Pawns

Lately, I have been trying to improve my pawn game because I have a tendency to focus on the king during the middle game which later results in a lack of pawns in the end game.

Are there any decent books that describe pawn structure and theory that anyone would like to recommend? Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Originally posted by slappy115
Lately, I have been trying to improve my pawn game because I have a tendency to focus on the king during the middle game which later results in a lack of pawns in the end game.

Are there any decent books that describe pawn structure and theory that anyone would like to recommend? Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Pawn structure is vital throughout the game.

Which is why all pawn moves are vital, pawns cannot move backwards.

If you want to look at your pawn structure, take all the pieces off the board and see who the endgame favours.

There's a great book by American GM Andy Soltis called: "Pawn Structure Chess." In it, he analyzes the resultant pawn structures from many popular openings and describes the method of analyzing such positions in your own games and how to determine a plan based on the pawn "skeleton." I can highly recommend this book.

Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
There's a great book by American GM Andy Soltis called: "Pawn Structure Chess." In it, he analyzes the resultant pawn structures from many popular openings and describes the method of analyzing such positions in your own games and how to determine a plan based on the pawn "skeleton." I can highly recommend this book.

The black knight is right.

baburin's "winning pawn structures" helped me a lot. it also hooked me to 1.d4 🙂


but you probably drop your pawns for lack of tactical skill, not strategy...

Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
There's a great book by American GM Andy Soltis called: "Pawn Structure Chess." In it, he analyzes the resultant pawn structures from many popular openings and describes the method of analyzing such positions in your own games and how to determine a plan based on the pawn "skeleton." I can highly recommend this book.

That sounds really promising. I really like Soltis' writing style, ie: more words and explanations than hordes of notation. The reviews of this book on amazon.com are pretty good as well. I'm currently working my way through one of his other books, I'll make this one my next addition. Thanks for the recommendation.

Originally posted by tmetzler
That sounds really promising. I really like Soltis' writing style, ie: more words and explanations than hordes of notation. The reviews of this book on amazon.com are pretty good as well. I'm currently working my way through one of his other books, I'll make this one my next addition. Thanks for the recommendation.

Hm, I think I may pick this up.

I think Seirawan's book on strategy might be a good place to start. If anything, he'll cover a lot of basic positional strategies that might help your game if you're not yet familiar, and he does cover pawn structure.

Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
There's a great book by American GM Andy Soltis called: "Pawn Structure Chess." In it, he analyzes the resultant pawn structures from many popular openings and describes the method of analyzing such positions in your own games and how to determine a plan based on the pawn "skeleton." I can highly recommend this book.

Thanks. I'll definately check that out.

'Understanding Pawn Play in Chess' and 'Dynamic Pawn Play in Chess' by Marovic are quite good.