Understanding Pawn Play in Chess [Paperback]

Drazen Marovic (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2000

Chess owes its extraordinary strategic depth to pawns. These humble pieces can take on many roles in the chess struggle. They can be blockers, battering rams, self-sacrificing heroes, and can even be promoted to the ranks of royalty. On the other hand, if mishandled, they can be weak and provide targets for enemy attack. In this book, experienced grandmaster and trainer Drazen Marovic elucidates the pawn's multi-faceted nature. By investigating high-quality games from grandmaster practice, he provides the reader with an armoury of pawn-play concepts that will help him or her to make the right judgments at the board. Chapters include: Isolated Pawns, Hanging Pawns, Passed Pawns, Doubled Pawns, Backward Pawns, Pawn-Chains, and Pawn-Islands.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Drazen Marovic is a grandmaster from Croatia, who has won medals as both player and trainer for various national teams. His pupils include Bojan Kurajica, World Under-20 Champion in 1965, and Al Modiahki of Qatar, the first Arabian Grandmaster. Marovic has a wealth of experience as a writer, editor, and television commentator on chess. He is currently the trainer of the Croatian national team.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Gambit Publications (October 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1901983315
• ISBN-13: 978-1901983319
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #658,458 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pawn Structure/Planning your Backbone of the game, October 7, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Understanding Pawn Play in Chess (Paperback)

Often overlooked is the importance of preparing long term planning for not just the endgame, but the use of pawn chains, and even what is considered a weakness, doubled pawns being used as a "battering ram!" and opening a file. These are very important aspects of chess and what has been called the "backbone" of chess is often forgotten in light of only tactics. True, tactics books, trap books and opening books have a very important place and all should be studied. But the "use of pawns" should not just be a chapter in a book, it should be a couple volumes of books! If you are a beginner, even an lower end intermediate player you will get more results in studying tactic and chess traps. But Once you reach a solid intermediate level then you should start thinking more about the finer points of play. Now, I like the overall approach of "Understanding Pawn Play in Chess" but I think a few words (to say the least) were lost in the translation (it seems clear to me that the author's first language was not english), which is why, though I feel this is a good book, some of the important ideas were lost the the translation, and can be a little confusing. Solitis's "Pawn Structure Chess" is a good alternative. I also like going over complete game books such as, "Understanding Chess" and "Unbeatable Chess Lessons and More Unbeaable Chess Lessons" as ways to gain an understanding of all aspects of the game, including the critical use of pawns.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A truly great book, June 24, 2004

By 

reviewerparexec "chessstudent" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Understanding Pawn Play in Chess (Paperback)

This really is the current definitive work on basic pawn structures. It covers six main types with an extremely good range of games covering about 150 years of play.
There is a great index by opening so my suggestion is to use this in conjunction with your opening book. Because as you all know pawn structure is derived from the opening. Major openings covered include: Queens Gambit declined & accepted, French defense, Sicilian and Nimozo Indian. The explanations are easily understood and really get down to the point. In one game which covered the queen's gambit I was able to relate what I had learned from Saddlers coverage of the QGD Lasker defense to the isolated pawn game in Marovic's book. In addition the key blunder made by Vidmar was brilliantly explained by Marovic, it was not the pawn move g3 that was the cause of the problem but the subsequent later exchange of the white squared bishop. Overall all serious players must buy this book to cover pawn play. Do n't waste time on kmoch's obsolete "Pawn Power". I am looking forward to his other books. I have no doubt that any player below 2000 ELO will benefit from a 50 point increase in strength from reading this book.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for the advanced amateur, November 22, 2006

By 

Calvin Olson "chess expert and freelance proo... (Vallejo, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Understanding Pawn Play in Chess (Paperback)

This book uses complete games to examine pawn structures--their strengths and weaknesses. Marovic uses a conversational tone to explain important points and keeps analysis to the minimum needed to illustrate the explanation. In separate chapters he examines isolated pawns, passed pawns, doubled pawns, backward pawns and pawn-chains.
Marovic uses games from throughout the history of chess to illustrate his material and does a great job. I would recommend this book for players rated (USCF) from Class B and up, although rapidly advancing lower rated players would also benefit from reading the book as well.
The only thing that could make it better would be a few more diagrams.