Customer Reviews

Modern Chess Strategy

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the best one-volume strategy book on the market for all players below the USCF 2000 (Expert) level rating.

It contains virtually all of the information contained in other classic, highly-recommended texts such as ; My System (Nimzovich), Chess Praxis (Nimzovich), The Game of Chess (Tarrasch), and The Middlegame (Books 1 & 2 by Euwe).

The major difference between Pachman's book and the others is that it is the most modern, concise, and highly readable. Some of the other titles are quite verbose and occaisionally stray from the main lesson being presented.

In short, this book contains nearly everything an aspiring chessplayer needs to know about strategy to become a strong player.

Another bonus, as with all books from Dover, is the price tag. Dollar for Dollar, you would be hard-pressed to find a better value anywhere!

Do you want to improve your chess. Are you rated under 2000? Then this is a good place to start. This is much easier reading than the often verbose and self-serving My System. Pachman's writing is clear and insightful. Buy this book and play through every few years. You will almost certainly gain new insights into chess with every reading. This book should be on every aspiring chess player's shelf alongside Larry Evan's New Ideas in Chess, Hans Kmoch's Pawn Power in Chess, David Bronstein's Zurich 1953, Bobby Fischer's My Sixty Memorable Games, Mikhail Botvinnik's 100 Selected Games, Mikhail Tal's Life and Games of Mikhail Tal, Alexander Alekhine's Best Games and Richard Reti's Masters of the Chessboard. That is some pretty lofty company, but Modern Chess Strategy is worthy of it. Oh, and you can't beat the price.

This book is an abridgement of Pachman's three-volume "Complete Chess Strategy", which ranks as one of the classic works on strategic and positional chess (Another such work would be Euwe and Kramer's "The Middlegame", in two volumes.). Unfortunately the abridgement doesn't capture the rich and full flavor of the original. Many of the classic examples have had to be omitted for reasons of space. A player of class C strength might learn something from this abridgement, but for stronger players I would recommend the original three volumes. It's a fact of life that the general level of chess strength and erudition has risen markedly during the last several years; the level of knowledge that once would have sufficed to maintain B strength is, alas, inadequate.

Many of the topics discussed in Pachman now have specialist texts addressing them. For example, for isolated pawns, see Baburin's "Winning Pawn Structures"; for the major pieces see Damsky's "The Heavy Pieces in Action". There are numerous other examples. Pachman can be usefully employed as an introduction to these more specialised books.

Whether a player works with the abridgement or the original, I recommend he also have available Watson's "Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy", which lends perspective on the contemporary state of understanding of strategic and positional chess.

This is the best chess strategy book you can find. I read it when I was a beginner and re-read it 2 times since then, and as I grew in chess strength I discovered new meanings to author's comments and new subtleties of the positions examined, things that I didn't understand before seemed logical and clear the next time I read it. The book presents a thorough and comprehensive examination of important positional concepts, such as the value and placement of pieces, exchanges of material, importance of the centre, flank attacks, dynamical strategy, and how tactical ideas are connected to positional elements. The games examined are carefully chosen for appropriateness and comments and explanations are clear and meaningful. Read this book and watch your rating climb up!

I started playing tournament chess back in the 70's. I dropped out of the chess world for a couple decades only to have my fascination with chess rekindled this year.

Even back then, back in the days of descriptive notation, back when the Fischer-Spassky match was recent history, back when the USCF was 60,000 members strong this book was suggested to me as "The best middle game book you can buy". "My System" by Nimzowitsch can be a bit too dense for the class level player. Pachman's book is much easier to understand.

Recently, I've been reading Jeremy Silman's book "How to reasses your chess". I'm finding that now that I've read Silman, Pachman makes a lot more sense. I'm now realizing that Pachman's strategies and Silman's "Imbalances" are just different ways of describing the same thing. Once you start seeing the ideas behind the strategies THEN you really start playing chess. This book is a great step to get there.

This book, combined with Capablanca's classic "Chess Fundamentals" will give you a very strong grasp of modern chess strategy.

When I first picked up this book I was coming in with the knowledge that the book thrived on it's eloquent writing style, and clear definitions. That pretty much sums up this book by Pachman.

Most chess books are naturally dense. It is a fact that when you try to explain in words your plans in a chess game, someone, somewhere will find it hard to comprehend. But despite this against him, Pachman wrote a book that was not too difficult for ANYONE to understand. (I tested this by having my son read it, he is a Class D player.)

This book isn't filled with interesting positions or mind-boggling concepts for the advanced player. But if you are reading chess books as a novice player, looking to grasp a few "cool" ideas, this is a great book for you.

(It lost one star from me for it's simplicity; but if you are a Class C or below, this is a 5 star.)

[This book could raise a Class C and below's ELO by 100-150 points if studied well enough.]

In my chess development there have been three books which each caused a step change improvement in my game, this one on chess strategy, Averbakh's Chess Endings: Essential Knowledge and oddly enough a small book on combinations entitled "The Penguin Book of Chess Positions". Each of these books provides a compete introduction to an essential part of the game. I immersed myself into each of these books and emerged a much better player after each reading one.

Pachman gives clear direction on learning to think strategically by dividing the book into two sections, one on piece play and one on pawns. He leads the reader systematically through each part by giving verbal generalizations followed by numerous examples from master play. In this abridged version, the editors used game fragments to replace some of the complete games found in the three volume version. I for one feel that the use of fragments does not detract from the educational aspects of the example games while enabling this book to be an inexpensive one volume version of the original. In particular, the chapter on rook play is superb.

I first read this book twenty years ago and the concepts of this book have stuck with me. Every time I play a game in which I use a rook lift to deveop a rook outside the pawn chain, I have Pachman to thank directly.

A book like this one stays with you forever... Pachman's book is very thorough and organized. As a manual for the middlegame this book should be read after going through tactical training books like 1001 mates / combinations by Reinfeld, Polgar's brick, or any similar book with combinations.

Once the tactical training is finished, Pachman's book will aid you to develop the complex strategical aspect of the middlegame.
Pachman's examples are very illustrative and going through the book twice provides good returns in OTB games. For instance, the chapter about rooks and the handling of minor pieces will by themselves pay for the book...

One of my objections to the book is its chapter about the minority attack. To my taste it was confusing and not as well written as the rest of the book.

How does it measure up with other strategy books? Maybe some people are going to be upset about this but the book is clearer than Nimzo's "My System" and It is more complete than "Judgement and Planing" by Euwe. [ I haven't have the chance to read other books on strategy ] But let us be fair, Euwe's and Nimzo's book are excellent counterparts to Pachman's book and I also like studying them.

Is it worth buying Pachman's book? In my opinion, yes.

This is one of the first books any aspiring chess player should read. The book is basically a compilation of the classic texts by Nimzowitsch and Euwe, in a clear and readable style. It covers issues such as pawn structure, bishops vs. knigths, rook power, that are the bread-and-butter of every chess player. I am a researcher in Computer Science, retired from competitive chess, but I am still a strong club player (best rating: 2250 ELO). I read Pachman on my teens, and it had a very positive influence on me. Therefore, the earlier in your carrer you read Pachman, the better. When you advance to the ELO 2000 level, you should also read John Watson's "Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy" which is a very nice complement to Pachman's classic book.

This book is a compact version of three-volume set of Pachman's original work. For many decades after WW II, he was known as one of the leading chess theorists. For this set of books, there are:
Volume 1: about piece plays and exchanges.
Volume 2: about pawn structures and the center.
Volume 3: about attacking on the wings, where one has superior position like pawn majority or weakness and subjected to a minority attack. (How Yin-Yang can chess be?)
I found in a local library the first two volumes, and like them very much. For some time, I had a few chess books. In the openings, I have: Horowitz', Korn's and Fine's. For the endings, I have Fine's. I also have Tartakover's 500 master games. I could not find any GOOD books about theory in middle games. Then I got the books of Chernev (Most Instructive Chess Games...) and John Love's (Positional Ideas...). They teach about the middle games. Love's is good but not enough details, and I could not follow the logic (arrangement) of Chernev's. Finally I found this impressive work of Pachman. I know I must have Pachman's books in my collection. One day, I found at a local used chess bookstore these books. The curious thing was I here found only the last two volumes. I grasped them at once and knew that my collection was still incomplete. A few years ago, I found this compact version of Pachman. I got it, knowing that in this book the new editor dropped out lots of games. I agreed with other reviewers, Pachman took great care to select good games for his books. The new single volume book lost some of its value. It is still good enough to carry to a tournament as reference book, however to fully appreciate Pachman's effort, only the complete 3-volume set can do its justice. I plan to get the first volume to complete my collection, and the compact one is for reference.
The arrangement of Pachman's work makes lots of sense. For tactical (easiest) chess, the piece play has the dominant roles as we see sub-1500 players often do. At the super-1800 level, the players begins to play positionally (more difficult), work with pawn structure and center more. After that, if both players are at higher level, they will work on the dynamic elements (most difficult): space superiority, square weakness, development lead, positional sacrifice, etc.
Of course, this superficial opinion is from my only sub-1700 level, for sure the higher rank reader will think differently.
This book was written in the pre-Fischer and Tal era, so the games didn't have much the dynamical aspects of the late 20th century chess. Even so, the theory and application of Pachman's work still find its characteristics in Nunn, Burgess, Karpov, Kasparov's chess and writings.