A top chess coach explains the fundamentals of chess strategy to amateur players. Herman Grooten, an International Master with over 25 years of experience, has written a systematic primer about the basics of positional understanding, with a massive amount of examples and exercises.

Chess Strategy for Club Players

Humor & Entertainment

Grooten, Herman

Puzzles & Games

New In Chess

Every chess player loves to attack the enemy King. Your goal is clear, your thinking is concrete, your creativity is in gear and direct victory is just around the corner. Few things in life are better than a conducting a blistering King's attack! But how good are you actually at attacking? Have you ever analysed your efforts? Looked at calculation errors, missed chances and derailed efforts? Highly experienced chess trainer Herman Grooten finds that many of his pupils overestimate their attacking skills. Their fond memories of successful assaults often obscure the fact that there was a lot of room for improvement in their play. After the immense success of his award-winning classic Chess Strategy for Club Players Herman Grooten has now written an equally accessible primer on attacking chess. He teaches you how to spot opportunities, exploit weaknesses, bring your forces to the frontline and strike at the right moment. Grooten concentrates on training the most valuable skills: visualizing, structuring, anticipating, calculating, memorizing and other mental aspects. This is not just another collection of useful thematic moves but a complete and highly structured course of attacking techniques. With great and fresh examples, clear explanations and many instructive exercises.

Attacking Chess for Club Players: Improve Your Skills to Overpower Your Opponent

Every club player knows the problem: the opening has ended, and now what? With this new edition of his award winning book, International Master Herman Grooten presents to amateur players a complete and structured course on how to recognize key characteristics in all types of positions and how to make use of those characteristics to choose the right plan. His teachings are based on the famous “Elements” of Wilhelm Steinitz, but Grooten has significantly expanded and updated the work of the first World Champion. He supplies many modern examples, tested in his own practice as a coach of talented youngsters. In Chess Strategy for Club Players you will learn the basic elements of positional understanding: pawn structure, piece placement, lead in development, open files, weaknesses, space advantage and king safety. You will master the art of converting a temporary plus into other, more permanent advantages. The author also explains what to do when, in a given position, the basic principles seem to point in different directions. Each chapter of this fundamental primer ends with a set of highly instructive exercises. This new 3rd edition has, besides various corrections and improvements, a new introduction and a brand-new chapter called ‘Total Control’ with new exercises.

Chess Strategy for Club Players: The Road to Positional Advantage (New in Chess)

Although my first book in this new series was well received, it turned out that a new updated and revised edition would not be an unnecessary luxury. This was partly due to the fact that it did not seem a bad idea to add more comments to a sub-variant in the Italian Game, the Max Lange Attack, which had received little attention in the first edition, but could be further explored. That has happened in this edition. Furthermore, it turned out from practice that the part in the Ruy Lopez where White can choose to close the center with d4-d5 needed further explanation. This closed position with a pawn chain arisen in the center, as we know that from the King's Indian Defense, contains some hidden secrets that could be explored a little more. That is why I have compiled several extra pages in which the most important strategic (and also tactical) details of this type of positions are presented. Of course, two model games had to be added for both colors. These have now become the games Sutovsky - Stefanova, Hoogeveen 2015 (for White) and Bruzon Batista - Morozevich, Biel 2006 (for Black), which I have provided with a broad analysis and will be added right behind this strategic overview.Because this book has also become available on the internet platform chessable.com, it seemed a good idea to generate some extra exercises on top. These should of course not be missing in the printed edition. Since in the original version mainly the tactics were dominant, I have now chosen to split the chapter with the exercises into two parts:* Section 1: Tactical exercises* Section 2: Strategic exercisesI offer sixteen extra exercises, divided in both sections and adding more than 80 pages to the previous edition. All in all, with this new edition, I hope to have fulfilled the expectations raised in some reviews. I wish the reader a lot of reading and playing fun while working through this book!Herman Grooten, December 2020.

Understanding before Moving - Volume 1 - Revised & Extended Second Edition (Understanding before Moving, 1)

Thinkers Publishing

Product Description 
Before you lies the second volume in a trilogy about the Sicilian Defense. The first volume dealt with the Najdorf and Scheveningen variations, and it is now time to pay attention to three other extremely popular systems: the Taimanov, Kan and Richter-Rauzer variations. After careful consideration within the Thinkers Publis­-hing team, we decided that it made sense to group these variations together. In particular, the first two are closely related and share the feature that, in both cases, Black plays …e7-e6 and …a7-a6 at an early stage. They typically have the idea of retaining more options for their king’s bishop by postponing …d7-d6 (or even omitting it entirely.) The bishop may go to b4 or c5 in different lines. The Richter-Rauzer is, in theory, just one of the possible developments from a Classical Sicilian. We have already dealt with a few games that started with the Classical and where Black shortly played …e7-e6; and 6.Bc4 (the Sozin variation) was rightly treated within the Scheveningen pages. However, it is clear that White’s most po­pular counter, the Richter-Rauzer variation (6.Bg5) deserves separate attention. While looking at the variation structure for the Kan and Taimanov and deciding on which model games to use, I noticed a lot of possible transitions to the ‘Hedgehog’ structure, shown on the right. The key features are white pawns on e4 and c4, and at least four black pawns on a6, b6, d6 and e6. This structure is ideally suited to the task of playing for a win as Black, because of the very complicated middlegames that arise. (And one often needs complicated middlegames to have a better chance of ‘converting’ a rating advantage!) The ‘Hedgehog’ is definitely a structure rather than a variation, but it has such a distinctive character of its own that I chose to examine it first in chapter 2. This simplifies later discussion of the Taimanov and Kan variations by removing the need to discuss every possible way of entering a Hedgehog structure. 
 Review 
, Understanding Before Moving 3: Sicilian Structures Part v2 - Taimanov, Kan and Richter Rauzer, is aimed at a somewhat different audience, here the aim is squarely club players ranging from 1800-2300. 
This well written book, the second in a series on the Sicilian by the Dutch International Master Herman Grooten, aims to explain the typical plans for White and Black in the Taimanov (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6), Kan (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6) and Richter-Rauzer (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Bg5). 
Coming in at a massive 421 pages, this book does not cut corners. Grooten offers an overview of each variation followed by model games which are well annotated throughout. Club players looking to learn how to play or play against the Sicilian will find this book most helpful, particularly players below 2000. Rather than start out trying to memorize a bunch of sharp theory they will do much better to build a solid foundation by first learning the typical plans and ideas are for both sides. IM John Donaldson - April 2021.\nThe highly experienced Dutch coach and IM continues his detailed series for Thinkers Publishing, here looking at the Taimanov, Kan and Classical – Richter Rauzer variations of the Sicilian. There is also a very welcome chapter on the Hedgehog structure, Grooten’s clear style, the many-arrowed diagrams and the fine choice of illustrative games should enable the hard-working club player to quickly further their understanding of these very important Sicilian lines and typical positions. 
Chess, April issue 2021. 
 Review 
The book, Understanding before Moving Volume 3 - Part 1, sets out to enable the reader to learn two variations of the Sicilian by placing maximum emphasis on understanding, but succeeds in accomplishing significantly more. Reading the book offers a chance to improve your ability to study opening variations and chess as a whole. And best of all, you w

Understanding Before Moving 3 - Part 2: Sicilian Structures - Taimanov - Kan - Richter Rauzer (Understanding before Moving, 4)

This is the first volume of the new series "Key Concepts of Chess". The idea is to deal with middlegames in which a certain structure or essential theme becomes central. The idea of starting this series is in line with the "Understanding before Moving" series because the aim, is to improve the understanding of club chess players. According to the author, playing an opening should be 'hung up' on stereotypical ideas and concepts belonging to this structure. The thorough exploration of middlegame structures is beyond the scope of opening books, hence it makes more sense to expose it in this complementary series. In this first volume, the "Hedgehog System" is discussed in detail. Apart from being part of the author's repertoire, this typical set-up deserves to be widely highlighted. Although in the second part of the trilogy on the Sicilian, the Hedgehog has already made its appearance, in this book the seemingly fragile, but oh so treacherous creature can reconsider its spines in an extensive way.

Key Concepts of Chess - Volume 1 - The Hedgehog

Talloze onderwerpen zijnmooi beschreven en keurig uitgewerkt. Maar bij het bestuderen van partijen vanschaakstudenten, of het nou talentvolle jeugd was, of volwassen clubschakers vandivers niveau, viel me één aspect op dat ik als volgt zal proberen te beschrijven: nadatde klok is aangezet en de partij is begonnen, wordt de opening gespeeld. Veel spelers blijken redelijk goed op de hoogte van de theorie. Onvermijdelijk komt het moment waarop één van beide spelers afwijkt, waardoor beide spelers op zichzelf zijnaangewezen. In de fase daarna moeten de spelers hun weg zien te vinden in eenwirwar van varianten en plannen. Zij mogen de tactiek niet uit het oog verliezen,maar bovenal zullen zij een strategisch plan moeten bepalen. In deze fase viel mij -door de bank genomen - op dat veel clubschakers over het algemeen de momentenwaarop tactiek een rol speelt, goed in de gaten hebben. Laten we zeggen dat ergemiddeld om de vijf zetten tactiek in de stelling zit. Echter... die andere vier zettenmoeten zij toch zelf verzinnen! Maar hoe moeten zij dat doen? Waar moeten ze opletten? Welke principes dienen zij te hanteren. Hoe zien ze of een bepaald strategischkenmerk dominanter is dan een ander?Als ervaren speler en gediplomeerd schaaktrainer kon ik er meestal wel een vingerachter krijgen waar het ergens mis ging. Dat was bij elke speler telkens anders, maartoch slaagde ik er soms in om een "grootste gemene deler" in de partijen van iemandop te sporen. Daarmee was ik er nog niet. Want elke partij was natuurlijk verschillendmet de partijen die nog gingen komen. Hoe kon ik deze speler daadwerkelijk vooruithelpen hiermee? In deel 2 komen de belangrijke Pionnenstructuren aan bod!

Sleutelconcepten in het middenspel deel 2: Pionnenstructuren (Dutch Edition)

This book provides an overview of the positions an corresponding plans arising from the Ruy Lopez and Italian Openings. This learning method was developed by the author enabling the chess player to understand any structure that is derived from both opening set-ups.

Understanding before Moving 1: Ruy Lopez - Italian Structures

In volume 2 Dutch International Master Herman Grooten provides the full coverage of the Queen's Gambit Structures. As usual his instructive material is impressive, explaining in detail all possible plans for White and Black, making this book indispensable if you want to understand these typical structures or play this opening.

Understanding before Moving 2 - Queen's Gambit Structures: Queen's Gambit Structures

Understanding Before Moving 3 - Sicilian Structures - Part 1: Najdorf & Scheveningen

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