Elements of Chess Strategy Alexei Kosikov Translated by John Sugden First published in the UK by Gambit Publications Ltd 2010 Copyright© Alexei Kosikov 2010 English-language translation© John Sugden 2010 The right of Alexei Kosikov to be identifiedas the author of this work has been asserted in accor­ dance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photo­ copying, recording or otherwise), without prior permission of the publisher. In particular, no part of this publication may be scanned, transmitted via the Internet or uploaded to a website without the publisher's permission. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publica­ tion may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage. ISBN- 13: 978-1-906454-24-1 ISBN-10: 1-906454-24-8 DISTRIBUTION: Worldwide (except USA): Central Books Ltd, 99 Wallis Rd, London E9 5LN, England. Tel +44 (0)20 8986 4854 Fax +44 (0)20 8533 5821. E-mail: [email protected] Gambit Publications Ltd, 99 Wallis Rd, London E9 5LN, England. E-mail: info@ gambitbooks.com Website (regularly updated): www.gambitbooks.com Edited by Graham Burgess Typeset by Petra Nunn Cover image by WolffMorrow Printed in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group, Bodmin and King's Lynn 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Gambit Publications Ltd Managing Director: Murray Chandler GM Chess Director: Dr John Nunn GM Editorial Director: Graham Burgess FM German Editor: Petra Nunn WFM We bmaster: Dr Helen Milligan WFM Contents Preface 5 Symbols 5 Introduction 6 1 Devising a Plan in a Game of Chess 9 Elements of Chess Strategy 9 Prophylactic Thinking and Anticipation of Events 13 The Principle of Two Weaknesses 14 Manoeuvring 17 The Principle of the 'Worst' Piece 20 Answers to Exercises for Chapter 1 22 2 'STOPS'- A System of Self-Discipline in Chess 43 Answer to Exercise for Chapter 2 50 3 The Advantage of the Bishop-Pair 51 Bishop or Knight? 51 Bishop Stronger than Knight 52 Knight Stronger than Bishop 57 Two Bishops in the Middlegame 60 Two Bishops in the Middlegame: Associated Factors 62 The 'Advantage of the Knight-Pair' 64 The Problem of Exchanging 68 Two Bishops in the Endgame 71 Two Bishops against Two Knights in the Endgame .76 Methods of Combating the Two Bishops in the Endgame 78 Transformation of the Advantage 81 The Passed Pawn 84 The Bishop-Pair in the Endgame- How Much is it Worth? 85 4 ELEMENTS OF CHESS STRATEGY The 'Best Odds' Principle 87 Answers to Exercises for Chapter 3 90 4 Warning- Trap Ahead! 105 Answers to Exercises for Chapter 4 120 5 Opposite Bishops in the Middlegame 126 Bishop Power 126 The Initiative 130 Attacking the King 134 Attacking the King with Minimal Material 136 Open File and Passed Pawn 138 Prophylaxis 140 Piece Coordination 142 Defence 143 The Pawn-Structure 145 Answers to Exercises for Chapter 5 149 Index of Players 157 Preface Nothing is more terrible than war. In it there are no victors- only the downtrodden, the wounded and the humiliated. Ye t I dream that a time will come when battles will befo ught solely on the black and white squares of the chessboard. The book examines a question of great importance to chess-players of any level - how to study the strategy of the middlegame. It elucidates the problems of devising a plan in a game of chess. It gives practical advice and recommendations on this subject. It proposes a system of self-discipline for the competitive player, to be practised during preparation, in the course of play and after the end of a tournament game. Much other useful information is also given. In a word - read on. You will not regret it! The book is intended for chess-players of average and higher categories. Symbols X capture + check ++ double check # checkmate !! brilliant move good move !? interesting move ?! dubious move ? bad move ?? blunder Ch championship (D) see next diagram Introduction For anyone wishing to improve at chess, middlegame strategy is among the most important prob­ lems and those that demand the most work. But even in our computerized age, there is much here that remains unclear. For the study of endgames, the methods are quite intelligible. Many books have been written on the subject, and their number continues to grow. Various computer programs also give help of con­ siderable importance. But the main thing is that we know what to do, in what direction to proceedin order to achieve concrete results: Compile a stock of standard clear-cut positions. Study the techni­ cal devices and methods of combat - those which have general application as well as those charac­ teristic of a particular endgame type (pawn endings, rook endings, minor-piece endings, etc.). In this way you will attain a certain level of mastery in the endgame. Here everything depends on your aptitude, will, persistence and time. How to approach the opening is also clear. The time when players would work solely from encyclopaedias, opening handbooks, monographs and magazine articles is now past. These ma­ terials are valuable, but need to be supplemented with computer programs for both information and analysis. A computer will not only give you detailed information on the opening variations that you intend to play, but it will also suggest which of them appear most acceptable on a statisti­ cal basis (without, admittedly, taking into account your chess tastes, playing style, or whether a particular line has been refuted, thus rendering a statistical analysis irrelevant). Another very im­ portant point is that in preparing for a specifictournament game, a contestant with the aid of data­ bases can obtain information on dozens or hundreds of games played by the opponent he is about to face. Many players follow the line of least resistance in their chess development and spend large amounts of time just studying the openings. Of course, such work may bring distinct and immedi­ ate results (you study something today and surprise an opponent with it tomorrow). Yet these play­ ers fail to notice that their chess is developing one-sidedly. For there is also the middlegame ! And its study is a good deal more complicated. Why? Let me digress a little and give you a logical problem to solve. Take a box of matches and take six matches out. Exercise: Makefo ur equilateraltr iangles out of these six matches. You must abide by these con­ ditions: the triangles must have equal sides, and everyside must be the length of one match, which you are not allowed to break. You will find the right answer if you stop looking for it on a flatsurf ace. Yo u must come out into open space! Make a pyramid, and you arrive at the solution. So it is with the study of the middlegame - two dimensions are not enough here. You need to per­ fect your abilities in a large number of directions. There is the development of your combinative vi­ sion and the technique of calculating variations. There is the study of typical positions (Sicilian structures with a backward pawn, the blocked centre, the dynamic centre, opposite-wing pawn­ storms, isolated queen's pawn and related structures, hedgehog structure, etc.), and the ways of handling them. There are situations involving defence, the initiative and the struggle for it, the need for restraint, and so forth. There are positions where the material balance has been disturbed. There are elements of chess strategy such as open files, weak points, the bishop-pair, etc. And much, much more. In each one of these areas there are a great many guidelines and principles that are use­ ful to know, and it is even more important to understand how to apply them and when to ignore them completely. INTR ODUCTION 7 However, there is at present no unifiedmethodology for studying the middlegame -and there is unlikely to be one in the near future. And this is a good thing for chess creativity, since otherwise, after reading the appropriate book, we would all become World Champions, and chess would be re­ duced to a game on the lines of tic-tac-toe. Why, then, was the present book written? The point is that progress in any branch of knowledge is not to be halted, whether we like it or not. In chess it is hard to invent anything fundamentally new - much has already been pre-empted. But there is nothing terrible in this. The process of self-improvement is endless, and painstaking analytical work is no less complex and fascinating than discovering new concepts. Believe me! In many years of work as a coach I have assembled a well-ordered set of conclusions. One of these is that in the body of knowledge possessed by chess-players, there is not enough system. Of­ ten, on receiving some piece of information, we 'swallow' it without digesting it or making sense of it. And then during a game, when we seek some prompting from our 'library' of knowledge, we use up too much time and energy finding the 'book' we need, or we fail to find it at all. Imagine you have acquired tens of thousands of books that have not been sorted into any kind of order. Would such a library be any use to you? In the book before you now, abundant examples are collected, some classical, some little­ known. The essential requirement was that they should be united by general themes and a system of knowledge.