Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide

First of all, the cover of the book is simply superb.The content is very instructive.It's basically a one stop guide to many of the major chess openings,how to deal with them and how to play them successfully.The most important factors concerning each position are written in accordance with the author's experience(and studying of more than 20000 games).The annotations are heavy in the most instructive moment of the book,but lighter when its just the won endgame/decisive advantage scenario.I really hope a 'Part 2' of this book comes out concerning(as many reviewers have said) the McCutcheon and Burn Variations of the French,Exchange Ruy/Berlin,Tromp,Semi-Slav Gambits and such openings.This book has been a pleasure to read and learn from.

Marcelo Rios has come out with an authentic textbook on openings.It systematically answers the question: how will the pawn structure appear after I take up a particular opening?Then Rios answers with well-illustrated games what prospects the two sides have in a given pawn structure.The purpose of the treatise is clearly outlined and then achieved.Highly recommended for tournament players.

Excellent Book on Middle game Strategy and Pawn Structure.Contents are logically arranged,Can Be easily understood

Purchased it from( 078451-18848)elsewhere, but an awesome book, must for everyone playing Chess.

Exatamente o que estava esperando

Excellent livre qui est très bien écrit avec les points clés.Les résumés et les exemples de parties sont assez récents.Un livre incontournable pour tous joueurs qui souhaitent avancé dans sa compréhension de ce jeu

Gutes Buch. Ich empfehle es.

Muy muy recomendable, creo que es el mejor libro de ajedrez que he visto nunca, sobre todo si tienes alto nivel, pero cualquiera puede aprender de este libro, te explica los planes de cada apertura y lo que debe intentar el negro y el blanco, eso es impagable.

I've gone through most of the book over a long period of time. For instance, when I was losing a lot to the King's Indian, I read all the KID chapters from the book. I must have been around 1800 USCF at that point. However, that didn't quite work out. I'll explain:The only way you gain something from the book is if you first amass some experience playing a certain structure, and you analyze your games, and keep accumulating experience about everything that can go wrong, everything that can go right, etc. Then you read this book, and draw upon your experience and relate what you now learn to your experiences in the past. It is only when you do that do you really understand, assimilate, and hopefully be able to apply what you learn in your future games. The mistake I made when I first read these chapters was to do it without the necessary experience.Fast forward about a year, I had played and analyzed many games as white against the KID. I went back to those chapters and had a much easier time with them. A similar story with the Grunfeld center structures. Had to accumulate some games and analyses of those gaames before I could really appreciate the points made about the c file, control of certain squares, to support promotion of the d pawn, etc and only then could I appreciate the Karpov games in that chapter.So for these reasons, I'd recommend working with this book only after you've played at least 10 games in the structure you want to study AND have deeply analyzed and annotated them yourself. So I'd say this book works best for 2000+ USCF (I'm sure I'll gain a lot more from it after accumulating some more experience). You can certainly read and learn something from it even at lower levels than that but the recommendation I made is for optimal gains.Get the book!PS: The only disappointment I had was with the coverage of the Carlsbad structure. There simply wasn't enough on white's f3 e4 ideas and no examples of what happens when white is able to achieve it. I had to go back to my old favorite Soltis' pawn structure chess to see a Susan Polgar game that illustrated some ideas in that structure, but I still feel like the Carlsbad hasn't received a good enough treatment. Even Matthew Sadler's QGD book doesn't have many examples (if at all any) of that plan by white if I remember correctly. However, I'm not taking a star off for this because of how great everything else is.