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Winning chess strategies

Chess strategy is one of the most elusive and difficult parts of chess. Compared to the direct and transparent world of chess tactics, strategy can be confusing and opaque. At the patzer level, tactical strikes that gain material or lead to checkmate can be obvious (provided that one understands the tactic). However, in many cases, strong players claim that a move is obvious although it doesn't result in material gain or even a semblance of an attack. We, the patzers of the world, scratch our heads and wonder how on earth anyone can find such moves obvious. How can we take steps towards this deeper level of chess understanding? Picking up a basic strategy book is a good first step. And that's what I did here.

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What can you expect from this book?

As a part of my ambition to deepen my understanding of chess strategy, I took on a mission of reading (and reviewing) some classics of chess strategy. Fellow chess enthusiast and Twitter personality Neal Bruce seems to be on a similar mission and has worked through many of the same books that I have in my collection. After his review and warm recommendations, I decided to take a closer look at Yasser Seirawan's Winning chess strategies. Anyone vaguely interested in chess books will sooner or later come across Yasser Seirawan and his "Winning chess" series. I have certainly known about the books for many years, but knew little to nothing about their contents. And to be honest, my decision to get this book was entirely based on Neal's recommendation. If he says it's the best basic strategy book, it has to be good. And that means I have to read it. That simple.

Neal has been on The perpetual chess podcast a few times, and during his latest visit, he and Ben did a recap of Winning chess strategies. If you are curious about the book, I suggest you take a listen do that episode.

Winning chess strategies is a part of a "starter pack" of chess books for patzers. It starts with the overall introduction Play winning chess and continues with six separate volumes on tactics, opening, strategies, endings, combinations and brilliancies. All of these books are fairly accessible and range about 250 pages.

When I dug into this book, the text felt very familiar. The content and the writing style has many similarities with one of my first chess books, and my very first review; The amateur's mind. There are several reasonable explanations for this. First of all, both are introductory books on chess strategy. Secondly, Seirawan shares Silman's humorous approach to writing. And finally (and possibly most importantly), Jeremy Silman co-authored this book. I have no idea much of the actual writing Silman has done in Winning chess strategies, but the text feels quite familiar to me.

The most apparent difference between Winning chess strategies and The amateur's mind is the number of pages. The latter is about 200 pages bigger, but both books cover more or less the same ground. The main difference is that The amateur's mind is largely aimed at the faulty thinking processes of amateur players, and provides many examples of how chess positions are evaluated by players at different levels. But in terms of pure chess strategy, the books are fairly similar. And both of them are excellent introductions to this difficult topic.  

I was surprised that the publisher has not provided a preview of the book on their webpage. But, fortunately, this is available through Amazon. If you want to take a look at the contents of the book, you can find a preview and a number of reviews here.

Who should read this book?

If you are looking for a no-nonsense introduction to chess strategy, look no further. I think this is an excellent choice for several reasons. It is compact and to the point, it is well written, and examples are presented and explained in a direct and accessible manner. If you are fairly new to chess, or have had little or no formal chess training, this is an excellent starting point. Perhaps you are completely new to chess strategy, or a post-beginner with holes in your positional understanding. In terms of playing strength, I would expect your rating is below 1600 FIDE. If this sounds like you, I can warmly recommend this book.

About this book

Author:Yasser Seirawan (and Jeremy Silman)
Title:Winning chess strategies
Type of book:Middlegame
Level:Beginner/Intermediate
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