Test Your Positional Play: My Understanding of It.
I've nearly finished the first part of this book which is instructional in the area of thought process. It's provided me with some information that I still need to marry with the ideas of Silman's HTRYC, Pachman's Modern Chess Strategy, and Buckley's Practical Chess Analysis.
This book is great for defining the process of what you should be doing every move. It's a good foundational book that I would say should be read before Buckley's more in-depth, and advanced, book. Silman's book is a good supplement to the Test Your Positional Play book because it details some specific general types of plans depending on the imbalances present in the position. Pachman's book is also a good supplement in that it details how to conduct a large variety of strategic operations.
Now, to the book itself. The process the book describes is to first do a static assessment of the position on the board. If there are strategic weaknesses and no tactics are present, you formulate your plan based on the static imbalances in the position. If there are no strategic weaknesses and also no tactics in the position, you look for a good dynamic plan to increase the activity of your forces and/or decrease the activity of your opp's forces. If there are tactics present in the position, you can do one of two things: implement a plan whereby you try to achieve a strategic goal using tactics (e.g., using a fork to cause an exchange that results in disruption of the opposing pawn structure), or whereby you make strategic moves to create tactical threats against the opponent (eg., developing a rook along the same file as an opposing queen or king). Once you have identified the elements of the position and decided upon a plan, you use calculation to verify the quality of that plan.
I plan to take in the first part for awhile and better assimilate it before I actually begin to tackle the 30 tests in the book. I'll have to somehow balance my reading of Vukovic's book with this new book, but I see value and immediacy in mastering the material both of them.
This book is great for defining the process of what you should be doing every move. It's a good foundational book that I would say should be read before Buckley's more in-depth, and advanced, book. Silman's book is a good supplement to the Test Your Positional Play book because it details some specific general types of plans depending on the imbalances present in the position. Pachman's book is also a good supplement in that it details how to conduct a large variety of strategic operations.
Now, to the book itself. The process the book describes is to first do a static assessment of the position on the board. If there are strategic weaknesses and no tactics are present, you formulate your plan based on the static imbalances in the position. If there are no strategic weaknesses and also no tactics in the position, you look for a good dynamic plan to increase the activity of your forces and/or decrease the activity of your opp's forces. If there are tactics present in the position, you can do one of two things: implement a plan whereby you try to achieve a strategic goal using tactics (e.g., using a fork to cause an exchange that results in disruption of the opposing pawn structure), or whereby you make strategic moves to create tactical threats against the opponent (eg., developing a rook along the same file as an opposing queen or king). Once you have identified the elements of the position and decided upon a plan, you use calculation to verify the quality of that plan.
I plan to take in the first part for awhile and better assimilate it before I actually begin to tackle the 30 tests in the book. I'll have to somehow balance my reading of Vukovic's book with this new book, but I see value and immediacy in mastering the material both of them.
posted by CelticDeath at 9:33 AM
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