p.5 Thanks for picking this book up. I'm sure that with careful study it
will help you understand the intricacies of positional chess much better and guide you to making better decisions throughout
the course of all your games.
p.6 What is Positional Chess? Let's start out by defining what we are about to discuss in this book. Positional
chess refers to all the elements in chess that go into the evaluation of a position, and into the assessment of which plan
and strategy is best in a given position.
p.7 I think that chess is at least 90% based on positional factors.
p.9 Imbalances are the factors in any given position that determine who is better, who has the initiative
and who can play for the win. The better you learn to understand imbalances and to evaluate how they balance out,
the better you will become as a chess-player.
p.9 when assessing king safety in the flow of a game, just ask yourself how the last move influenced the
situation of the king.
p.13 In my opinion, imbalances which are based on piece coordination and piece placement can be
very difficult to assess. In some instances, such imbalances seem to favour one side entirely, while in an apparently
very similar position, it may turn out to be the other way around.
p.20 what is piece mobility? It is the ability to move the pieces more freely to relevant squares...
Better piece mobility makes it possible to take advantage of those fleeting moments when an opportunity arises
in one or more spots on the board and your pieces can readily switch from their current roles to taking advantage
of those kinds of opportunities.
p.29 as players become stronger, and the more experience they gain,
they become adept at detecting even the smallest and apparently insignificant weaknesses... a weakness
is only a weakness if there is a realistic possibility that the opponent can exploit it in one way or another.
p.31 Weak Squares: This is the most common type of weakness.
p.35 Weak Colour Complex... The remarkable thing is that this type of weakness occurs relatively often,
yet it is often left unexploited by inexperienced players who fail to notice it.
p.40 Weak Pieces...It can more or less be any piece that is isolated from the action or from its
fellow pieces, but is more often than not a minor piece.
p.66 An open file is only useful if there are weaknesses or entry-squares
on the file or in connection with the file.
p.80 A very effective way of creating an imbalance is the use of the exchange sacrifice. It can be used
in several different ways, both aggressively and defensively. Understanding how and when to use it effectively means the addition
of a very powerful weapon in your armoury.
p.110 One of the keys to successful positional play is to understand the impact of structural weaknesses
[isolated pawns, backward and hanging pawns, doubled pawns, fixed pawns, weak squares, weak color complexes, diagonals, open
files, majorities/minorities, overextended structures, lack of space, passivity, etc.]. These come in all shapes and
sizes, and knowing how to identify them and exploit them is a major difference between stronger and weaker players.
p.131 Like it or not, pawn sacrifices are a natural and important part of positional chess...
The point is that the sooner you start realizing the importance of understanding material imbalances as positional imbalances
[these subtopics are then discussed: pawn for imbalance, damaging the opponent's pawn structure, damaging the opponent's coordination,
sacrifice to gain time, sacrifice to win the initiative, making way, room to breathe], the sooner your level of chess will
improve.
