Andrew Soltis - Pawn Structure Chess - 1995.pdf

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ABOUT TH E A UTHOR
ANDREW SOLTIS is an International Grandmaster, a
former . Open Champion, and the author of more
than seventy books. He writes an award-winning col•
umn for Chess Life magazine.
Also by Andrew Soltis
The Inner Game of Chess
Karl Marx Plays Chess
PAWN
STRUCTURE
CHESS
-••
ANDREW SOLTIS
~M
DAVID M CKAY
COMPANY. INC.
Copyright © 1995 by Andrew Soltis
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. Published in .the United States by David apny,
Inc., a subsidiary of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously
in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
ISBN: 0-8129-2529-7
Designed by Michael Mendelsohn
Manufactured in the United States of America on acid-free paper.
9 8 7 6 5
CONTENTS
Introduction: The Soul of What Game? lX
1. The Caro~Slav Family 3
2. The Slav Formation 36
3. The Open Sicilian~English 66
4. Chain Reactions 154
5. The eS Chain 192
6. The King's plex 213
;
7. The Queen's Gambit Family and Its Relatives 244
8. The Panov Formation 279
9. Stonewalls and Other Prisons 293
10. The Closed Sicilian~E~glish 308
Index 327
1
INTRODUCTION:
THE SOUL OF WHAT GAME~
CHESS IS NOT EASY. IT SEEMED EASY, AFTER I FIRST LEARNED THE
moves. But like all beginners, I quickly found out there was an
awful lot to learn, a lot I didn't know. In fact, there were libraries
full of books--chess books-and each book was filled with pearls
of wisdom that, it seemed, would take me a lifetime to master.
And the most mysterious bit of wisdom was one quotation
that seemed to be fobbed off by chess authors in virtually every
book. "As Andre Philidor, once said," the authors wookl write,
"the pawns are the soul of the game."
Great, I'd say to myself each time I came across this gem of
insight. A Frenchman who's been dead for two hundred years
is telling me I shouldn't be worried about losing m