Do you struggle with positional play? Do you confuse about how to continue in an equal position? Many players face this issue often. I would recommend them to solve positional chess books and watch some videos about positional chess. 

Positional chess is a term where there is no tactical theme involved. You simply just have to improve your position and try to create a few weaknesses in the opponent’s position. Usually, positions are very simple and you don’t know how to continue. Positional play is one of the most difficult chess themes to play. 

Many players are well known for their positional play. For e.g. Vladimir Kramnik, Anatoly Karpov. In this article, I will recommend you few books and courses which can help you to improve your positional understanding. 

6 Best Positional Chess Books and Chess Courses

Mastering Positional Sacrifices: A Practical Guide to a Vital Skill in Chess

This book is perfect for you if you are a beginner chess player. The author says that positional chess is a ladder to becoming a club chess player from a beginner level. The book is broken down into four parts. Fundamental themes, Typical positional sacrifices, Testing the limits, and Training material. The book is published by new in chess which is owned by Play Magnus Group. Author Merijn van Delft is an International Master from the Netherlands and is teaching for the last 20 years. 

Positional Chess Handbook: 495 Instructive Positions from Grandmaster Games

When you finish 1st book, you can start solving this book. These positions are also used by the author to teach many students including Israeli national and international players. The positions are a little hard for beginner chess players. If you solve these puzzles and finished this book, then you feel much more confident and will not face any issues in positional play. 

Workshop – Improve Your Positional Play

These are the recording files of the Modern Chess camp on positional chess. In total there are 2 products divided into 2 parts. In this course, you will find 8 videos by grandmasters and also PGN files which you can analyze with chessbase software. 

Following are the details of videos that you will get after your purchases 

Part 1

  • Thinking in Priorities – Dynamic and Static Factors – GM Dejan Bojkov
  • The Exchange Operations Through the Eyes of Modern Grandmasters – GM Grigor Grigorov
  • Transformations of the Pawn Structure – GM Boris Avrukh
  • The Art of Manoeuvring – Classical and Modern Positional Patterns – GM Petar Arnaudov

Part 2 

  • Piece Coordination – Modern Concepts and Typical Mistakes – GM Grigor Grigorov
  • Building a Positional Attack – GM Mihail Marin
  • Positional Sacrifices – Modern Understanding of the Material Imbalances – GM Davorin Kuljasevic
  • Typical Attacking Strategies in Positions with Opposite-Coloured Bishops – GM Petar Arnaudov

Use code NIKHIL40 to get 40% off on any modern chess products

Positional Decision Making in Chess

Positional decision-making in chess is one of the greatest chess books ever written by Boris Gelfand. GM Boris is a very strong chess player who also played the world chess championship against Vishy Anand. In this book, Boris explained various games with detailed analysis. This book is the best suit for you if you are above 2000. This book is published by Quality Chess. Boris Gelfand wrote the following books which are recommended for serious chess players. 

  • Tactical Decision Making
  • Technical Decision Making
  • Major Piece Endgame

The Complete Manual of Positional Chess Part 1 & 2

Konstantin Sakaev and Konstantin Landa present a complete set of instructions and tips for trainers and self-improvers. It teaches you not only how to enhance your fundamental knowledge and technical skills, but also how to work on your physical and psychological conditioning. 

This book is divided into 2 parts, 1st part includes openings and middlegame and 2nd part includes Middlegame Structures and Dynamics. You will also understand the Russian teaching method because this book is created for teaching positional chess in Russian schools. Later these books are translated into English and circulated all over the world. 

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Positional Chess Mastery with GM Marian Petrov

This is 7 hour-long video course by GM Marian Petrov. In this course, Marian teaches us the basics of positional chess. The original price of this course is $99 but many times you will get a course for just $19. Imagine, you are getting 7 hours of chess coaching for just $19 which means per hour it costs less than $3. If you plan to take 1-1 chess coaching from a grandmaster then it would cost easily $50-75 per hour. This course is perfect and suitable for beginner and intermediate chess players. 

Grandmaster Preparation – Positional Play

The greatest puzzle book is ever written on the positional play by Jacob Aagaard. This book is part of the series Grandmaster Preparation which consists of a total of 6 books. This book is helpful for club players to grandmasters. Grandmaster Preparation is a book series that is recommended by every grandmaster including the world’s top players. 

In this book, you will find more than 400 positions to solve which are divided into various chapters. If you finish this book, you will not face any issues in positional chess ever. 

Free Videos to learn Positional Play

There are multiple videos by strong chess players who teaches you how to become a positional genius. You can watch the following video which is suitable for below 1600 players. 

FAQs

What is the best book to learn chess?

Many chess books will help you to learn chess from scratch. I would recommend you to watch the chess course instead of chess books. There are various free courses available on the market from which you can learn the basics of chess.

What is the difference between positional and tactical chess?

In positional chess, players try to get better positional and eventually create weakness in opponents’ positions. In tactical chess, you start playing the very sharp game, try to calculate some sacrifice, mating variations, etc. 

You have to learn when to use tactical skills and positional skills. This can only be improved with the help of a coach or by playing many games. I would recommend you to start playing games and analyze deeply. 

What is a positional advantage in chess?

Positional advantage simply means to get a better position where your pieces are more active than your opponent’s pieces but you don’t have any direct threats like checkmate, fork, pin, etc. Generally, all of your opponent’s pieces get cramped and don’t have enough squares to move. When you get such a position, it is important to play solid and at the same time keep attacking and putting pressure on the opponent. 

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