Chess Software Buying Guide

3. Studying Positional Chess

In his Chess Life column I mentioned above, Evans downplayed positional chess a bit. Here's where I disagree with him - in my opinion, you can't become a competent chess player (that's "competent", not even "good") before you understand the rudiments of positional play. I didn't get even halfway comfortable with my chess play until I'd read a couple of positional chess primers (back in the days before electronic tools).

Positional Chess For Beginners:

A beginning player should really concentrate on tactics above all else, but when you're ready to dip your foot into the positional pool, start with ABCs of Middlegames (described above). It's not a positional chess course, but you'll be exposed to some rudimentary elements of positional play.

Positional Chess For Intermediate Players:

This call's dead easy - as far as electronic materials go the three-disk series Basic Positional Ideas is the "Bible" of positional play. Read and play through this entire chess training software package. Then read and play through it again. Then again, over and over until your eyes bleed. I'm completely confident that if you read, understand, and apply the material on this DVD your chess play will improve dramatically. You won't be lost at sea when trying to come up with a plan anymore; you still might come up with the wrong plan occasionally (hey, that's chess) but you'll have a good grasp of "what to do when there's nothing to do" (i.e. when there are no immediate tactics on the board). It's pretty well-known that good positional play gives you the opportunity to set up successful tactical shots (even though he had no idea what "positional chess" was, Paul Morphy was a pretty good positional player).

That leads us straight into the next recommendation. After you've completed the Basic Positional Ideas course, the next course of study should be Strategy and Tactics. While some of this material might be over the head of the typical intermediate player, this CD of instructional videos will illustrate the close bond between strategy and tactics and show the practical application of converting a positional advantage into a material one through the application of successful chess tactics.

Positional Chess For Advanced Players:

In addition to Strategy and Tactics (described in the preceding paragraph), I also recommend Right Decisions (which may also be suitable for higher-rated [Class B] intermediate players). The CD contains more than 500 games which include over 4,000 timed chess training questions, many of which are very difficult. The title says it all; we're often confronted with positions in which more than one course of action looks good. Right Decisions will help hone your skills in making the correct choice when you come to a fork in the road.

Squares Strategy 1 (with further volumes in the works) deals mainly with color complexes. While the concept might be appropriate for intermediate players, the execution on these disks is a bit complex (some might say unnecessarily so). You'll not only need to unlearn what you already know about analyzing positions, but you'll also need to learn a complex new acronym terminology that the author employs. It's not for the squeamish, and I think only advanced players (and perhaps some very driven/dedicated intermediates) should tackle this one.

Another disk geared mainly toward higher intermediates and advanced players is Isolated Queen Pawn. It's a common positional theme in chess, yet it's also paradoxically somewhat specialized.

Before we return to our list of areas of chess study, we're going to make a detour into an area which combines tactics and strategy (although with an emphasis on the former): attacking chess. Many of our favorite chess players (like Alekhine, Tal, Shirov, and Kasparov) are fearsome attackers, and we'd all like to learn to play the same way. Our detour here is a sort of "sub-course" on attacking chess.

Attacking Chess For Beginners:

Check & Mate is a good basic to intermediate course on how to attack your opponent's position. It's not only good instruction, it's also pretty fun. Each game contains ten timed training questions which challenge you to find the best move. The entire theme is how to build and maintain an attack. It's always more fun to attack than it is to defend, so that's why I say that this CD is fun as well as instructional (and some of the video clips are a riot, too).

Attacking Chess For Intermediate and Advanced Players:

The two disk series Attacking Chess provides you with a great instructional course in how to create and maintain an attack. The instruction is provided via videos which also use the on-screen chessboard as a "wallboard", illustrating what the instructor is saying. The commentary is lively and entertaining and I highly recommend these disks as the "next step" after Check & Mate.

Check out the Chess Middlegame Training page for the positional and attacking chess software available from ChessCentral.

1. Chess Playing Software
2. Chess Tactics Software
3. Positional Chess Software
4. Chess Endgame Software
5. Chess Openings Software
6. Chess Advice


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