General Strategy Books

“Know thy enemy.” The skill this book trains is the one most players neglect: thinking not only for yourself but for your opponent. As Viktor Korchnoi observed, a player who does not check what the other side is doing ends up blaming bad luck after every game. Renowned trainer Mark Dvoretsky built this collection to fix precisely that blind spot.

It is a training manual, not a textbook. Each of the four chapters opens with a short theoretical discussion and then hands you dozens of exercises, graded from elementary to genuinely hard. The themes build deliberately: paying attention to the opponent’s resources, then the process of elimination, then traps, and finally prophylactic thinking — anticipating and preventing the other side’s ideas before they arrive.

With close to 500 positions drawn from every phase — opening, middlegame, and endgame — the book doubles as all-round calculation and decision-making practice. The solutions are detailed by design: Dvoretsky lays out the logic of the search, showing how a player can actually reach the right conclusion at the board rather than simply presenting the answer.

Among the last works from one of history’s greatest trainers, and close to unique in its subject. Demanding, and best suited to dedicated players from strong club level upward.

Sarhan Guliev presents a wide range of strategic manoeuvres that have been repeatedly employed by great chess players.

Positional Decision Making in Chess offers a rare look into the mind of a top grandmaster. In his efforts to explain his way of thinking, GM Boris Gelfand, a winner of all the major awards for chess writing, focuses on such topics as the squeeze, space advantage, the transformation of pawn structures, and the transformation of advantages. 

Based on examples from his own games and those of his hero, Akiba Rubinstein, Gelfand explains how he thinks during the game, providing invaluable insights into a grandmaster’s thought process for advanced players. 

This ebook is a part of Bundle: Gelfand Decision Making

The Polar Bear System starts after 1.f4 (the Bird opening) and then fianchetto of the King’s bishop.The system is for players who like interesting and original positions and want to avoid memorizing a lot of theory..

Move First, Think Later

Most improvement books preach the same method: study the position’s features, form a plan, then choose a move. International Master Willy Hendriks thinks that is largely a comforting myth — and this provocative, much-discussed book sets out to prove it.

Drawing on his experience as a trainer and on research into how players actually think, Hendriks argues that move selection is not the tidy output of a rational checklist; judging, planning, and calculating all happen together, messily and at once, in weak and strong players alike. The dogma that "good moves follow automatically once you assess the characteristics" simply doesn’t match what happens at the board.

In place of method-worship he offers something more honest and more useful: a healthy scepticism toward chess instruction, and a large amount of no-nonsense training material — exercises and discussion designed to build the pattern knowledge that really drives improvement. The tone is sharp, funny, and refreshingly willing to puncture sacred cows.

Best suited to club and online players who suspect the standard advice hasn’t been working — and to any thoughtful improver who enjoys having their assumptions challenged.

In this enlarged edition of a modern classic (first published in 1991) on the battle of chess ideas, grandmaster Mihai Suba developed the concept of dynamic potential in modern chess strategy.

In this book IM Arthur van de Oudeweetering supplies building blocks for your chess knowledge. In short chapters he presents lots of well-defined subjects, easy to remember because of their specific elements. After working with this book you will experience something wonderful: your mind and memory will be triggered much easier and more frequently. An increasing number of positions, pawn structures and piece placements will automatically activate your chess knowledge. As a result, you will simply find the right move more often and more quickly!

Do masters methodically cut their way through the branches of a tree of analysis? Is it true that attacking players calculate a dozen moves ahead, while positional specialists rely on abstract principles? What exactly does it mean to “calculate,” anyway?

An all-time classic, My System by Aron Nimzowitsch, has shaped generations of chess players. Its timeless ideas on positional play, pawn structures, piece coordination, prophylactic thinking, strategic maneuvering, and much more, are still invaluable today.

By studying My System, players will gain a deeper understanding of the game’s core principles and enhance their ability to assess positions, formulate plans, and execute winning strategies. The book is a must-read for aspiring chess players and seasoned competitors alike. 

Chess Training for Post-Beginners

There is a frustrating gap in most players’ development: you know the rules and you’ve picked up some tactics, but nobody has ever taught you how to actually think about a position. Experienced trainer Yaroslav Srokovski wrote this book to fill exactly that gap — a structured first course in positional understanding.

Across twelve focused chapters he builds the core skills of strategy from the ground up: how pieces become strong or weak, the use of open files and key squares, weak-square complexes and diagonals, queenside pawn majorities, the power of the passed pawn, weak pawns, the exposed king, the eternal good-knight-versus-bad-bishop questions, and the bishop pair in both middlegame and endgame.

The presentation is deliberately clear and compact, and every chapter ends with exercises so the ideas stick through practice rather than just reading. The two underlying skills Srokovski keeps returning to are the ones that decide most amateur games: how to assess a position honestly, and how to choose sensible long-term plans.

Pitched precisely at the post-beginner — the player ready to move beyond pure tactics toward genuine positional judgement.

In this book Ivan Sokolov presents a set of practical tools that will help you to master the art of sacrifice.