Strategic Chess Exercises

Strategic Chess Exercises

Almost every chess puzzle book trains tactics — find the forced win. But in most of the positions you actually face in a game, there is no combination to find. What you are really doing, move after move, is trying to improve your position or worsen your opponent’s by applying strategic judgement. This book trains that neglected skill directly.

Experienced trainer Emmanuel Bricard has assembled a manual of carefully selected and tested positions where the task is not to calculate a tactic but to find the right plan: which piece to improve, which structure to aim for, where to create a weakness, when to exchange. Each exercise asks you to think the way you must in a real game when no forcing solution exists.

The positions are split into middlegame and endgame exercises and indexed by strategic theme, with detailed solutions that explain the reasoning rather than just giving the move. The benefits are practical: better strategic understanding, the ability to apply principles in concrete positions, and even time saved on the clock when you know what you are trying to do.

A rare and valuable training resource for club players and above who want to sharpen the part of their game that decides most non-tactical positions.