If you have disabled Java for your browser, use the Site Map (linked in the header and footer).

Chessville
logo by
ChessPrints

Advertise
with
Chessville!!

Advertise to
thousands
of chess
fans for
as little
as $25.

Single insert:
$35
x4 insert:
@ $25 each.

From the
Chessville
Chess Store

From the
Chessville
Chess Store

I opened with 1.e4, and my opponent muttered “White’s game is in its last throes.”  He played 1..c5 and announced “And the rest is a matter of technique.” – Perry PawnPusher

 Jacob Aagaard.  Excelling at chess.  They go together: Excelling at Chess (2001), Excelling at Positional Chess (2003), Excelling at Chess Calculation (2004), Excelling at Combinational Play: Learn to Identify & Exploit Tactical Chances (2004), and now Excelling at Technical Chess (2004), subtitled Learn to Identify and Exploit Small Advantages.

The author actually has several other very good titles, although not so “excellently” named -- his DVD Basic Positional Ideas (2004), and his CDs, Attacking Chess 1 & 2 (2004), and Right Decisions [with Lund] (2004).

Aagaard, a pleasant, creative and energetic writer, comes right to the point in Chapter One:

What I have tried to do in this book is present seven basic modes of thinking and endgame technique, which are helpful for understanding and playing the endgame well. I have explained them to the best of my ability and tried to give some examples. It is my belief that abstract rules alone have no value to anyone. They need both to be explained and seen to work in practice. The main point here is that a rule is only valuable if you understand why it is a rule.

It is hard to grasp the practical application of a rule (such as “a knight on the rim is dim”) unless you comprehend the background to the soundbite.  No one in their right mind would approach a position with a bag full of rules and then switch off their common sense.  Rather, rules are just useful tools. In the same way as concentration, theoretical knowledge and the ability to calculate variations accurately.

He also adds some “advanced ideas” – Broadening, Tying the knot, Good knight vs. bad bishop, When bishops are stronger than knights, Pure bishop endgames, The advantage of two bishops in the endgame, Technique as a way of playing, and Complex examples.

Aagaard freely admits that his ideas have been influenced by Averbakh, Dvoretsky, Shereshevsky, Korchnoi, Nunn, Mednis, and others.  His goal is to bring those ideas, as well as some of his own, to the reader in a way that will be understandable and useful.  In that he is successful.  Excelling at Technical Chess is not encyclopedic; rather it is like a series of presentations by the club master, each crafted to blend ideas, explanations and examples.  Strong club and tournament players through expert will benefit from this, as will hard-working up-and-coming juniors, and, likely, some masters.

As always with this author’s books, getting the most out of Excelling at Technical Chess will require some work on behalf of the reader.  (The “tools” don’t do all the work by themselves.)  Don’t blame this on Aagaard: it’s the nature of the (chess) game.  My experience has been that the effort is well worth the results.  Too many times in my games I have been stymied by the problem: I’d love to calculate lines of play if I knew what was going on, and what exactly to look at…  This is where a good teacher/author comes in.

Here are a couple of examples to judge for yourself.  The first is from an early discussion on “pawn islands” (from Weaknesses), the second from the advanced topic Good knight vs bad bishop.

Another example of pawn islands being a liability is the following instructive endgame.  White enters the endgame with a better pawn structure and is therefore able to place his pieces actively.  Later he trades the advantage of  fewer pawn islands for a passed pawn which, together with the weaknesses that are bound to arise on the queenside, proves decisive.

Shirov-Lutz
Dortmund 2002

White has emerged form the opening with a structural advantage.  Black hopes that his two bishops will give him active counterplay and that he will escape with a draw.  In the game White puts strong pressure on the weak f5-pawn and quickly sits back with a better structure once Black has exchanged the light squared bishops for him.  Black could still have made a draw with accurate play but he definitely had the more difficult task. Shirov’s play in this game is in no way inferior to that presented by his peers Leko and Dreev above.  His decisions have a rational and practical reasoning all the way, which has as its first goal to make the game as difficult as possible for Black.  And as we shall see, Lutz eventually makes a few dubious moves, after which the position is beyond salvation…
 

This is from the game Gurevich – Short, Manila Interzonal 1990, which Aagaard examines in detail.  After reaching this position, the author continues:

…In this kind of position, where you are slightly worse, it is very important to play with the utmost accuracy.  In this case it means that White should try to make the positionally strongest move work tactically.

18.a3?

Most other annotators have given this move “?!”.  But this is where the game is changing from White being slightly worse to becoming almost impossible to defend in practice, so the full question mark seems more appropriate.  18.a4! was the desired move.  The key idea is to create counterplay against the b6-pawn with Bc7.

Short and Knaak give some lines to prove that 18.a4 is playable.  18…Ne4  If 18…Re2 19.Rfd1! and White survives the pressure on the second rank thanks to Kg1-f1, while after 19…Ne4 20.Nxe4 dxe4?! 21.Rac1!  White is even better since Kf1 is a big threat.  19.Nxe4 Rxe4 20.c3 Re2 21.b3!  And White is OK.  Dvoretsky adds 21…Rae8 22.Bc7 Rc2 23.Rac1 Ree2?! 24.Rxc2 Rxc2 25.Re1! and White is beginning to get some active chances.  Suddenly it is not so easy for Black to keep the balance.

These lines show that White was fine, but also that he had to play accurately, It is a very important lesson to learn.  When we are slightly worse we should do everything we can in order to find the best moves, as otherwise our troubles will quickly multiply.

Some books are worth going over and over again, as the reader will get something new out of them after each re-read. The “Excelling” series fall into this category – and that includes Excelling at Technical Chess.
 

Index of all reviews

search tips

The
Chessville
Chess Store

Chess

 

Reference
Center

The Chessville
 Weekly
The Best Free
Chess
Newsletter
On the Planet!

Subscribe
Today -
It's Free!!

The
Chessville
Weekly
Archives

Discussion
Forum

Chess Links

Chess Rules

Visit the
Chessville
Chess Store