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Mastering positional play should be one of every chess player’s goals in their journey to improvement. It is highly important to know how to react in different types of positions and how to select the right plan. Not only this, but you will find it easier to do so during the game if you have studied beforehand the typical plans according to the pawn structure or if you have solved many positional exercises, for example.

It will help you make good moves in a shorter amount of time and it will help you save time for the more complicated moments. But how to get there? The key is always to study and here are some things we suggest you include in your training routine.

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An easy guideline for club players against White’s most solid opening. Studying openings is a never-ending duty for the competitive chess player. Even when one has already decided on a repertoire, it is not unusual to develop an interest in learning new systems.

Through the years I’ve come to the conclusion that although the intense study of openings has been stigmatized as of no great importance to improve your chess understanding, a variety of openings deeply studied with the resulting middle games, structures, and patterns is very useful for the improving player.

It is no secret that chess is difficult. In fact, we are convinced that it is among the most difficult sports one can choose. Studying chess can very often be frustrating, especially if you do it on your own. It is difficult to measure progress, you are never quite sure if you are improving. Unlike doing a physical sport, you can’t really see your muscles becoming shaped.

We get many questions from readers who want to know what books to read in order to improve at chess. Although we don’t have a specific answer to this question, as each individual is different and they may need to focus on different things in order to see improvement, we do believe that reading chess books can help you widen your chess knowledge and make progress. From classics to modern authors, there are many good chess books available on every subject. For this article, we have come up with a list of classical books every chess player could learn from.

The World Championship match is always on the forefront of chess theory. The openings and variations played have been subjected to profound months-long study by teams of analysts supported by powerful hardware, meaning that they are of the highest quality.  This is understandable because nobody wants to risk playing even a slightly dubious line on an occasion as a World Championship match!

There comes a moment in every chess player’s game preparation when he is faced with a variation he would not really like to see on the board. Let us take as an example the situation when a King’s Indian player faces the prospect of playing against the Exchange Variation. In such a situation the player has two choices – he can either allow the annoying variation or he can change his usual choice of 6…e5 (let us assume the player’s repertoire is the Mar del Plata variation where he enjoys his rich attacking chances) and play something like 6…Nbd7 or 6…Na6 (after 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 d6 5 Nf3 0-0 6 Be2).

Preparing for a game has become an important factor in today’s tournament practice. In times where the level of the average chess player has increased drastically, the pre-game preparation is considered a key step towards the desired outcome: the victory.

Of course, times have changed and nowadays this task is more difficult every day.

It is not easy to achieve positional mastery.

The reason is that in order to do so one must follow the path of the development of chess since Morphy up until today.

To give you a better idea here is a very brief description of what you would learn.

Here is an (in)complete list to what’s covered in the following article – to a various extent of depth 🙂

In our previous article, we have been talking about situations when you should play dynamically and which features of the position can help you decide to go for this type of play.

In this article we are going to talk about the static play and when it’s time for you to show your positional skills.

As usual, you will have to pay close attention to the position you have in front of you and its particularities, but the following factors are usually indicators of static play.