The Essence of Chess Strategy Volume 1

How to learn strategy? Can it be learned? It can be, of course. And these volumes are the perfect guide to learn (or, more precisely, to learn to understand) strategy.

Our idea is to throw light on all the strategic concepts in these volumes. To help you navigate more simply, we have divided all the material into two volumes. The first one is exploring the elements of strategy, explaining typical and essential principles in detail. The second one is about pawn structures. Of course, structures themselves actually mean nothing without recognising patterns and principles from the elements (because pawn structures are used to determine the values of pieces, for instance). That is why volume two can be considered as an advanced level of strategy. Generally, examples will be based on material adopted from volume one and upgraded.

Volume one is divided into nine chapters and the titles suggest the topic explained in detail. Examples are arranged from less to more complex, and I recommend that the reader not skip examples inside the chapters. Moreover, I would ask the reader to go through the chapters in the order in which they are presented in the book, because the most important topics come first. For instance, centralisation is the leading principle and it must be kept in mind while working on other topics!