IMPROVE YOUR POSITIONAL CHESS
Author: Carsten Hansen
Gambit Publishing (2004)
195 pages
$25.95
Reviewed by John Watson
Gambit continues to produce the best books relating to the broader subjects of strategy, positional play, and chess philosophy. I have two favorites this time around. Carsten Hansen’s IMPROVE YOUR POSITIONAL CHESS is a blend of generally accepted principles and more sophisticated concepts, all mixed with interesting opinions and interpretations. Hansen uses exclusively middlegame examples to make his points, ones that are extremely well chosen and nonstandard. Right off I should confess that I didn’t even recognize most of them, even including many from contests between top-level players. Karpov is by far the most-represented player with twenty-eight positions (called “games” in the Index). In fact, Kasparov with “only” ten positions appears to be in clear second place. The list of positions is also dominated by modern examples (there are three by Botvinnik, none by Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, etc.). For the experienced reader, this is a pleasant contrast with the dozens of middlegame books that use principally or exclusively classical positions. For practical training, the examples are at least as educational and interesting as traditional ones. Hansen’s choices will serve a more advanced audience best, but any developing player who wants to be challenged can advance his or her general chess knowledge by leaps and bounds. To be ready to tackle this book, I don’t think you need more than a thorough understanding of just one basic principles book or a couple of years of serious chess experience.
The book is divided into four main parts (General Terms, Relative Value of the Pieces, Dealing with Pawns, and Big Decisions). Within those parts are twelve chapters such as “The Quest for Weaknesses”, “The Exchange”, “Structural Weaknesses”, etc. Each is followed by sets of exercises, generally three-six per chapter, with the last chapter solely devoted to thirty more practice positions. The subsections of each chapter (not explicitly indexed) cover an even wider range of topics which constitute the essence of positional chess, for example, isolated pawns, backward pawns, king safety, piece distribution and coordination, opposite-colored bishops, open files, centre, initiative, and much more. Thus, apart from its other good qualities, IMPROVE YOUR POSITIONAL CHESS serves as a substantive middlegame manual.
[An aside: Hansen’s first chapter is entitled “Understanding Imbalances”, emphasizing the need to understand and evaluate ten types of imbalances in a position. Sometimes we are unaware of the originator of an idea or method. Jeremy Silman deserves credit for the original use of this term (at least in the same sense and depth as later authors have used it), and for his detailed development of the concept.]
Within limited space, I think a good way to describe this book’s ideas and style is to give illustrative quotes, including his own. In the Introduction, Hansen has a section entitled “Chess is 99% Tactics”, which begins:
“This claim was first made by Richard Teichmann, and has since been repeated hundreds of times in a variety of books of all sorts by all kinds of authors. Yet I shall allow myself to disagree, as I think it is, at best, misguided. The reason I think so is because the tactics normally exist because of an imbalance in one or more positional factors. Nimzowitsch once wrote: ‘Positional play and combinative play have to support each other,’ and he continues: ‘To play positional chess is to make a claim of the following kind: I’m better centralized than my opponent’ or ‘my opponent is weak on the light squares’ and so on. But one thing is to make the claim, another is to prove it. And now it should be, as some kind of peculiarity, observed, that positional play doesn’t always have the sufficient capacity to make the proof. Often enough it will come about without any difficulty: e.g. the centralization will force the opponent to seek to lighten the pressure through ‘restrained’ exchanges: as a result, several tempi are lost and the centralized party will obtain a superior endgame ... but there are also other cases where the positional superiority cannot be demonstrated by positional play. In these cases the combinative play will have to assist. In this we see the deeper importance of combinative play; isn’t it wonderful that combinative play, despite its explosive dynamite-filled content, in a way still applies to positional play!”
The 2nd World Champion, Emanuel Lasker, once wrote: “By combination the master aims to show up and defeat the false values; the true values shall guide him in positional play, which in turn shall bring those values to honor.”
Hansen then states: “I think that chess is at least 90% based on positional factors.”
Hansen goes on to support this last claim throughout the book. Whether or not 90% is the correct figure (even for such an ambiguous division I think it’s a bit high), I have long thought much the same: the fact that the results of many games are due to tactics leads people to grossly underestimate the role of the strategy that produced a tactical solution. It is also relevant that the player who is strategically worse is much more likely to make tactical mistakes or blunders.
Here’s another assertion with which I agree and which corresponds to my teaching experience:
“My personal opinion is that the queen is a fairly overrated piece. Many players place far too much emphasis on the queen and consider it almost priceless. With that notion in mind, these same players think that a middlegame without queens on the board is boring and almost certainly on the way to a draw. However, this is far from the case.
Against aggressive dynamic attacking players, a very effective weapon is to exchange queens. This strategy was used effectively by Kramnik against Kasparov in their 2000 world championship match.
I’m sure that you will question whether you can play like Kramnik, and most of us certainly cannot, but pretty much all of us cannot play like Kasparov either. Therefore all we do is set the level a bit lower, but the factors remain the same: most dynamic, aggressive players will be unhappy with the departure of the queens. Then there is another group of players that are happy when the queens are off the board: those who play for a draw. But again, armed with knowledge of how to handle queenless middlegames, you will be able to retain excellent chances of playing for a win.”
Indeed. The last point is something that masters know but is seldom if ever clearly explained in a book. Probably the draws in Kramnik-Kasparov do not serve as the most convincing examples, though, given the hundreds of decisive grandmaster games to be chosen from! Hansen also directs attention to another common misconception of players (even some advanced ones): that opposite-colored bishops are a drawing factor. Hansen: “While [the presence of opposite-colored bishops] may be [a drawing factor] in some cases, there are so many exceptions that with other pieces on the board it cannot be considered a rule any longer.” He presents an example Larsen-Schandorff, Danish Ch 1999, whose fascination derives from the fact that Hansen begins at a point well before most authors would. Unfortunately I’ll have to skip most of his superior explanation (rewording the basic ideas) but the game to some extent speaks for itself:
26.a3!
“With this pawn sacrifices White forces Black to give up his light-squared bishop for a knight” [jw: thus creating opposite-colored bishops which favor the attacker, particularly due to Black’s damaged pawn structure]
26...Bxe4 27.Qxe4 f5?!
Further weakening the pawn structure.
28.Qf3 Bxa3 29.Rb7 Qd6 30.d5 exd5 31.Bxd5 Bb4?
31...f4! would have been better – Hansen quotes analysis by Lutz to demonstrate this.
32.Bc4?
Better 32.Qxf5.
32...Qe5?
Black misses ...f4 again, and in short order we return to the basic idea.
33.Bd3 Kh8 34.Bxf5
It may seem surprising that White is very likely winning here. Hansen: “In order to save pawns on the kingside, he has to set up his pieces very passively, leaving the rest of the board to White.”
34...Qg7 35.Bc2 Kg8 36.Kg2 Kh8 37.Bb3 Kg8 38.h4 h6 39.Qd5 Bc3 40.Rb6 Kh8 41.Qh5 Bf6 42.Ra6
“Black is completely tied down”, so he sacrifices the a-pawn to no avail.
42...a4 43.Bxa4 Rb8 44.Bc2 Kg8 45.Bd3 Bd4 46.Bc4! Kf8 47.Qd5! Re8? 48.Rxh6 Qxh6 49.Qxf7, 1–0.
A terrific example, because he shows how the basic principle applies even with greatly reduced material on the board. [Hansen’s full notes are also presented more fluently than my rewritten ones.]
Just thumbing through the book one will see how economically the author makes the relevant points without cluttering up a game with the various details such as technical mistakes. He does carefully note the latter, which are inevitable in over-the-board play, but he makes clear that they have little to do with the point at hand. I can’t emphasize enough how well Hansen keeps the readers on track by using verbal explanations whenever possible. I should also mention his broad research into games annotated by others, showing where he thinks they misunderstand the underlying issues.
As with any original book, it is fun to disagree with an opinion or contention here and there. As I see it Hansen sometimes makes a point without the examples being very compelling. And that may reflect the weakness of the assertion itself. For example, he has a short section called “Bishop and Knight vs. Rook”, which begins as follows:
“A somewhat related topic to the exchange is the issue of rook vs. two minor pieces. Nominally two pieces should always be worth more than a rook, but when the two pieces are bishop and knight, matters are not always as easy, especially if the side with the rook has one or two pawns thrown into the mix.”
The statement about bishop-and-knight being in general worse than other two-piece combinations is not something I’m familiar with, nor agree with, since he is talking about their presence when there are other pieces on the board. Here are two of his three supporting examples. The first one comes from Torre-Karpov, Tilburg 1982:
“First let’s look at an example of how to take advantage of the bishop & knight vs. rook advantage.”
“The first impression I get from looking at this position is that Black must be better. His bishop is nicely placed and there is a potential for an attack on the kingside along the f-file. However, Black must proceed with care as all of White’s pieces are actively placed. Karpov nonetheless makes the win look very easy.”
That doesn’t seem to provide much support for the thesis! In fact, Hansen goes on to show Karpov winning with excellent technique, while not using the f-file. Not only do the bishop and knight win, but at no point do I see them as the source of any problems. Indeed, I’d rather have them than a knight pair in most such situations.
The second example comes from Panno-Petrosian, Buenos Aires 1979. A series of forced exchanges leads to the two-minor-pieces-versus-rook position:
Hansen: “White has a rook and pawn versus two minor pieces, and as we know from before, knight and bishop are not considered to work particularly well together.” He thinks that, in spite of the fact that Black has a weak e-pawn, other factors outweigh it and add up to a cause for White’s problems. Those factors include his weak light squares around the king, the weakness of the c3-square, and a defensively placed rook. Frankly, if you gave me this position as Black and took away those factors (i.e., Black’s and White’s weaknesses, the position of White’s rook, etc), I’d feel very confident about winning, even against strong opposition. At any rate, I’m not sure what the example proves, as Black has no trouble achieving a dominant position within seven or eight moves:
30.Qc5 Qd5 31.Qc8+ (31.Qxd5 Nxd5 32.a3 Nc3; Hansen calls the favorable exchange of queens an “unusual” situation and he’s right, but all it means is that if the exchange of queens hadn’t yielded Black the advantage, he probably wouldn’t have offered it) 31...Kf7 32.Qc7+ Kg6 33.Qxa5 Qd2 34.Kf1 Bc6 35.f3 Nd5 36.Qc5 Ne3+ 37.Kf2 Nc2 38.Rb1 Nd4 39.Qe5 Bxf3 40.Qe3 Qxe2+ 41.Qxe2 Bxe2 42.Ke3 e5 43.Rb2 Kf5, 0–1.
Having given such examples, he should at least provide a couple showing the other two minor piece combinations working together better and being successful. As is the case with so many rule-like constructions, I think the idea of bishop and knight not coordinating well against rook-and-pawn stems from the commonplace observation that it holds true in a pure endgame without any other pieces. Even then it tends only to be true when the side with the rook has a passed pawn that is at some distance from the other pawns. As far as I know, bishop-and-knight in the middlegame are in no way inferior to two knights (normally better, in fact) and even though two bishops are generally better than the other two combinations, the fact that they can’t pile up on one point can make the bishop-and-knight superior in quite a few positions.
Similarly, while pointing out a genuine and important misconception about the worth of queens (described above), Hansen makes the point with three odd supporting examples. In one White’s tactical advantages and attack give him a winning advantage. In another Black brilliantly sacrifices his queen for two bishops, two pawns. This is almost enough material by standard assessments (9 to 8 by simple point count), and Black also gains great activity. In spite of all that, White could have maintained an advantage, as Hansen shows. Instead White was thrown off psychologically and faltered. That is typical after queen exchanges or sacrifices for multiple pieces, but this has no objective theoretical weight. Finally, the most straightforward example is this variation from theory:
Adams-Ivanchuk, Dortmund 1998
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 0–0 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.0–0–0 d5 10.Kb1 Nxd4 11.e5 Nf5 12.exf6
