Müller: Typically French

Autor: Müller, Karsten
Verlag: Beyer
Erscheinungsjahr: 2024
Sprache: German
Buchumschlag: book
Seiten: 192

Effective middlegame training

If you want to learn this or that opening, you can choose from many or even dozens of textbooks. But what if you want to familiarize yourself with the middlegame strategy that should be used in positions that have arisen from this or that opening? Or, to put it another way, in positions that are typical for this or that opening.

Of course, every middlegame textbook contains one or two positions that can be clearly assigned to this or that opening. However, their number is negligible compared to the positions from all the other openings that are treated as examples. And thus, all of the positions whose strategic treatment the reader does not actually want to learn.

For example - the author asks quite justifiably - is the treatment of the topics of hanging pawns and minority attacks not just as dispensable for an e4 player as it is essential for a d4 player? - Why should a die-hard fan of Indian openings be interested in the strategic subtleties of positions that result from all these complicated Queen's Gambit systems? And of course the other way round too: What can a player who generally avoids fianchetto openings do with all these subtleties of Indian positions?
And it is precisely this striking and astonishing vacuum in the area of ​​middlegame literature that inspired the author to try to improve it: Anyone who wants to learn the typical middlegame strategy for the ' French Defense ', for example, can get a textbook and exercise book that deals exclusively with French middlegames. However, this book initially only deals with positions in which the white pawns on d4 and e5 are opposed by black ones on d5 and e6 - or those that can arise from this basic structure.

It is also worth mentioning that the more than 100 exercises were assigned to specific themes in order to ensure a varied and entertaining presentation - for example, 'promotion candidate', 'relegation candidate', 'violent measure or increase in pressure', 'only move' - but also 'joke items' and the like.

The German Grandmaster Karsten Müller is arguably the world's leading author on chess endgames. Whenever an interesting endgame appears in a high-level game, the chess world knows that it will soon be dissected and explained by Müller. Whether he is writing for a lower or higher level audience, his infectious enthusiasm for the endgame always shines through. His "masterpiece", Fundamentals of Chess Endgames (in collaboration with Frank Lamprecht and also published by Gambit) is a modern "endgame bible" that the reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen studied intensively in his youth.
The world-renowned endgame expert was named "Trainer of the Year" by the German Chess Federation in 2007.

192 pages, paperback, 1st edition 2024

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