Winning Chess Middlegames Shortlisted for The Guardian Chess Book of the Year Award Runner-up for the English Chess Federation Book of the Year Award Honourable Mention, CHESS Magazine Best Book of the Year Praise for Winning Chess Middlegames: “This structured approach is quite instructive as often players choose their opening repertoire according to quite haphazard criteria, randomly picking up lines without giving serious consideration to how the resulting middlegames would suit them.” GM Michael Adams “Sokolov covers his material deeply, offering not glib generalities but very specific insights and explanations. Great games, marvellous analysis.” Dennis Monokroussos, ChessToday “I recommend this book to everyone who, coming out of the opening more or less ok, doesn’t know how to proceed.” Martin Rieger, FreeChess “The author skilfully unearths the main ideas and pivotal moments in structures that continuously recur. I like his verbal notes which tend to be very clear and, indeed, instructive.” Former British Champion GM Jonathan Rowson “A pioneering effort from Ivan Sokolov that will benefit players of all levels, including masters.” IM David Vigorito, ChessCafe “The lucid and informative explanations convey a large amount of genuine Grandmasterly wisdom. This is easily one of the best middlegame books of recent times.” Sean Marsh, CHESS Magazine “Using 45 model games, which includes a nice balance of analysis and prose, Sokolov explains the pros and cons of each structure. A great book.” IM John Donaldson “A major achievement by Sokolov. Where opening books stop, this book continues.” Johan Hut, Gooi en Eemlander “Excellent!” Henry Tanner, Suomen Shakki Magazine (Finland)
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Winning Chess Middlegames
Shortlisted for The Guardian Chess Book of the Year Award
Runner-up for the Eng lish Chess Federation Book of the Year Award
Honourable Men tion, CHESS Magazine Best Book of the Year
Praise for Win ning Chess Middlegames:
“This structured ap proach is quite in structive as often play ers choose theirope ning rep er toire ac cord ing to quite hap haz ard cri te ria, ran domly pick ing up
lines with out giv ing se ri ous con sid er ation to howthe re sulting middlegames would suit them.”
GM Mi chael Ad ams
“Sokolov covers his ma terial deeply, offering not glib gen eralities but veryspe cific in sights and ex pla na tions. Great games, mar vel lous anal y sis.”
Dennis Monokroussos, ChessToday
“I recommend this book to everyone who, coming out of the opening more orless ok, does n’t know how to proceed.”
Martin Rieger, FreeChess
“The au thor skilfully un earths the main ideas and pivotal mo ments in structuresthat con tinuously recur. I like his verbal notes which tend to be very clear and,
in deed, in struc tive.”For mer Brit ish Cham pion GM Jon a than Rowson
“A pi oneering effort from Ivan Sokolov that will ben efit play ers of all levels,in clud ing mas ters.”
IM David Vigorito, ChessCafe
“The lu cid and in formative explanations convey a large amount of gen uineGrandmasterly wisdom. This is easily one of the best middlegame books of
re cent times.”Sean Marsh, CHESS Magazine
“Using 45 model games, which in cludes a nice bal ance of analysis and prose,Sokolov explains the pros and cons of each structure. A great book.”
IM John Donaldson
“A major achievement by Sokolov. Where ope ning books stop,this book con tinues.”
Johan Hut, Gooi en Eemlander
“Ex cel lent!”Henry Tanner, Suomen Shakki Magazine (Fin land)
“I recommend it to anyone in terested in Nimzo-Indian and Queen’s Gambitpawn structures – which should be pretty much everyone in terested in chess, of
course. The book con tains fantastic, personal and sincere views ofchess and game anal ysis.”Arne Moll, ChessVibes
“An ex traor di narily in struc tive book and indispensible in struc tion ma te rial for d4-play ers.”
Max Euwe Center, Am sterdam
“Sokolov’s ap preciation of the nu ances of pawn play provides much use fulmaterial for as piring club play ers, since a structured ap proach helps re solve
many di lem mas which re cur reg u larly in prac ti cal play.”IM Bernard Cafferty, Brit ish Chess Mag azine
“Sokolov is extremely ob jective in his ap praisals, and explains excellently themiddlegame ideas and plans, while tak ing the spe cific as pects of the pawn
structures into ac count.”KARL Mag a zine (Ger many)
“The au thor has worked quite thoroughly and with great pre cision.”Dr W.Schweitzer, Europa Rochade
“If you like heavily an alyzed games, this is one of the best col lections to bepublished in recent years.”Andy Soltis, Chess Life
“Not only a book you should own, it is one you should use.”Mark Donlan, Chess Ho rizons
“Sokolov, who writes clearly and di rectly, shows the kind of tac tical andstrategic play ap propriate to a wide range of middlegame pawn po sitions.”
In tro duc tionI started working on this book in March, 2007. As usu ally happens, due to dif ferentreasons, it took me lon ger than my publisher and me had planned and I finished mywork in August 2008. In this book I wanted to ex plore the – in my opin ion – fourmost important types of pawn structure in chess.
Quite a number of books on pawn structures have been published, and one mayrightly wonder what makes this book dif ferent.
Well, I have tried, as much as pos sible, to 1. systematize the the matic plans used and give clear explanations of them, and 2. incorporate the ideas of the featured ope ning variation into the pawn struc-
ture that en sues.
The lat ter is ac tually quite important. In the pre-computer era players normally pol -ished their open ing rep ertoire over the years, and even though open ing prep arationdid not go nearly as far as to day, years of the oretical and prac tical ex perience brush-ing up one’s rep ertoire would normally re sult in a rea sonably good strategic un der-standing of the po sitions arising from the open ings played.
In the past 15 years, the involvement of com puter pro grams and databases hasmade it con sid er ably eas ier to pre pare a par tic u lar vari a tion for a par tic u lar op po -nent. However, thorough study and good strategic un derstanding of the po sitionsstill re mains a must in or der to capitalize suc cessfully on your open ing prep aration. Istill re member watching one of Anatoly Karpov’s post-mortems, when he had wonfrom some ini tially in ferior Ruy Lopez with black. His op ponent, slightly an noyed,remarked: ‘Here, af ter the ope ning, you were definitely worse’, to which the 12thWorld Champion calmly replied: ‘Yes, but soon af ter I was better’.
Indeed, Karpov has won from quite a number of in ferior po sitions (his en coun-ters with Garry Kasparov in cluded), due to his su perior strategic un derstanding ofthe ope nings he was playing. Kasparov has won many Najdorfs and King’s In diansnot only be cause he had the best novelties, but be cause he fun damentally un derstoodthose po sitions better than his op ponents. On the other hand he was too stubborn toadmit that the Berlin Variation of the Ruy Lopez was not ‘his cup of tea’, which ul ti-mately cost him his World Championship title against Vladimir Kramnik in 2000.
Kramnik, on the other hand, be ing devastating in Catalan-type sys tems withwhite and Meran Slavs with black, at some stage started to opt for sharp Si cilians withwhite and King’s In dians with black. That adventure did not last very long. Nowadayshe is a merciless killing machine with his Cata lans again, squeez ing out the smallestof mi croscopic advantages, while the King’s In dian with black is a long-forgottenvoyage.
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If such mis takes are com mitted by the world’s very best, then what are we to ex pectfrom lesser gods? Through out my own ca reer, I have also scored rea sonably well inthe po sitions I un derstood and paid the price for be ing too stub born to stay awayfrom po sition types that did not suit me.
So the reasons why I have tried in this book to in corporate the stra tegic middlegameideas and the games which I view as im portant into the four dif ferent types of pawnstructure dis cussed in this book, were:
1. to provide a complete guide for the club player;2. through a pro cess of se rious analysis of the material in this book, to also give
the club player a rea sonably accurate feeling as to which particular po sitionssuit him and which do not; and
3. to give the club player who takes his time for a thor ough study of this book,new stra tegic and also prac tical ope ning knowledge, af ter which he will defi-nitely see a clear improvement in his re sults.
In the in troductions to the four dif ferent chapters, I will further ex plain the distin-guishing types of position, games and variations featured.
I hope that, apart from trying to improve his chess skills, the reader will also sim plyenjoy studying the games selected in this book.
Ivan Sokolov,Au gust 2008
Winning Ches s Middlegames
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Chap ter 2
Iso lated Pawns
In tro duc tionIn Chapter 2 I have followed a similar structure as in the chapter on dou bled pawns,with the dif ference that here I have di vided the material into two sec tions. The firstsection shows several suc cessfully em ployed strat egies to fight against the iso latedpawn, while the second sec tion focuses on plans to be im plemented by the side thathas the iso lated pawn.
Isolated pawn structures are arguably the structures that arise from the most dif -ferent ope nings (Tarrasch De fence and Semi-Tarrasch, Queen’s Gam bit Ac cepted,Queen’s Gam bit De clined, Nimzo-Indian De fence, Meran Variation, Ragozin Varia-tion, Petroff De fence, etc.) and are therefore very important po sitions to un derstand,regardless of the ope ning preferences a player may have. In the com ments to thegames, the club player will not only be ex plained the main strategic ideas, but he willalso re ceive a lot of in formation about the openings played.
If the reader takes enough time to study this chapter, he should be well-armed tomeet a number of variations in prac tical tournament play.
A) Play ing against an iso lated pawn
Struc ture 2.1 (Game 20 – Ivanchuk-Aronian). Here aclassical isolated pawn-position is reached, where theside fight ing against the iso lated pawn has a good block-ade while the side with the iso lated pawn has seeminglyenough counterplay to make a draw. With mas terful play,Ivanchuk first quashes Aronian’s counterplay and thenexploits the weakness of the isolated pawn.
Struc ture 2.2 (Game 21 – Kramnik-Illescas Cor doba). In one of the main variations of the Tarrasch De fence, fight-ing against an iso lated pawn, Kramnik em ploys awell-known strategy of cre ating a second weakness to tar-get. When the knights are ex changed on c6, Black re cap-tures with his b7 pawn and now, in stead of an iso latedpawn on d5, the newly-created weakness on c6 is the ob -ject of White’s at tention. In our main game (Kramnik-
Illescas Cor doba) and other games featured in the com -ments (Kasparov-Illescas Cor doba, Sokolov- Petrosianand Ljubojevic-Gligoric), this classical strat egy is ex -plained.
Struc ture 2.3 (Game 22 – Jaracz-P.H.Nielsen). In thisgame an other strat egy is em ployed. Fighting against anisolated pawn, White at some stage ex changes a blackknight on e4 and af ter Black re captures with …d5xe4 arelative pawn sym metry is reached, where White’s pieces are better placed for the en suing ac tions.
B) Play ing with an iso lated pawn
Struc ture 2.4 (Game 23 – Petrosian-Spassky). In this beau -ti ful clas sic World Cham pi on ship en coun ter, Spassky, play-ing with an iso lated pawn, at some stage ex changes knightson d4, and af ter Petrosian recaptures e3xd4, a pawn sym -metry in the cen tre (white d4/black d5) is reached, whichdras ti cally changes the stra te gic ob jec tives. In gen eral, giventhe fact that both sides have a light-squared bishop re main-ing (the dark-squared ones have been ex changed), such atransaction should in gen eral favour White. However, withthe beau tiful knight ma noeuvre 32...Àh7!, Spassky bril-liantly ex poses the de ficiencies of the white po sition andwins the game in style.
Struc ture 2.5 (Game 24 – Sokolov-Cebalo). In my owngame I em ployed a sim ilar strategy; at some stage ex -changing knights on d5, and af ter the forced re capture…e6xd5, a pawn sym metry in the cen tre (whited4/black d5) is reached, where the su periority ofWhite’s light-squared bishop to his black col league (thedark-squared ones be ing exchanged), com bined withWhite’s con trol of the e5-square, along with the kingsideattack that is developed, plays a crucial role.
Struc ture 2.6 (Game 25 – Kasparov-Karpov and Game 26– Sokolov-Schandorff). Here, the same cen tral ex changetransaction oc curs as in the two previous games(Petrosian-Spassky and Sokolov-Cebalo), with the dif fer-ence that now White has a knight as a minor piece andBlack a light-squared bishop. In gen eral, the knight is su -perior here. Most of the time, Black’s light-squared bishopcombines badly with its own pawn on d5 – a light square–, and the dark-squared bish ops are al ready ex changed.
Struc ture 2.7 (Game 27 – Beliavsky-Illescas Cor doba)shows a beau ti ful, orig i nal rook ma noeu vre, ex e cuted byIllescas Cor doba playing with an iso lated pawn.
Struc ture 2.8 (Game 28 – Vyzhmanavin-Beliavsky andGame 29 – Sokolov-Nikolic): White, playing with an iso -lated pawn, executes a d4-d5 pawn break, af ter which afew pieces are ex changed. When a pawn sym metry is lefton the board (two vs two on the queenside, three vs threeon the kingside), White will have a dom inantly-placedpiece on the d5-square, caus ing trou ble for Black.
Game 30 (Kramnik-Hübner) shows a slightly un ortho-dox and un common idea: White sacrifices his cen tral(isolated) pawn in or der to eliminate Black’s bishop pairand gain a few tempi to develop an initiative.
Struc ture 2.9 (Game 31 – Kasparov-Timman). Here andin the following games we ana lyse an important stra tegicidea for White, where he sac rifices his iso lated pawn un -der dif ferent cir cumstances (mostly by playing d4-d5),either to dis organize Black’s pieces or to take advantage(should Black re capture with a pawn) of a beau tifulnewly-created out post for the knight on d4, as well as theopen e-file for the white rook on e1, which creates vari-ous sac rificial motifs around tak ing the black bishop one7 with the rook. In our first game (Kasparov-Timman),the purpose is to take advantage of the disorganization ofBlack’s pieces caused by the sac rifice.
Struc ture 2.10 (Game 32 – Petrosian-Spassky, Game 33– Kramnik-Anand 1999 and Game 34 – Kramnik-Anand2001). These games ex cellently demonstrate White’s at-tacking po tential should Black capture the pawn sac ri-ficed on d5 with his e6 pawn.
Game 35 (Illescas Cor doba-Short) again shows thepower of the pieces af ter a cen tral break with the iso latedpawn, this time by Black with …d5-d4. An ex cellentlearning example dem onstrated by Short. In the com -ments to this game and the analysis diagram (the gameKar pov-Kir.Georgiev in the comments), please ob servethe powerful strat egy of the 12th World Champion,showing that af ter a po tential exchange of pawns on thequeenside in a particular variation of the Tartakower Vari-ation of the Orthodox Queen’s Gam bit, White’s a4 andd4 pawns, which also seem weak, are not much of a rea-son to worry, while Black’s pawns on b6 and c6 couldworry him for a long time to come.
8. a2-a3It is al ready clear that a po sition with an isolated pawn is likely to arise. Whitecould have forced this immediatelywith 8.dxc5.A) Now, rather pas sive and not in the
12. ... b7-b6Closing the centre with 12...c4 is nowdifferent, since White does not have toallow Black to advance his queensidepawns. White’s chances are to be pre-ferred af ter 13.0-0 b6 (or 13...Õe814.a4 b6 15.b3) 14.b3.
It seems that all four rooks are soon go -ing to be exchanged along the c-file, re -sulting in an easy draw for Black. But aswe will soon see, the c-file is not thatim por tant here.Opting for the structure with two hang -ing pawns in the cen tre with 16...bxc5?would not be wise here, since Whitecan un dermine these pawns with thestandard 17.b4! c4 18.Àd4 and with adominant knight and better pawnstructure, White has a mas sive, prob a-bly win ning advantage.
17. Õc3-c1!!A beau tiful move. White keeps therooks on in order to target the weakisolated pawn on d5. For his part, Blackcannot create any counterplay re lated to his con trol of the c-file.
17. ... Õf8-c818. Õc1-d1 Õc5-c219. Ãe2-b5!
An im por tant tempo.19. ... Àd7-f820. Õa1-b1
On the next move, the black rook willbe kicked out.
It seems that White won’t be able to im-prove his po sition, and Black willachieve a draw af ter all. However, thetechnique that Ivanchuk now dis playsto convert his small advantage into a fullpoint is an ex cellent learning examplefor am ateurs and grand masters alike!
24. ®g1-h2!!Stepping away from a check on c1, inorder to dou ble the rooks along thed-file. It is very important for White tokeep all four rooks on the board.
24. ... ®f8-e7Aronian does not find the best de fence.24...Õb5! remains ac tive and equal izes.
The attempt to be come ac tive with27...Õc1 would not help Black af ter28.Õxc1 Õxc1 29.Àd3 Õa1 30.Àb4 d4 (the d5 pawn will be lost anyhow)31.exd4 Àf4 32.d5 ®d6 33.Ãb3 Õe134.Àc6!.
30. ... Õd8-c8?30...Àc5 may still hold: 31.e4 Àa4!(31...Àb3 32.Ãxb3 Õxb3 33.exd5Õd6 (33...®d6 34.Àd3 Õb5 or34...Õe8 35.Àc1! Õb5 36.Àa2)35.Àf4 and Black has a hard timeahead) 34.Àc2 Õxb2 35.Àe3 Õxd236.Õxd2 g6 37.®f4 with a small edge.
31. Àe1-d3!Threatening to trap the b5 rook with32.a4, so Black has to give a pawn.
The Tarrasch De fence is a per fect vari a tion to study this type of po si tion. As we willsee from many ex am ples in this book, for mer World Cham pion Vladi mir Kramnik has played many ex cel lent games both with and against the iso lated pawn. Given the factthat such po si tions oc cur fre quently, it is worth spend ing a con sid er able amount oftime on them to learn the ins and outs.
GAME 21TD 4.16 (D34)Vladi mir KramnikMiguel Illescas CordobaLinares 1994 (6)
White may take on c6 and play againstthe two con nected pawns, targeting thenewly-created weakness on c6 or,should Black put his bishop on e6,White would take with the knight andthen try to make use of his bishop pair.
12. ... Ãe7-f8The other principled way to play this po -sition is 12...Ãg4 and af ter 13.h3 Ãe6,White normally does not capture the
13. Àc3-a4White decides to re main fo cused on the d5 weakness. The other way was to takeon c6 in or der to cre ate and focus on anew weakness for Black. This used to be the main plan here – and it looks ratherlogical to me as well. Some ex amples:13.Àxc6 bxc6 14.Àa4 and now:A) The attempt to cre ate counterplay
White’s strategy is rather clear. Thedark-squared bish ops have been ex -changed, the knight on c5 is a strong,dominant piece and the black pawn onc6 is a newly-created weakness. Blackhas to cre ate counterplay in or der toachieve a dynamic balance. However,without the dark-squared bish ops andwith the white knight so well placed on c5, counterplay is not easy to find.Almost all further piece ex changes fa-vour White: 16...Ãg4 17.Õe1 and now:B1) The stem game in this line,
queens and won the rook end game eas-ily, Sokolov-T.L. Petrosian, Eu ro peanClub Cup, Kemer 2007.I have to ad mit that in my prep arationfor this game, for my de cision whichvariation to choose Kasparov’s gameplayed a crucial role. This decision-making pro cess is in no way con nectedto the pawn structure theme, but maybe use ful for read ers to know.In the past ten years or so, my mainweapon against the Tarrasch had beenthe main line (like in the game): 9.Ãg5cxd4 10.Àxd4 h6 11.Ãf4 (instead of11.Ãe3), lead ing to a slightly betterendgame for White. A few months be -fore my game against Petrosian, I had agame against Akobian. In the slightlybetter end game that resulted af ter11.Ãf4, I never had any real win ningchances and the game ended in a dulldraw. Now, facing Petrosian, I knew theTarrasch would appear on the board. Ihad only about two hours to pre pareand wanted to play something new.Under those circumstances it is use fulto check the games of the world’s verybest. Should the line chosen by themsuit you and not seem too com plicatedto prepare in a few hours, PLAY IT. Inmy pro fessional ca reer this strategy hasserved me very well.
14. Àa4-c5 Àc6-a5Not an easy choice. This knight looksclumsy at the edge of the board, but
other moves also do not cre ate the kindof play Black is hop ing for.In gen eral, Kramnik’s plan is per haps aso phis ti cated ver sion of the al ready dis-cussed 13.Àxc6 bxc6 14.Àa4, since inthe current po sition the b7 pawn hangs,creating an extra problem for Black,while White keeps most of his po si-tional trumps. In case you’re wonderingwhy I did n’t play it myself (againstPetrosian) – well, having limited timeto prepare, I checked only Kasparov’sWhite games against the Tarrasch!
18. Àd4xc6!Quite rightly, Kramnik now de cides tochange the pawn structure and focus onthe newly-created weakness. The log ical18.Õfd1 would reveal the drawback of15.b3 af ter 18...Ãa3! 19.Õb1 Ãc5 withgood play for Black, since af ter20.Àxc6?! he has the the matic ex changesacrifice 20...Õxe3! (not 20...Ãxe3
Winning Ches s Middlegames
96
21.Àb4!) 21.fxe3 bxc6, with at the veryleast good com pen sa tion.
Black is facing a very dif ficult de fence.Due to his better pawn structure, White has a last ing advantage, while Blackdoes not have any dynamic ac tivity tonearly com pensate for the po sitionalproblems re lated to his weak pawns.It is important to note that tran sitionsfrom an iso lated pawn to two weakhanging pawns are a very com mon wayto com bat the iso lated pawn. Con traryto par allel hanging pawns in the cen tre,such weak con nected pawns are by def-inition not mo bile, so there are no tac -tics that can be based on their mobility.
Black loses his a-pawn, but the prob-lems re lated to his ex posed king re -main. A better de fence was 33...Õe8!34.Õa4 Õe5 35.h4 h5, us ing the factthat ei ther the queen or the rook end ingwith four versus three pawns on thesame side is a draw.
Trans fer ring into a fa vour able pawn sym me try
In iso lated pawn-po si tions, one of the sides of ten chooses the right mo ment to ex -change a pair of minor pieces in the cen tre (mostly knights) in or der to reach a fa vour -able sym me try. Such struc tural trans for ma tions are very com mon and with the nextfew games I will try to give a few good examples.
Winning Ches s Middlegames
98
GAME 22SL 8.5 (D45)Pawel JaraczPeter Heine NielsenDresden Ech 2007 (4)
11. c4xd5The stra te gic fea tures of the po si ti o n arebecoming visible. It is rather clear thatthe current sit uation in the centre willtrans form to a po si ti o n where Blackwill ei ther have two par allel hanging
should def i nitely be con sid ered;C3) 15...Õfe8 16.Õfe1 (with a black
rook on e8, 16.Ãb5!?, pin ning theknight, was an other op tion) 16...Ãb817.Àe2 (with both white bish opsworking and the knights get ting trans-ferred to the kingside, threats will soon
17. ... c5xd4!Black correctly de cides that the time has come to change the pawn structure inthe cen tre. He opts for the iso latedpawn po si ti o n, cor rectly judg ing thatwith his well-placed pieces he hasnothing to fear.
18. Àf3xd4 Àd7-c519. Ãe2-f3 Ãd6-e5
The bishop is well placed on e5, so thepo ten tial weak ness cre ated by White’s13th move is rather irrelevant at themo ment.
This stan dard move, though log ical init self, al lows a beau ti ful tac ti cal pos si -
Winning Ches s Middlegames
100
bility. It was nec essary to first secure the c5 knight with 20...a5! and only thenproceed with ...Àfe4, with betterchances for Black.Now White spots a new tac tical mo tifthat co mes as a consequence of thepossibility to change the pawn struc-ture in the cen tre. Please note thatgenerally, tac tics cre ated by a changein pawn structure are very easy tomiss.
Now the pawn structure is symmetri-cal, but all of White’s pieces are work-ing harmoniously, while Black’s b7bishop is hit ting its own pawn. Whitenow executes a very nice po sitionalexchange sac rifice that is worthremembering.
For only an ex change White has fullcontrol, the black king is weak and hiskingside pawn structure is de stroyed,and the b7 bishop is re duced to a merepawn.