Table Of ContentE-BOOK VERSION COMPILED BY
PEKCHA
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Chess teacher:
Grandmaster Igor Smirnov
The Grandmaster’s Positional Understanding
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Contents
A. Video Course Lessons
Instructions For Video Lessons 6
Lesson 1 – Positional Understanding 7
Lesson 2 – A Look At The Positional Principles 13
Lesson 3 – Step By Step Guide For A Practical Play 25
Lesson 4 – Strategic Elements – Pawn Structures 36
Lesson 5 – How To Take Charge Of Your Future? 68
Lesson 6 – The Bishops And Company 89
Lesson 7 – Other Chess Pieces And Important Rules 109
B. Practical Part
Instruction For The Practical Part 122
Task 1 (Part 1) 124
Task 1 (Part 2) 126
Task 1 (Part 3) 141
Task 1 (Part 4) 143
Task 2 (Part 1) 170
Task 2 (Part 2) 173
Task 2 (Part 3) 190
Task 2 (Part 4) 222
Task 2 (Part 5) 236
Task 3 268
Task 4 283
Task 5 (Part 1) 294
Task 5( Part 2) 297
Task 6 330
Task 7 349
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Contents
Task 8 352
Task 9 353
Task 10 354
C. Bonus Lessons
Lesson 1- Removing Obstacles 357
Lesson 2- Your Questions 363
Lesson 3 – Your Questions ( Part 2) 369
Lesson 4 – Your Questions (Part 3) 375
Lesson 5 – The Power Of Real Understanding 383
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The Grandmaster’s Positional Understanding
Video Course Lessons Part:
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Chess teacher:
Grandmaster Igor Smirnov
The Grandmaster’s Positional Understanding
Instructions for the video course
I would like to give you a few recommendations, which will make your study of the video
lessons more effective.
Focus on a study. Turn off your mobile phone, music, TV etc.
Stop (pause) a video lesson sometimes. When you stop the video, you can THINK
about an interesting idea and digest it better. It is very important to do it.
Print the text versions of the video lessons. When you think about different ideas of
the course, you will see them at the same time. It is very helpful. After a study of
one video lesson, please look through its text version. Pay attention to the enhanced
font – it will help you to remember all the key ideas.
Write the important ideas. While studying the video lessons you will find a lot of
useful rules, principles and so on. Also you will probably make your own conclusions.
If you write them, you will remember and classify them better.
Make pauses. Your brain needs to have some free time to digest new information.
Don’t try to study everything at once.
Repeat the lessons. Study the lessons several times. Of course it is hard to
remember a lot of information after a quick acquaintance. So you need to repeat it
sometimes.
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Chess teacher:
Grandmaster Igor Smirnov
The Grandmaster’s Positional Understanding
Lesson-1: “Positional Understanding”
Hi there! I am very glad to talk to you again. It’s me Igor Smirnov, International
Grandmaster and chess coach, and I’m back with another instructive chess course that will
surely take your game to the next level.
So what precisely are we going to take a look at in this course? Within the pages and videos
contained within this chess training course, we will tackle one of the most intriguing, most
mysterious topics in chess - Positional Understanding.
Have you watched top grandmasters and players comment and analyze their tournament
games right after playing them? Yeah? I’m sure you have heard some of them say: “This is
the most logical move that white should play” or something along the lines of “in this
position, it’s natural to go there….”
What’s baffling is that it’s totally unclear for you why this move is so “natural” and
“obvious”! In many cases, people can only admire this Grandmaster who has a great
positional understanding.
Here is another typical situation: a Grandmaster outplays his weaker opponent slowly but
surely. The Grandmaster did NOT unleash fancy tactics or invited complications.
HOWEVER, the Grandmaster’s position becomes better and better. It’s seems like he is
winning easily, and without even doing something special. This is another powerful
illustration of higher level of positional understanding.
So what is this magical UNDERSTANDING? And why is that only a very few players possess
it?
To be honest, I’ve never seen the real answer to these questions in chess books. Perhaps
strong players don’t want to share their insider secrets. BUT the good news is that it’s
precisely the reason why I created this course for you: to spill the beans and make sure you
take your Positional Understanding to the NEXT level!
Here I am going to show you ALL chess strategy. I will not only stuff you with all important
rules. More importantly, I will explain to you WHY they are so. My goal is to develop your
deep understanding of a chess game.
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Let me quote Lasker’s “Manual of Chess”
“Education in chess has to be an education in independent thinking…You should keep in
mind no names, nor isolated incidents, not even results, but only methods.
The method is plastic. It’s applicable in every situation. The method produces numerous
results”
In my courses I call it “Principles”. All of the common strategic rules are logical results of
these principles. When you understand this well and deep enough, you will understand
EVERYTHING in chess!
To start things off, let’s take a closer look at the most basic knowledge about chess. This is
where your deeper positional understanding will be based from. From there, we will
analyze specific rules. With a good basic knowledge, you will understand all of the concrete
rules quickly and easily.
Oh! And one last IMPORTANT note: don’t let the word ‘basic’ deceive you and make you
think that this is for beginners. Quite the contrary, this is the deepest and the highest level
of chess understanding on a Grandmaster’s level. One must take it very seriously as this is
the most important part of the course.
Ok, here we go!
What is the main guiding idea of a chess game? Can you answer this question? Isn’t it
really strange that after reading so many books most players can’t answer this simple
question?
If you studied my other courses, then probably you know that this is: ACTIVITY. Activity
implies the quantity of squares under the control of your forces
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For instance a knight on h1 controls 2 squares; while a knight on d5 – 8 squares. Thus an
activity of the knight on d5 is higher. We can evaluate any position by using same method.
White’s turn
Here is a more complex situation. However, we still can calculate the quantity of squares
under the control of white’s pieces; and black’s pieces. After that we can compare these
amounts and conclude whose position is more active… and which side has the advantage.
By the way, this is how computer programs play chess. For example, it can calculate that
white controls 2 more squares than black (in a certain position) and it will show you an
evaluation +2 (or +0.2)
Of course this is a simplification of how computers work, but generally it’s correct.
By adopting this excellent thinking technique of computer programs, we should also gain
a great deal of power in the process
You may argue: “Hey, but it will take too much time for me to calculate all those squares”
Yes, but you don’t need to do it. In contrast to computer, we have intuition. For example, in
this position white is obviously more active. You can realize it intuitively right away.
Ok, now we have decided that the main guiding idea of a chess game is ACTIVITY. Now let’s
go to the next step. What determines an activity?
We have already seen that the position of a piece determines its activity. Going back to our
example with the knights, we can see that the knight on d5 controls more squares than the
knight on h1. Thus a position of a piece is the 1st factor which determines activity.
BUT let’s not forget, the quantity of pieces also matters.
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In this position an activity is equal. BUT if we ad another black knight on d5, then black will
have double advantage in activity (thanks to his extra piece).
Therefore there are 2 major factors, which determine activity:
(1) Quantity of your pieces
(2) Position of your pieces
Chess players usually call the first factor the Material factor. Having an advantage on the
first factor means we have an advantage in Material. The position of your pieces is usually
called “ACTIVITY” and it makes sense to use the same term.
It creates a little tautology, because we have an activity at the top and as one of the factors.
BUT I hope that you understand the difference. At the top we can see a general guiding
principle of activity. It implies the quantity of squares under the control of your forces
This general activity is determined by 2 factors. The 1st one is a material, which means the
quantity of your pieces. The 2nd one is activity, which implies a position of your pieces.
This brings us to a great strategically rule: you should evaluate chess position based on 2
factors: a material and an activity.
Yes, it’s that simple. Forget about those 10 steps evaluation algorithms you read in chess
books. No one can implement such complicated schemes in reality. And no one does it.
I am telling you how Grandmasters REALLY think in a REAL game scenario. It’s simple and
effective. You can check material very quickly and you will evaluate pieces’ activity rather
intuitively. This is how Grandmasters can play blitz games well, can quickly assess positions
while calculating variations and so on.
