Winning Chess Middlegames: Volume 1

Why can a grandmaster glance at a position and know within seconds what is going on? Ivan Sokolov’s answer is: pawn structure. This acclaimed book — carrying a foreword by Michael Adams — sets out to teach that same instant understanding by examining the handful of structures that shape the vast majority of middlegames.

Sokolov works through them one family at a time: doubled pawns, isolated pawns, hanging pawns, and central pawn majorities, each broken down into its essential recurring forms. For every structure he explains the plans available to both sides — where the pieces belong, which breaks to aim for, and which endgames to steer toward or avoid.

The teaching is done through deeply analysed top-level games rather than fragments, so you see the structure’s logic play out from middlegame to result. Sokolov’s annotations are demanding but accessible, and he takes nothing for granted — the explanations carry, in one reviewer’s words, “a large amount of genuine Grandmasterly wisdom.”

Studying it pays off in three ways: sharper middlegame play, a better sense of which positions suit your style, and — because structures arise from openings — a deeper practical grasp of your own repertoire. This revised edition refreshes a modern classic — runner-up for the ECF Book of the Year and shortlisted for the Guardian award — with more than half of the illustrative games replaced by newer examples. Aimed at club players and above.