Mastery of Pawn Play

Description

In chess, moves cannot be taken back. When a piece is poorly placed, it can be returned to its previous square at the cost of one or more tempi. Pawns, however, can never move back to a square they have already occupied, which makes every pawn move an irreversible decision. This condition turns pawn play into one of the most difficult aspects of chess strategy, and is probably the reason why so few books have been written on the subject.

Double Olympic medalist and elite grandmaster Sam Shankland breaks down the principles of pawn play into very basic and easy-to-understand guidelines, making them accessible to players of all levels. He defines different pawn-structure scenarios and, for each one, provides simple and practical tools that allow for significant improvement. Using concrete examples, he offers clear guidelines that help players better understand pawn play.

Sam Shankland is a permanent member of the U.S. national team; he won an individual gold medal in 2014 and a team gold medal in 2016. In 2015 and 2017 he played on board one for the U.S. team at the World Team Championship. He won the 2018 U.S. Championship ahead of Caruana, So, and Nakamura.