comprehensive pawn- structure- chess book(s)

• What is/are the most comprehensive Pawn-Structure-chess book(s)? Preferably easy to understand,  with enough examples,  and inclusive of all structures. 

All positive remarks are welcome. I appreciate your inputs. 

Its kinda hard suggesting a book without knowing your skill level.

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  17 min ago#2

  Its kinda hard suggesting a book without knowing your skill level.

   

  You have a good point. I am just learning about chess theory. I am not a player,  that is. But I am sure people encounter a lot of books if they are serious to learn about chess even if not a player. 

I think im more confused than i was before.  So do you play chess, or are you just asking about a book on pawn structures to read?

Soltis' "Pawn Structure Chess" and Kmoch's "Pawn Power in Chess" are the only two I know about (and both are well regarded).

But you say you want it to be comprehensive, also easy, and also you're not a player... so it makes me think you're wanting to do some kind of statistical work or programming an engine... or something? So I'd add that these books are not written as some kind of catalog or theoretical work, the structures they cover are what's practical to know for a player.

That is supposed to "thank you".

"Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide", by Mauricio Flores Rios is another good book on pawn structures. It's better organized than Soltis and lays out the plans for each side more clearly. Soltis does cover some structures in more detail, though, such as the Scheveningen structure.

Sokolov's "Winning Chess Middlegames: An Essential Guide to Pawn Structures" is excellent, but it covers fewer structures in more detail than Soltis and Flores.

You might also consider "The Power of Pawns: Chess Structure Fundamentals for Post-Beginners",  by Jorg Hickl, and a new book, "Small Steps to Giant Improvement: Master Pawn Play in Chess", by Sam Shankland. I am not personally familiar with either of those books but for what it's worth I have heard positive things about them.

Edit: I should add that there is no book that I am aware of that covers all pawn structures.

I appreciate your participation in this discussion, all of you. Thank you and happy holidays. 

Of course any other input is again welcomed as usual. 

Also learning about pawn structure chess is the main big step toward middle game survival,  large view of strategy and planning,  and of course "soul of chess".

This is where the evaluation starts to make sense too

Get The Power of Pawns by Hickl.

https://www.amazon.com/Power-Pawns-Structure-Fundamentals-Post-beginners/dp/9056916319

You might find "Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide" by Mauricio Flores Rios to be helpful. A lot of the structures covered are also in Soltis, but the plans and ideas are laid out more clearly and in greater detail, and the sample games are well chosen and well annotated. Flores also gives a lot more attention to structure transformations than Soltis. This is not to take anything away from Soltis: his book is excellent and he covers some things in more detail than Flores, such as the Scheveningen structure.

Does Flores book discuss all formations? If not, is there a book that does that?

Neither Flores nor Soltis discusses all formations, but between the two of them they cover most of the main ones. A major set that isn't addressed in either book is Nimzoindian structures. 

Unfortunately, I don't know of any book that contains all structures: there are just too many of them for a book of reasonable length to cover them all. My own notebooks contain details on over 70 different structures, and there are more that I haven't bothered with because I'm not likely to ever have them in my games.

Thank you for that link. Very useful material there.

What's interesting is that sometimes grandmasters accept defective pawn structures in order to win a game via a brilliant attack.  I've seen GM's who win games even though they have isolated doubled pawns.  

Why don't you publish your notes? You could earn some money from them too. 

Interesting idea, but not really practical. Most of my notes are condensed versions of material from books, so publishing them would be a copyright minefield. Also, a lot of the notes would be cryptic to anyone but me in their current form: I'd have to "uncondense" them, which is a lot more work than I'm willing to do.

Still,  it would be nice to put some effort and clarify your notes,  also for your sake,  and make it useful resource for others.  Granted the publishing problems must be considered morally and legally. 

Someone else had some note that he wanted to complete and revise but I have not tried to look it up again.  It was very crude anyway.