Pawn: Candidate moves

Autor: Bauer, Christian
Verlag: Thinkers Publishing
Erscheinungsjahr: 2020
Sprache: German
Buchumschlag: book
Seiten: 421

The method of a grandmaster

(German edition of "Candidate Moves" from the same publisher)

Throughout the book, I refer to structural parallels from more familiar openings to show how ideas can and have been transferred, thus allowing the reader to exercise their ability to recognize structures.

"Before this book, I had written three books, all of which were about openings. When I was offered the opportunity to write one for Thinkers Publishing, I didn't really have any idea what else I could write about on this topic. I also wanted to write something completely new (okay, a little new - I'm not completely crazy). The lazy side of me promptly suggested a number of my collected works. After all, I play an average of more than 100 games a year, which statistically increases the chance that there will be some interesting ones among them. At least that was my hope...

So I came up with the idea of ​​looking at the games one after the other from white and black's point of view. I think that's an interesting concept, because things often appear very different depending on the viewer's point of view. If you watch videos of top grandmasters analyzing together, you'll notice that they often have completely different assessments of one and the same position. Each claims the better position for themselves. They would probably prefer "their position" with the other color, too, while the engine, relatively unimpressed, rates the entire game as more or less balanced from start to finish ;). There's a funny anecdote involving an ex-world champion who assessed the same position as better for the side he was looking at it from. His reasoning was: he knew the plans for both sides!

It should be noted that it is of course hardly possible to have an absolutely objective view of one's own game. Certain character traits alone, whether a person has optimistic or pessimistic tendencies, lead to underestimation or overestimation of one's own plans and possibilities. The idea of ​​looking at a game from White's point of view and then from Black's point of view is to minimize the subjective part of the analysis mentioned above, even if one or the other will of course sympathize more with one camp.

Throughout the book, I draw structural parallels from more familiar openings to show how ideas can and have been transferred. This allows the reader to train their ability to recognize structures. For example, the position in Bauer-Valles in Chapter 4 bears significant similarities to a main line in the Trompowski. "I have also tried to offer a variety of paths early on in the analysis of these games, which would suit readers with a solid as well as a more ambitious style."

Sometimes there are decisions that are not entirely objectively justifiable. As a general rule, I always try to win. However, it is true that a professional's decisions can often be influenced by external factors such as prizes, tournament status or prestige. Therefore, I believe that the decisions I made were rational and, in my opinion, I did not take unreasonable risks "to win at all costs".

421 pages, paperback, 1st edition 2020

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