The Essence of Chess Strategy - Volume 1 - Strategic Elements

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." Sun Tzu

Mostly basing my chess work on this statement of the great Chinese military theoretician, I have managed throughout my chess coaching career to implement many of his principles, and even establish them as being va lid for the game of chess. I think the statement above should be taken as an axiom. Thus, strategy must be the leading chess topic, and definitely based on logic. Moreover, strategy must tower over all other chess topics and sub-topics; strategy is the ultimate chess idea and it sublimates and determines other principles.

How to learn strategy? Can it be learned? lt can be, of course. And these volumes are the perfect guide to learn (or, more precisely, to learn to understand} strategy.

My idea is to throw light on all the strategie concepts in these volumes. To help you navigate more simply, I have divided all the material into two volumes. This first one is exploring the elements of strategy, explaining typical and essential principles in detail. The second one is about pawn structures. Of course, structures themselves actually mean nothing without recognizing patterns and principles from the elements (because pawn structures are used to determine the va lues of pieces, for instance}. That is why volume two can be considered as an advanced level of strategy. Generally, examples will be based on material adopted from volume one and upgraded.

Volume one is divided into nine chapters and the titles suggest the topic explained in detail. Examples are arranged from less to more complex and I recommend that the reader not skip examples inside the chapters. Moreover, I would ask the reader to go through the chapters in the order in which they are presented in the book, because the most important topics carne first. For instance, centralization is the leading principle and it must be kept in mind while working on other topics!

Dear reader, I hope you will recognize the passion, love and devotion I have put into these volumes.

Boroljub Zlatanovic, Serbia, 2022.

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