Introduction
Positional Decision Making in Chess, written by Boris Gelfand is something I would recommend anyone to read, regardless of strength/playing style (of course, “calmer” players will be more familiar with the subject, duh, but dynamic players need it as well, to complete their arsenal).
Difficulty and Recommended Rating
Just to be clear, regarding playing strength, I think most of the information can be absorbed if you are a player of 2000+ FIDE rating. On the other hand, that does not disqualify weaker players to read it. I am absolutely positive they can find some nuggets of wisdom in it as well.
Other Books Written by Boris Gelfand You Might Like
The Structure of Positional Decision Making in Chess
In Chapter 1, the author tries to draw a parallel between himself and Akiba Rubinstein, who was one of his biggest influences from early childhood. He tries, and he does an amazing job! Several games from both Gelfand and Rubinstein were given, and you can just see the uncanny similarities between the two players. The skill to ‘squeeze water from a stone’, that these two players possess in a great deal, is something that anyone can appreciate, regardless of the strength/playing style. From Chapter 1 I would single out games Rubinstein – Takacs and Gelfand – Malakhov as extremely instructive (breaking the fortress is one of the most satisfying things in chess, in my opinion).
This is a position on move 23 in the game Boris Gelfand played against Vasyl Ivanchuk in 2009. Who is better? It’s white to play. Gelfand will defend the e5 pawn, of course, but how good are his chances after that?
Wanna solve more positional problems and get instant feedback just like you would during a lesson with a real chess coach? Continue training!
Incremental improvement of the position until the opponent reaches a breaking point was the theme of Chapter 2. Similar scenario followed in these games: one side had a small plus regarding the pawn structure (opponent had doubled pawns or an isolated pawn) and with a good deal of preparation managed to put the other side in a very difficult situation (even giants like Garry Kasparov were not immune against the “boa constrictor” style at times.
Chapter 3 is devoted to the space advantage, its common misconceptions and general rules that everyone should accept. Games from this chapter can be categorized into “fortresses”. Pay extra attention to the games Gelfand-Wang Yue and Gelfand-Campora where the author played really very slowly in order to break down his opponent’s walls.
In the final two chapters themes were the pawn structure (to be more precise, what happens when one side has a limited flexibility of the pawn structure) and transformation of the advantages. The latter one I find particularly useful, because as a positional player myself, I very often struggle with “enjoying” my position too much, not “pulling the trigger” at the right moment.
Readability
Annotations make this book very enjoyable to read, with little filler content. Some games took 10 pages out of the book, but the writing is so captivating that it does not feel that long.
Conclusion
Positional Decision Making in Chess, written by Boris Gelfand is something I would recommend anyone to read, regardless of strength/playing style. Finally, I would say that the following quote pretty much sums up the bare minimum you need to adopt from this book: “…it does not matter if you win in 10 moves or 30 moves. To win without counter-chances is far more important”.
