Chess structures : a grandmaster guide : standard patterns and plans explained

466 Pages·2015·13.2 MB·English

by  Flores Rios, Mauricio

First edition 2015 by Quality Chess UK Ltd
Copyright © 2015 Mauricio Flores Rios
Chess Structures -A Grandmaster Guide
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Hardcover ISBN 978-1-78483-001-4
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Chess Structures
A Gradmater Gude
By
Mauricio Flores Rios
Qualit Chess
w.w qualitchess.co. uk
Contents
Foreword by Axel Bachmann 5
Keys to Symbols used and Bibliography 6
Preface 7
Introduction 9
Faily One - d4 and ... dS
1 The Isolani 12
2 Hanging Pawns 36
3 Caro-Kann Formation
4 Slav Formation 69
5 The Carlsbad Formation 86
6 Stonewall 103
7 Griinfeld Centre 122
Faily Two - Open Sicilian
8 NajdorfType I 138
9 NajdorfType II 155
10 The Hedgehog 178
11 The Maroczy 205
Faily Tree - Benoni
12 Asymmetric Benoni 226
13 Symmetric Benoni 242
Faily Four - King's Indian
14 KID Type I 261
15 KID Type II 281
297
16 KID Type III
17 Open KID 323
18 KID Complex
Faily Five - French
19 FrenchT ype I 353
20 FrenchT ype II 364
21 FrenchT ype III 383
51
338
Miselaneou
22 Various Structures 400
Te 3-3 vs. 4-2 Structure 400
Te Panov Structure 403
Te Dragon Formation 408
Te Scheveningen Structure 411
Te Benko Structure 415
Te Closed Ruy Lopez 417
Te Lopez Formation 421
Training
23 Exercises 424
24 Solutions 437
Name Index 460
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank the Quality Chess editorial team fr believing i the project this book proposed.
In particular I would like to thank David Friedgood and John Shaw fr a wonderfl job editing my
manuscript.
The content of this book could not have been presented as well without the he! p of Aura Salazar and
Javier Cortes who careflly studied earlier versions of this work and provided many usefl suggestions
to make the exposition clearer. Their questions and criticism encouraged me to expand certain topics
and fnd examples to illustrate my message in a better way.
Finally, I would like to thank Aura fr encouraging me to regain my ambition i chess, both as a player
and trainer. This ambition and her support drove me through the challenging process of writing this
book.
Foreword
I fst met Mauricio ten years ago, as we both competed i Pan-American youth competitions. Later we
both received a chess scholarship to attend the University ofTexas at Brownsville. We were teammates
fr fur years and spent countless hours studying chess together, though our training preferences were
very diferent. Mauricio read books, analyzed his games and prepared openings. I did these things too,
but in reality the vast majority of my time was spent looking over current chess games and playing.
I was surprised when Mauricio told me he had written a book partially inspired by my training
methods, and I was certainly interested to see what was in it.
Te truth about my training method is that looking over a game fr just a couple of minutes can
actually be a wonderfl investment, id one correctl. The key is searching fr repeting patterns; this
takes some practice but is feasible. In my career I have seen close to 1 00,000 chess games, including
mos of the grandmaster-level games played over the past decade. The cumulative experience fom
spending a minute or two on each of these games has allowed me to gain an excellent positional
understanding. Staring at a position fr a few seconds is often enough fr me to see who is better,
which plans will work, which pieces should be traded, etc.
Acquiring such a level of experience and positional knowledge requires many years. Going through
thousands and thousands of games takes a very long time, even if you only spend a couple of minutes
on each. Mos importantly, being able to actually see the patterns does not come easily to everyone.
Addressing these two difculties is exactly the purpose of this book.
Chss Strutures -A Grandmater Guide is an excellent selection of model games. By studying the
140 games and fagments in this book, the reader will learn many of the most important plans,
patterns and ideas in chess. Te organization of this book is particularly helpfl in this regard. Te
pawn structure is the most important fctor to determine the nature of a game; therefre, studying
model games classifed by structure allows the reader to acquire reliable strategic knowledge much
more easily. Mauricio's detailed explanations allow the reader to identif the key elements in each
example. Moreover, each game constitutes a building block toward the understanding of the structure
a a whole.
I am certain the readers of this book will fnd it both usefl and entertaining. They will complete the
opening phase understanding the strategic landscape of the position. Most importantly, studying this
book will help them to better understand the opening itself, and even to choose variations depending
on what middlegame position they wish to play. I give this book my highest recommendation, and I
fel sure readers will proft fom it.
GM Axel Bachmann
Ciudad de! Este, Paraguay
December 20 14
Key to symbols used
� White is slightly better
i Black is slightly better
± White is better
+ Black is better
+- White has a decisive advantage
-+ Black has a decisive advantage
equality
i i with compensation
� with counterplay
m unclear
? a weak move
?? a blunder
a good move
!! an excellent move
!? a move worth considering
?! a move of doubtfl value
# mate
Bibliogaphy
Avrukh: Grandmaster Reperoire I, Quality Chess 2008
Avrukh: Grandmaster Repetoire 2, Quality Chess 20 10
De la Villa: Dismantling the Sicilian, New in Chess 20 1 0
Delchev & Semkov: 7he Sfst Sicilan, Chess Stars 2006
Gligoric: Kng' Indian Dence: Mar de! Plt Vriatio, Batsfrd 2003
Grau: Tratdo General De Ajedrez, Ediciones Colihue 1 998
Kasparov: 7he Test of Time, Pergamon 1986
Polugaevsky: 7he Sicilan Labrinth: Volumes I & II, Peramon 1991
Sokolov: Winning Chess Middlegames, New in Chess 2009
So It is: Pawn Structure Chess, Batsfrd 20 13
Periodics
Mega Database 20 1 3
ChessBase Magazine
Te Week in Chess
Chess Infrmant
Preface
Te idea fr this book was in the back of my mind fr several years befre coming to fuition. The book
wa born out of my desire to guide players who, like me, struggle to apply their strategic knowledge to
a practical game. My aim is to provide something new t chess literature; t write the book I should
have studied myself earlier in my career. This is not the typical strategy book, but befre I tell you what
this book is. let me tell you how I realized this book is necessary, especially fr self-learners.
My progress in ches was very fst, but very difcult, even fustrating. De to geographical
ad fnancial constraints I drew most of my knowledge fom books, rather than learning fom an
experienced master. I studied many strategy books and I remember embracing every word in them as
a piece of gold written in ink. However, as I scaled the rating ladder I was dazzled by my inability to
correctly evaluate positions despite my supposedly vast straegic knowledge. I was well versed in modern
strategy but sometimes the concepts in my books were contradictory, or difcult to apply in practice.
I ofen lost games without ever understanding the reason; my books had no answers!
By the time I had become a FIDE Master, I had concluded that the strategic rules i my books
only worke sometimes, ad this was not good enough. I was afaid to u potentially incorrect rules
and I changed my style to avoid dealing with them. I became a strong tactician and avoided strategy
at all costs. Unfrtunately, I could not always obtain sharp positions and in quiet games my lack of
understanding ofen led me to lose miserably. In fct, I became a grandmaster at eighteen knowing
les than half of this book's contents.
There already exist dozens of books providing an excellent introduction to chess strategy, and I
recommend you read one. These books are a starting point, but they are insufcient. They teach
strategic elements without shedding much light on which fctors will play a bigger role in a specifc
position. It is like giving you several tools without telling you which one to use. A diferent class of
strategy book provides many concrete examples and shows how the strategic tools are selected and
used. Such books are ofen entertaining and even inspiring, but they lack specifcity. At times reading
these books can leave you more confsed than befre, as you have learned rules but do not exactly
know when to apply them. My experience as a coach has only confrmed this phenomenon.
Chess Structurs -A Grandmate Guide emphasizes clarity, precision and completeness over
generality. I do not intend to teach rules applicable to every position. Such rules typically do not exist.
Moreover, even if such rules existed, the chance that such a complex message will be misunderstood is
far too high. Let's not risk it! My aim is to provide an easy-to-understand strategic guide to the most
frequently-occurring classes of positions in chess. I hope readers will fnd this helpfl, as it greatly
reuces ambiguity; it is clear when rules will be valid and when they will not. In this sense, this book
is a collection of analyzed model games, logically organized into fmilies of similar positions with
common strategic ideas. As Capablanca said in his book Chss Fundmental, every player should have
a collection of games and ideas within his chess knowledge. This book intends to provide developing
players with a fne selection of such games and ideas. These games are presented within the context of
well-defned classes, to enhance the learning process and prevent confsion.
Naturally, the best (and least ambiguous) way to classif chess positions is based on their pawn
structure. I divide this book into twenty-fur chapters, which discuss the most inteesting and
8 Prefce
common structures in modern practice. These positions encompass a wide variety of openings and
middlegames, which are present in the vast majority of all chess games. I hope my readers will fnd
this book to be a practical and, most importantly, an accessible guide to learning how these specifc
positions should be conducted.
Mauricio Flores Rios
Minneaplis, December 20 14
Introduction
Wat you wl fnd in ts book
lbis book is divided into twenty-two chapters describing some of the most important and common
structures in chess. Two fnal chapters contain a compilation of exercises and detailed solutions.
Decidingw hi ch structures deserved a chapter, and which did not, proved challenging, but I am satisfed
with the fnal selection. Chapters are ordered so that similar structures are close to one another. In
fct, these structures are implicitly divided into fve classes or fmilies, each of which is more closely
assiated with one particular type of opening. Learning all structures within a fmily is very usefl,
as players must fequently decide between two options that yield diferent, yet related, structures. It is
helpfl t know which structure will prove more fvourable. These fve families are as fllows:
Fay One: d4 and ... d5
This fmily consists of the structures that will typically arise when the moves d2-d4 and ...d 7-d5 occur
erly in the game. Typical openings would be the Queen's Gambit Orthodox Defence, the Slav or
the Queen's Indian Defence, but there are many others, such as the Scandinavian, the Caro-Kann or
the Alap in Variation against the Sicilian Defence. This fmily encompases Chapters 1 through 7. In
adition, I discuss the Panov structure in the Caro-Kann and the 3-3 vs. 4-2 pawn structure, which
ae related to this fmily, in Chapter 22.
Famy Two: Open Sicilian
This fmily includes those structures that typically occur in the Open Sicilian. It fcuses on two
tps of positions: those that occur when Black plays ...e 7-e5 instead of . .. e7-e6; and then Hedgehog
and Maroczy positions. This family spans Chapters 8 through 11. The Scheveningen and Dragon
structures are discussed in Chapter 22.
Famy Te: Benoni
This small fmily is devoted to those structures in which Black confonts the queen's pawn opening
with a ... c7-c5 strategy and White replies with d4-d5. Later, when Black challenges the centre with
...e 7-6 and ... exd5, White must choose between cxd5 and exd5. Chapter 12 is devoted to studying
the frst option, which is typically known as a Benoni-typ position, while Chapter 1 3 studies the
alternative exd5. The related Benko structure is discussed in Chapter 22.
Fay Fou: K's Ida
lbis family of fve chapters is devoted to the multiple typs of structure arising fom the King's Indian
Dfence and its relatives. It is an extremely interesting and complex group of chapters to study, but it
contains plenty of tactical and strategic ideas. This fmily encompases Chapters 14 to 18. The related
structures of the Closed Ruy Lopez and Lopez Formation are discussed in Chapter 22.