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Chess College 2: Pawn Play Reviewed by S. Evan Kreider, October 2006
Last time, I reviewed the first volume in GM Grivas’ new Chess College trilogy (you can find the review here: Chess College 1: Strategy.) Faithful readers will recall that I found it full of good material, but stretched thin from attempting to cover too many diverse topics in a single volume. This month, I’m taking a look at the second volume in the trilogy, and I’m happy to say that it avoids the over-ambitiousness of the first volume by concentrating on the more focused topic of pawn play. Table of contents, please!
Symbols 4 As you can see, Grivas covers the full range of basic pawn strategy, and throughout the book, Grivas does an excellent job of discussing both the dynamic and static features of pawn strategy. The “Passed Pawn” chapter starts with a short essay describing the strategic elements of the passed pawn, focusing of course on the old adage, “passed pawns must be pushed.” He demonstrates the proper use of such pawns through seven example games. He also shows how other strategic factors (such as the presence of the bishop pair or the absence of major pieces) influence and interact with the passed pawn. Though one might reasonably claim that there’s nothing really new here, Grivas does an excellent job of including the relevant information and presenting it in a clear and concrete manner. The “isolated pawn” chapter is the longest of the book, and arguably the best one as well. Grivas lays out their potential advantages and disadvantages in the opening, middlegame, and endgame. One minor quibble I have is that he could have been a little more explicit about the fact that most of his discussion focuses on isolated pawns on open files (or semi-open if you want to get technical about it . . . ), since a lot of the disadvantages of an isolated pawn are less pronounced if there is an opposing pawn, especially one sitting on the square directly in front of it (for example, it can’t be attacked from the front by the opponent’s rooks, and the square in front of it can’t serve as an outpost for the opponent’s knights). Grivas demonstrates these advantages and disadvantages through a dozen or so games, sorted across three categories: “Exploitation of Negative Aspects,” “Exploitation of Positive Aspects,” and “Defense with an Isolated Pawn.” One thing in this chapter that did make me scratch my head a little was his references to “the well-known rule of the three weaknesses.” I’ve seen “the rule of two weaknesses” in many books, but never the “well-known” rule of three weaknesses. Maybe I’m reading the wrong books . . . Anyway, according to Grivas, the well-known weaknesses is “1 weakness = advantage, 2 weaknesses = significant advantage, 3 weaknesses = winning advantage.” I assume he’s talking about positional advantages (since one material advantage could be a winning advantage if it were, say, an extra queen), but even so, this seems a little simplistic. Wouldn’t it depend on the specific kind of positional advantage, not to mention the actual position on the board? If anyone reading this has heard of this “rule” before, drop me a line and let me know, including the specific source – I’d be curious to know if this is something I just somehow missed. The “Doubled pawns” chapter does a good job of discussing not only doubled pawns, but also how various elements of pawn strategy can interact. Grivas divides the chapter into discussions of both central and flank doubled pawns, including cases of doubled isolated pawns, which are often exponentially weaker than mere doubled pawns. Of course, every general claim has its exceptions – consider the following example:
A lot of books on pawn structures would stop with the above sections, but Grivas rounds things out by looking at several more dynamic elements of pawn play, including discussions of hanging pawns, pawn minorities, pawn majorities, and the central strike. I didn’t see any particularly new material in here, but everything is explained thoroughly and clearly, and improving players should find these sections as enlightening as any others. I do have one very minor criticism. Grivas uses his own games almost exclusively throughout this trilogy. That choice definitely has some pros and cons. Certainly, Grivas knows his own games better than any others, which means he’s in an excellent position to choose games appropriate to the themes he’s discussing. On the other hand, I can’t help wonder if there might have been other games which would have been better, and Grivas simply ignored them because they weren’t his. This isn’t really a complaint, just a vague concern. More significantly, Grivas’ insistence in sticking to his own games means that the games will only feature openings he himself plays – thus the heavy emphasis on 1.d4 openings compared to 1.e4 openings. For some topics, this might not be an issue, but in a book on pawn play, I’d prefer to see a more balanced sampling of typical pawn structures arising from a wider range of openings (for example, the French defense, and the interesting pawn structures that can arise from the Winawer, Classical, Rubenstein, etc., variations, isn’t represented at all).
Overall, my impression of this volume is much more positive than it was of
the first volume. Though the level of analysis is fairly sophisticated,
making it perhaps a bit too advanced for less experienced players, those who
already have a decent understanding of pawn play should definitely look here
for the next step. Copyright 2006 S. Evan Kreider. Used with permission.
From the Publisher's web site:
Download a pdf
file with a sample from the book.
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