Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide

I've gone through most of the book over a long period of time. For instance, when I was losing a lot to the King's Indian, I read all the KID chapters from the book. I must have been around 1800 USCF at that point. However, that didn't quite work out. I'll explain:The only way you gain something from the book is if you first amass some experience playing a certain structure, and you analyze your games, and keep accumulating experience about everything that can go wrong, everything that can go right, etc. Then you read this book, and draw upon your experience and relate what you now learn to your experiences in the past. It is only when you do that do you really understand, assimilate, and hopefully be able to apply what you learn in your future games. The mistake I made when I first read these chapters was to do it without the necessary experience.Fast forward about a year, I had played and analyzed many games as white against the KID. I went back to those chapters and had a much easier time with them. A similar story with the Grunfeld center structures. Had to accumulate some games and analyses of those gaames before I could really appreciate the points made about the c file, control of certain squares, to support promotion of the d pawn, etc and only then could I appreciate the Karpov games in that chapter.So for these reasons, I'd recommend working with this book only after you've played at least 10 games in the structure you want to study AND have deeply analyzed and annotated them yourself. So I'd say this book works best for 2000+ USCF (I'm sure I'll gain a lot more from it after accumulating some more experience). You can certainly read and learn something from it even at lower levels than that but the recommendation I made is for optimal gains.Get the book!PS: The only disappointment I had was with the coverage of the Carlsbad structure. There simply wasn't enough on white's f3 e4 ideas and no examples of what happens when white is able to achieve it. I had to go back to my old favorite Soltis' pawn structure chess to see a Susan Polgar game that illustrated some ideas in that structure, but I still feel like the Carlsbad hasn't received a good enough treatment. Even Matthew Sadler's QGD book doesn't have many examples (if at all any) of that plan by white if I remember correctly. However, I'm not taking a star off for this because of how great everything else is.

The books takes the most common structures, consolidates the main ideas for both sides, and provides full sample games to illustrate implementation. This is useful and efficient for an intermediate player like me (I'm around 1800-2000 in rating). The book focuses on concepts and application rather than memorization of variations. I wish more opening books did what this book does. It is crucial to know your opponent's plans well and to thwart them, rather than to only focus on what you want to do or your novelty. Additionally, even if you do get your ideal position, it often takes 20 or 30 more moves before you can realize the advantage; therein lies the value of showing and annotating full games. Converting is hard.Some minor critiques: The author's analyses do not always match up with stockfish, though this doesn't diminish the book's value. For example, in one of the games the author describes one of young Carlsen's moves/plans to convert an advantage as inaccurate, while that move is actually Stockfish 14 NNUE's top recommendation. Also, the book would profit from adding example games for certain structures (for example, more black wins in the Caro Kann structure). Sometimes appears to me that the author harbors a bias against some openings/structures, or that some structures required more attention than was given.

One of the best and most instructional chess books I've ever read -- and I've read quite a few. I'd never heard of Mauricio Flores Rios, a Chilean GM, before reading this book. After reading a few chapters, it's clear that he is a very capable master who combines positional understanding with the kind of tactical prowess that wins chess games. (Chess is 99% tactics, 1% strategy). According to Wikipedia, Flores Rios was the top GM in Chile when he migrated to the US to play for the University of Texas in Brownsville.Each chapter of the book is devoted to covering, in depth, and from both sides, one type of pawn structure. After showing the salient characteristics of the structure and stating which plans have been found to be most effective in handling that structure, he walks you, in depth, through several games in which that structure occurs. What's really great and special about the book is that he illustrates the kind of tactics that you need to keep in mind when handling each position. The book is doubly valuable in that he covers each position from a neutral perspective, showing the best plans for Black and White in each position, and analyzing, in depth, games which show the typical plans in action. I think that each chapter here is more instructional than the average opening book on each particular opening covered. For example, if you play the Caro-Kann as Black, you're going to need to know about how to achieve the ...c5 pawn break -- or how to fight against it as White. Flores Rios has got you covered. Same with the Slav, the Grunfeld, and the other dozen or more structures covered.Highly recommended for anyone below GM level.

There has been least one instance so far where the diagram doesn't seem to jive with the text, but in any book with this much information, there is bound to be one or two minor inaccuracies. Also, I would have liked a bit more in the Grunfeld chapter (or maybe a second chapter with a different line or two as was done with the Najdorf, French, and KID), as I really enjoy playing it. It seemed like all the games followed an exchange line with an open c-file.While I don't think it's the most absolutely perfect book on pawn structures, I'm finding it to be a valuable addition to that (large) section of my chess library. I particularly liked the games with Karpov being Karpov. More of those would have been nice, since they fit in quite well with the overall theme of the book.