Every club player knows the problem: the opening has ended, and now what? With this new edition of his award winning book, International Master Herman Grooten presents to amateur players a complete and structured course on how to recognize key characteristics in all types of positions and how to make use of those characteristics to choose the right plan.

His teachings are based on the famous “Elements” of Wilhelm Steinitz, but Grooten has significantly expanded and updated the work of the first World Champion. He supplies many modern examples, tested in his own practice as a coach of talented youngsters.

In Chess Strategy for Club Players you will learn the basic elements of positional understanding: pawn structure, piece placement, lead in development, open files, weaknesses, space advantage and king safety. You will master the art of converting a temporary plus into other, more permanent advantages.

The author also explains what to do when, in a given position, the basic principles seem to point in different directions. Each chapter of this fundamental primer ends with a set of highly instructive exercises.

This new 3rd edition has, besides various corrections and improvements, a new introduction and a brand-new chapter called ‘Total Control' with new exercises.

Chapter 1 Steinitz’s Elements

Chapter 2 The eye of the grandmaster

Chapter 3 Thought process and line of thinking

Chapter 4 Material advantage

Chapter 5 Weakened king position

Chapter 6 Passed pawn

Chapter 7 Weak pawns

Chapter 8 Training experiment

Chapter 9 Strong and weak squares

Chapter 10 The pawn islands theory

Chapter 11 The pawn centre

Chapter 12 The diagonal

Chapter 13 Quiz: strong square

Chapter 14 The open file

Chapter 15 The bishop pair

Chapter 16 Control of a rank

Chapter 17 A piece out of play

Chapter 18 Quiz: open file

Chapter 19 Harmony and coordination

Chapter 20 Lead in development

Chapter 21 Centralization

Chapter 22 Space advantage

Chapter 23 Quiz: space advantage

Chapter 24 Total control

Chapter 25 Solutions

Chapter 26 Epilogue

Review

"If you want to be a better player, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy. It may well be the crown jewel of your chess book collection!" -- Jeremy Silman, International Master,author of 'How to Reassess Your Chess' ― US Chess online

"A highly instructive book for readers who want to improve their chess skills." -- Jan Tinman, Grandmaster , author of 'The Unstoppable American'

"The entire presentation is extremely well done (..) A fantastic and challenging book for ambitious and advanced club players." -- KARL Chess Magazine

"Chess coaches will have a quality supply of superb examples and explanations, and self-motivated students will benefit immensely if they are over, say, 1800 in strength." -- Pete Tamburro ― ChessLife Magazine

“One of my three favorite chess teaching books. Grooten supplies nice examples and great explanation in a very structured way.” -- Jan van de Mortel, International Master ― Chess Education Partners, Chicago, IL

"This book will certainly improve your middlegame and boost your results." -- Gary Lane ― Australian Chess Magazine

"Extremely interesting and instructional lectures on the themes: positional elements, positional judgements, and finding the right plan (..) A fantastic book for chess training." -- Martin Rieger ― Rochade Europa Magazine

"An excellent teaching tool with over 400 pages of clear instruction." -- Joe Petrolito ― Australasian Chess Magazine

About the Author

Herman Grooten is an International Master and a chess coach with over 25 years of experience. Quite a few of his pupils have gone on to become grandmasters. His equally bestselling follow-up primer ‘Attacking Chess for Club Players' was published in 2016.