Contents

Introduction

Explanation of Symbols

Part I – ‘Pawns are the soul of chess’

Chapter 1 The passed pawn

Chapter 2 The protected passed pawn

Chapter 3 Blockading a passed pawn

Chapter 4 A pawn wedge in the enemy camp

Chapter 5 Queening pawns

Chapter 6 Blockading the pawn chain

Chapter 7 Breaking up a pawn chain

Chapter 8 Backward pawns

Chapter 9 Doubled pawns

Chapter 10 Isolated pawns

Chapter 11 Connected pawns

Chapter 12 Hanging pawns

Chapter 13 A pawn majority/minority in a certain area of the board. The Minority Attack

Chapter 14 Weakening the opponent’s pawn structure

Chapter 15 Pawn breaks

Chapter 16 Destroying the enemy pawn centre

Chapter 17 A blow at the most heavily-defended point

Chapter 18 The solidity of the king’s cover

Chapter 19 The attack with the rook’s pawn

Chapter 20 Destroying the king’s pawn cover

Part II – Dynamics

Chapter 21 Open attack

Chapter 22 Discovered check and discovered attacks

Chapter 23 Transferring forces

Chapter 24 Opening lines

Chapter 25 The pin

Chapter 26 The fork

Chapter 27 The double attack

Chapter 28 Interference

Chapter 29 Deflection

Chapter 30 Overloading pieces

Chapter 31 The seesaw

Chapter 32 The ‘Lasker Combination’

Chapter 33 Smothered mate

Chapter 34 Trapping pieces

Chapter 35 Back-rank weakness

Chapter 36 The sacrifice on h7 (h2)

Chapter 37 The attack on f7 (f2)

Chapter 38 Blockading

Chapter 39 The importance of the seventh rank

Chapter 40 The attack on the uncastled king

Chapter 41 The attack on the king

Chapter 42 Drawing out the king

Chapter 43 The king in a mating net

Chapter 44 The attack on opposite flanks / opposite-side castling

Chapter 45 Bringing unused pieces into the attack

Chapter 46 Eliminating defenders

Chapter 47 Exploiting diagonals

Chapter 48 Intermediate moves

Chapter 49 Luring enemy pieces to bad squares

Chapter 50 Freeing squares and lines for the attack

Chapter 51 Unstable position of pieces, X-rays

Chapter 52 Quiet moves / prophylaxis in the middle of an attack

Chapter 53 The counterattack

Chapter 54 The counterblow

Chapter 55 Unexpected possibilities. ‘Long’ moves

Chapter 56 The intuitive sacrifice

Chapter 57 The positional sacrifice

Chapter 58 Positions with non-standard material balance

Index of games