourselves in – concrete calculation is needed, and we have to take stock of the tactical motifs. But in a substantial part of the game there is nothing concrete to calculate, and we have to try to improve our position. Precisely for those cases, we must accumulate a certain amount of understanding of how to go about this. In this book we offer a guideline for making well-considered choices in this area. Of course, we should not forget that strategy and tactics are inextricably bound up with each other. I myself am known as a strategist, but to my detriment I have to confess that I spoil many a beautiful position by tactical mistakes. At such moments the fate of the chess player is cruel. In a game you have made 39 great moves, and then you produce one disgustingly bad one – in such cases you curse yourself for ever having given in to this addiction... Fortunately, many chess players have a selective memory – they mainly remember their great achievements and banish their horrible blunders from their memory. 1.2 Opening theory The importance of opening theory is grossly overestimated. Obviously, the knowledge of opening moves comes in handy when setting up a chess game, but this knowledge alone does not bring universal happiness. After this you still have to play chess, and for that other things will crop up. Six-time Dutch champion GM Loek van Wely gave his opinion on this subject in an interview with the Dutch chess promotor Karel van Delft in 1996: ‘With many Dutch youth players, opening knowledge is heavily over-developed. It is better for them to gain more understanding in the middle- and endgame by studying chess books. This irritates me now and then. They know all kinds of opening variations. It’s as if they are reciting a lesson. And as soon as it’s time to play real chess, they often understand nothing from this opening. Take the Sveshnikov Sicilian. Even with my rating, I hardly understand it. It would be better for them to study the Dragon or the King’s Indian. They can learn something there. I only started to study openings seriously when I had a 2400 rating.’ The entire interview can be read in the interesting book with the title Schaaktalent ontwikkelen (Developing chess talent), published by Karel van Delft and his son, IM Merijn van Delft, in 2008. An English translation of this book is planned for 2010. Also the famous Russian chess trainer Mark Dvoretsky expressed similar sentiments about this craving for opening knowledge. In the book The Chess Instructor 2009 (New In Chess), he writes: ‘A chessplayer should not become a slave of his opening knowledge’. He analyses a game between the Dutch players Ted Barendse and the then 18-year-old Merijn van Delft (now a good IM). In his observations on this game Dvoretsky points at the following: ‘the opening moves were made at the level of the leading grandmasters in the world. But as soon as knowledge came to an end, there promptly followed some ridiculous mistakes. So how should a young player proceed further: continue to perfect his opening repertoire, or nevertheless switch to other problems?’ If even such a successful coach addresses us like this, who are we to turn a deaf ear to such advice? Yet, many (youth) players cannot be convinced of this. And this is understandable. With the current computers and advanced tools you can spend quite a lot of time on openings. The subject matter is concrete, and you will quickly get the feeling that you are doing useful work. But, as said, its use is quite relative. Still, what is the alternative? What should you do to get better? As there is no ready-made answer to this question, most players continue on the chosen path. This book aims to take another course. Our intention is to enhance the understanding of the reader. Questions like ‘How do I devise a plan?’ or ‘What are the characteristic features of this position?’ actually play the most important role here. Experience teaches us that the player who understands the position best, has the greatest chance to end up the winner. A good player who is surprised in the opening, often still manages to save himself from the hornets’ nest he finds himself in, because he knows what he should look for. In this book we devote attention to the treatment of the middlegame. We lay the emphasis on determining the strategic characteristics of the position. Many treatises have already been written on the diverse aspects of the middlegame; however, not much has been written about the essence of positional play. In the former Soviet Union, the importance of such an approach was recognized. Attempts were made to dissect the middlegame into its characteristic features, so as to offer guidelines which the chess student could turn to profit. My many years’ work as a trainer also made me realize that in chess there was a demand for structured material on strategy. A club player who wants to improve his chess, wants to know what he should look for. The difference with a strong player is almost always a matter of orientation. The stronger player, as a rule, knows unerringly which features in a position play an important role and which do not. In this book we will study these various characteristic features of the middlegame deeply. 1.3 Tactics and strategy If you open out a newspaper to read a soccer report, nowadays you encounter an increasing amount of jargon that is hardly understandable for an outsider. The language used when discussing tactical concepts seems directed to insiders only. Catchphrases like ‘positional play was sloppy’ or ‘the home side played with no less than eight players before the ball, giving away too much space’, are of the order of the day. Also ‘the second ball was always for the away side’ will sound strange to the ear of an outsider. A non-soccer fan will at the very least scratch his head when reading such phrases... The tactical concept plays an important role in sports in general, and in present-day soccer especially. Actually, for a chess player the term ‘tactical concept’ is misleading. With tactics we think of combinations. But when a soccer coach talks about tactics, he means the strategy he wants to pursue in order to outsmart his colleague in the dug-out. The coach’s brainwork – which ‘puppet’ is put in which place, and which assignment is given to the ‘puppet’ – is of a purely strategic nature in chess terminology. What is more, in chess, we can also see the player himself as a kind of coach. For he is the one who determines which puppet goes where. Contrary to soccer, in chess the player has the undeniable advantage that while the battle is raging, he can make his men do exactly what he wants. The soccer coach must do his work mostly before the game. During the game he can hardly exert any influence on the way in which his men carry out their assignments. In the parallel I have drawn between soccer and chess, there is one essential similarity in the brainwork that has to be done. The (soccer) coach on one side and the chess player on the other, both have to possess a sound understanding of the game, which we can describe more specifically as ‘positional feeling’. Without positional feeling, good results can hardly be achieved in either discipline. We shall try to specify this term ‘positional feeling’ further, in order to see which variables are involved, and how we can exert influence on them. In the following I shall restrict myself to the game of chess. Not that I don’t have a clue about soccer. I am one of the sixteen million national coaches in Holland... Positional play is essentially about directing your pieces to the right squares. The question of what are the right squares, is not easy to answer. However, we can establish an elementary principle: the purpose of the game is to give mate, and so we will have to set up our pieces in such a way that mate is a logical consequence. The experienced player will now shake his head pityingly: ‘No, we cannot paint such a simplified picture of the game.’ I swill be the last to deny this, but sometimes it is good to return to the essence, in order to be able to see things in a different perspective. For example, the advanced player cannot deny that the material superiority of one meagre pawn will sometimes suffice to convert a game into a win. If the opponent does not have compensation for this material disadvantage, the player will convert this pawn into a new queen, with which he will eventually be able to give mate. 1.4 Compensation Inadvertently, we have tracked down an important concept: compensation. And with that we arrive at Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official World Champion, who laid the foundations for present-day strategy. In short, his theory amounts to the following. According to Steinitz, the original position is balanced. But every move must meet the demands of the position. If a player makes a mistake, he sins against a certain principle, and the balance will be tipped in favour of the opponent. According to Steinitz, it is necessary to collect small positional advantages, which must be turned into other advantages. Steinitz labels the player who has obtained a certain advantage as ‘the attacker’. He claims that this player must try to convert this advantage into other advantages, until he has won the game. So he does not mean the ‘attacker’ in the classical sense of the word, but rather the player who has to do something with his positional advantage. It all amounts to the idea that if a player has to make a concession to a strategic principle, he must search for compensation for this in one way or another. If this compensation is lacking, then, according to Steinitz, even one single strategic advantage will be sufficient to tip the balance decisively. 1.5 Steinitz’s Elements A positional assessment is formed by correctly pointing at the features of the position. Each position has various features, and the trick is to discover (or distinguish) what is important and what is not. A strong player often has an excellent idea of the factors he should take notice of and which moves he must consider. Have you never been surprised at how quickly a simultaneous player makes his rounds? Usually he needs just a few seconds to familiarize himself with the position, and he will make the good moves rather automatically. In this book we will try to offer you guidelines with which you can find the characteristic features of a game as well. So, it is all a question of good orientation in order to find your way in apparently impenetrable jungles. In his analyses, Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official World Champion, put a number of these features into words and formulated them into a kind of set of rules. Today his ‘formulae’ are still valid. In doing this, Steinitz did groundbreaking work without actually knowing it. But to my knowledge, Steinitz never managed to make a logical list. One of his successors, Emanuel Lasker, realized the importance of the middlegame principles that Steinitz had discovered. With their help, he established a table, which he labelled ‘Steinitz’s Elements’ (see below). So Lasker gave his illustrious predecessor all the credit – and laid the foundation for present-day chess strategy! Steinitz’s Elements Permanent advantages
Temporary advantages
A few explanatory words may be of use here. In the above table purely strategic features are considered. From practice, we know that in the game of chess, tactics often play first fiddle, but that does not mean that it is wrong to list all the possible strategic features. Actually, all possible features in a position can be more or less reduced to these elements. If we are capable of dissecting a position into its strategic elements, then we automatically have the right orientation, and this should allow us to find the right plan in a game. In the former Soviet Union (and also in other Warsaw Pact countries), training was very much concentrated on the above-mentioned elements, and this may explain why (former) Soviet players are still so enormously strong. They are capable of ‘reading’ a position at one glance, because they track down the important features, dismiss the unimportant ones and choose the right path on that basis. A second aspect connected with this table should be discussed. The term ‘permanent’ is used in a relative sense. If, for instance, a player possesses the bishop pair, in a number of cases he will abandon it at the right moment. To liquidate to an endgame that is winning for him, for example. Or to convert it into another advantage, like a surplus in material. From this we can conclude that a permanent advantage can also be quite temporary. The ‘temporary advantages’ are of an even more transitory nature. A piece that is out of play can sometimes rejoin the battle within two moves, in which case this (temporary) advantage is only valid for two moves. This book is organized in such a way that the theme is illustrated as aptly as possible, with model examples. Although the feature in question will be predominant in the game fragments, other features also play a role. For unveiling these secrets, I gladly offer you a new line of thinking that may be helpful to you. You will find it in Chapter 3. 1.6 Youth training As a trainer I have worked a lot with talented young players. One of my first pupils was the now well-known grandmaster Loek van Wely, with whom I have remained in contact. From a tournament with school children, his teacher at primary school drew my attention to his talent. I needed only 5 minutes to recognize that the then 10-year-old player possessed an innate talent for the game. Since he was geographically living in my neighbourhood, I was able to give him training on a frequent basis. Not that I was a well-grounded trainer at the time, but nonetheless I was able to give him a push in the right direction. Since his development went so fast, I soon referred him to a more experienced trainer (Cor van Wijgerden), who brought in some stronger players in no time. In any case, Van Wely has proved that he can hold his own with the top players of today, and that is worth something in Holland. Besides giving – quite a few – group sessions, I have also started working in private training sessions, to work on a pupil’s game. Apart from improving their tactical decision-making abilities, we also polish their endgame technique. I also concentrate on the strategic aspect, mainly by analysing their own games. In order not to pour too much information into the heads of young players, I bring forward one or two aspects of their play, and we start to work on those by looking at examples. One of my hobbyhorses is play with a good knight versus a bad bishop. Two of my pupils managed to integrate this theme quickly into their game. The most striking example is a game that was played between two approximately 14-year-old players. SI 15.9 (B70) 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be2 Bg7 7.0-0 0-0 8.Bg5 Nc6 9.Nb3 a6 10.a4 Be6 11.Kh1 Rc8 12.f4 Na5 13.Nxa5 Qxa5 14.Bd3 h6 15.Bh4 Bg4 16.Qe1 Be6 17.f5 Bc4
18.Nd5! The start of a liquidation with which White achieves a big positional advantage. 18...Qxe1 After 18...Qd8 19.Bxf6! Bxf6 20.fxg6 (less good is 20.Nxf6+, as Black has nothing to fear after 20...exf6 21.Bxc4 Rxc4) 20...fxg6 21.Qg3, White obtains a dangerous initiative. For example: 21...Kh7 22.e5!. 19.Nxe7+ Kh7 20.Raxe1 Probably, taking back with the other rook (20.Rfxe1) would have been better here, since after 20...Rc7 the position contains a tactical trick: 21.e5! and White takes control. 20...Rc7 21.Bxc4 Rxc4
22.Bxf6! Bxf6 23.fxg6+ fxg6 24.Nd5 Bg7 25.Rxf8 Bxf8 26.c3 Rxa4
At first sight White has achieved nothing. But appearances are deceptive! 27.Kg1 The king is activated. When it makes an appearance on the queenside, the extent of Black’s problems will become clear. 27...Bg7 28.Kf2 b5 29.Ke3 a5 30.Kd3 b4 An attempt to free his rook, but Black saddles himself up with a quite weak pawn with this move. After the somewhat more tenacious 30...Be5, Black would eventually also experience problems with his rather boxed-in rook on a4. 31.cxb4 axb4 32.Kc2 Bd4 32...Ra2 33.Rb1 does not help either. 33.Kb3 Ra8 34.Rc1 The pawn on b4 is doomed, and White does not make haste to win it. 34...Kg7 35.Rc2 The intermediate move 35.Rc7+ was a little cleverer. 35...Kf7
36.Nxb4 Thanks to his superior strategy White has won an important pawn, after which the rest is technique. 36...Be5 37.h3 Ke6 38.Nd3 Rb8+ 39.Ka4 Bd4 40.b4! This pawn must do the job, and so it is pushed forward as quickly as possible. 40...Rb6 41.b5 g5 42.Ka5 Rb7 43.Rc6 Kd7 44.Nb4 Rb8 45.Nd5 Bc5 46.Rc7+ Kd8 47.Ka6 h5
48.e5 Ra8+ 49.Kb7 Ra7+ 50.Kc6 dxe5 51.Kxc5 Rxc7+ 52.Nxc7 1-0 This game was played at the Junior World Championship in Cannes, 1997. I trained Jan Werle when he was a young lad. Now he has surpassed me on all fronts, since he has become a very good grandmaster. What more does a trainer want? By the way, in the area of strategy I didn’t have to teach Jan a lot. He had his natural positional feeling, and his then trainer Babak Tondivar had given him excellent support to develop it further. The question seems justified how a 14-year-old could produce such an almost flawless strategic game. I hope to answer this question further on in this book. The second game is by the then 12-year-old Benjamin Bok during the U-14 Dutch Junior Championships in 2007. RL 7.4 (C60) 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 g6 4.0-0 Bg7 5.c3 a6 6.Ba4 d6 7.d4 Bd7
In my training with Benjamin I had talked about good and bad bishops. With the help of positions arising from the French and the King’s Indian I talked about the strategy to exchange your bad bishop for your opponent’s good one. King’s Indian players know that in the Main Line especially, Black’s light-squared bishop is important in order to have a chance at success in the attack. With this knowledge in the back of his head, Benjamin opts for a clear strategic concept, displaying a good understanding of what he is doing. 8.d5 Nce7 9.Bxd7+ Qxd7 10.c4 Thus, White has created a kind of King’s Indian structure where he has already succeeded in exchanging the light-squared bishops. 10...Nf6 Now 10...f5 would not have been good in view of 11.Ng5!, and the knight occupies the unassailable square e6. 11.Nc3 0-0 12.Bg5! h6
13.Bxf6 This curious exchange is the consequence of White’s previous move. White gives his beautiful bishop for a knight. This theme had also been a subject during our training sessions. In chess, what matters is always which pieces remain on the board. In this case, in a closed position White possesses two knights against a knight and a bad bishop. That is a highly favourable material balance. 13...Bxf6 14.b4 The funny thing is that this position was still known from a game Zidarov-Delchev, Varna 1995. But Benjamin had invented it all by himself. The above-mentioned game continued as follows: 14.Qd3 Bg7 15.Nd2 f5 16.f3 h5 17.b4 Bh6 18.Nb3 Rf7 19.c5 Kh7 20.a4. 14...b6 15.c5 Very directly and effectively played. The base of Black’s pawn chain must be attacked. 15...Bg7 15...bxc5 16.bxc5 dxc5 17.Na4 would give White a pleasant little plus. 16.Nd2 f5 17.f3 Rfc8?! On this wing there is no employment for this rook. Probably Black had to capture twice on c5. 18.Qb3 Kh7 19.Nc4 bxc5 20.bxc5 dxc5
21.Qa3?! White has a beautiful position, and he is also playing logical moves. With hindsight, 21.Na4! would have been much better, though. The knight is much better on c5 than the queen. After 21...Qb5 22.Qc2 the black queen is driven off, after which White plays Nxc5, and he will invade on e6. 21...Rcb8 22.Rab1 Nc8 23.Qxc5 Nd6 Black has defended quite craftily. 24.Na5 fxe4 25.fxe4 Rf8 Black realizes his mistake and tries to transfer play to the kingside. 26.Nc6 The white knight has settled down on a beautiful square, but for the time being it does not have much to do there. White would have done better by confining Black’s counterplay, since now the initiative passes on to the black player. Therefore, the prophylactic 26.h3 might have been more accurate. 26...Qg4 27.Qe3
27...Rf4! Black is fighting back with all his might. 28.h3 Qh4 29.Kh2 Qg5 30.Rf3 The liquidation after 30.g3 Rxf1 31.Qxg5 Rxb1 would rather favour Black. 30...Raf8 31.Rbf1 h5 Another good move; the bishop will have a future on h6. 32.g3?! Understandably, White wants to kick the annoying rook from f4, but this does not seem to be the right way. But White’s position had already lost most of its lustre. 32...Rxf3 33.Rxf3 Qxe3 34.Rxe3 Rf2+ 35.Kg1 Rb2 It’s a bit sad for White that the black rook has penetrated into his position, and that the ‘bad’ bishop will soon ‘take a look inside’. 36.Rf3
36...Kg8?! Black does not continue actively enough. There were two possibilities for him to keep the position balanced: with the tactical 36...Bh6!? 37.Nxe5 Bg7 38.Nd7 Bd4+ 39.Kf1 Bxc3 40.Rxc3 Nxe4 41.Rxc7 Kh6, Black breezes through to a draw. With 36...Rc2 he could have tied the white rook to the protection of the knight. 37.Rf2! Well spotted. The rook must be driven off! 37...Rb7 38.Re2 Nb5?! Black overplays his hand. 39.Rb2! White would like to exchange rooks, as then he will end up in a favourable endgame of two good knights versus a passive black knight and a not-too-strong bishop. 39...Nd6 40.Rxb7 Nxb7 41.Kf2 Slightly better was 41.Na4. 41...Bf8 41...Nc5 would have limited the damage. 42.Ke2 Bd6 43.Na4 Kg7
44.Nb8! Excellently played: the pawn is forced to go to a square of the wrong colour, delivering more light squares into White’s hands. 44...a5 45.Nc6 Kf6 46.Kf3 Kg5 47.h4+! Very good! 47...Kf6
48.Nb2! Zugzwang! Black cannot move a piece without losing a pawn. 48...Bb4 49.Nxb4 axb4 50.Nd3 Na5 51.Nxb4 An extra pawn in a knight ending can be valued almost like an extra pawn in a pawn ending. 51...Ke7
52.Nc6+! The white player liquidates into a pawn ending. He has seen sharply that this is winning for him. The move 52.Ke2!? is for lazy players: 52...Kd6 53.Kd3 Kc5 54.Kc3, and White also wins easily. 52...Nxc6 53.dxc6 Kd6 54.Ke3 Kxc6 55.Kd3
55...Kb5 The crucial variation goes: 55...Kc5 56.Kc3 Kb5 57.Kb3 Kc5 58.a4 Kd4 59.a5 Kc5 60.Ka4 c6 61.a6! Kb6 62.Kb4 Kxa6 63.Kc5 Kb7 64.Kd6 Kb6 65.Kxe5 and White wins, even though Black has the outside passed pawn. A possible follow-up is 65...Kc7
66.Ke6! and Black has no useful moves: 66...Kb6 (66...c5 67.Kd5) 67.e5 c5 68.Kd5 Kb5 69.e6, and White queens first. Afterwards it turned out that Bok had not calculated everything. That would have been well nigh impossible, but as so often his intuition did not deceive him, which is a sign of talent! 56.Kc3 Ka4 57.Kc4 The rest is elementary. 57...Ka3 58.Kd5 Kxa2 59.Kxe5 Kb3 60.Kd5 Kb4 61.Kc6 Kc4 62.e5 1-0 Also here, the young player succeeded in putting this positional principle into practice. Unfortunately, in one phase of the game he did not manage to maintain his advantage, but as soon as the opponent made a mistake somewhere, like a flash he steered the game with a steady hand to a win. His handling of the endgame was impressive. 1.7 Exercises In this book, all strategic elements are discussed in separate chapters, and illustrated with examples. At the end of each chapter, where an element is discussed, you will find a number of exercises, allowing you to test whether the material has come across. In the other chapters there is an alternative way to dabble with ‘the elements’. A small warning is in order here. Many exercises are quite tough. When searching for the solutions to the problems in a position, there is no getting round having to show a certain amount of knowledge and understanding in order to be able to draw the right conclusions. The important thing is that you spot the essence of the problem in the position and try to put this into words. This verbalization of the problems will help you reach a correct evaluation. And that is exactly how you will be able to improve your play! If you have spotted the essential points in the exercises, you can be satisfied, for even for a grandmaster it will be impossible to foresee the entire range of events in a game. And if you don’t manage to work it all out, there is always the possibility of playing through the games in the Solutions section in the back of this book.
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