300 Most Important Chess Positions

300 Most Important Chess Positions

Study Five a Week to Be a Better Chessplayer

By Thomas Engqvist

Batsford, 2018

ISBN: 9781849945127

Depth is the main aim, but breadth is well served here too.

At heart, the book is made up of 300 positions, most of them taken from master games though some studies and theoretical positions (by Lucena, Philidor, Vancura and others) are put in for good measure.

In Part 1 there are 150 positions touching upon the opening and the middlegame both and arranged into six broad categories: Development of the Pieces, Exchange of Material, Manoeuvring, Pawn-Play and the Centre, Play on the Wings, and what Thomas Engqvist calls Psychological and Pragmatic Moves. This latter category of position touches upon the human aspect of chess, whether it involve taking risks to win, making the most of a duff situation, attempting to keep a lid on potentially chaotic complications. Since chess is closer to a life and death struggle between adversaries rather than an academic debate, all well and to the good.

As for Part 2, can be found a further 150 positions but this time solely devoted to the ending. The positions are ordered by type of ending, according to the pieces or material present: Pawn Endings, Knight Endings, Bishop Endings, Knight and Bishop Endings, Rook Endings and Queen Endings.

It will be noted that the opening and the middlegame are conflated in Part 1, whereas most weight falls on the ending. In part this is because it is often difficult to say precisely when the opening ends and the (early) middlegame begins (perhaps there is need for a tranitional phase?) but it due also to the fact that the ending is the most irrefragable part of the game. Here Engqvist and Capablanca (and me too, for that matter) agree.

Here it seems apposite to note that there is a set of borderline positions which Engqvist, following Glenn Flear, describes as Not Quite an Ending (NQE). For example, positions where one side has King, Queen and Rook v King, Queen and Rook with several pawns present too. These are positions where some threat to the king remains, since Queen and Rook together have clear attacking potential. So both sides need to take care. Probably, it wouldn’t be a good idea to rush forward a pawn with the aim of promoting it (a typical ending plan) if it leaves your king denuded of defensive cover.

Can it be said with certainty that these are really the ‘300 Most Important Chess Positions’? Well, that claim can no doubt be challenged or questioned. But there is no doubt of the significance of these positions and their value as study material.

I was intrigued by Engqvist’s notion that ‘less is more’, in other words that you should limit your study material to these 300 positions only, but study and examine them thoroughly and in depth. And while depth is the primary aim, breadth is well served here too. And there is sufficient variety to cater for players with different styles.

To refresh your understanding of each position, Engqvist recommends scheduled repetition and here modern technology in the form of Mochi or Anki flashcards can come in handy.

I greatly enjoyed playing through the many fascinating and instructive positions in this book. Perhaps the position that I relished most of all was number 205, an ending where Flohr’s two bishops prevailed over Botvinnik’s two knights (each side had an equal number of pawns, though Flohr had something of a space advantage). It was pure class on Flohr’s part and Botvinnik learnt his lesson well, for it was this very ending (Botvinnik with the two bishops this time but a pawn down) that brought him a crucial victory in the 1950 World Chess Championship match versus Bronstein.

A very fine book

The publisher’s description of 300 Most Important Chess Positions can be read here.