Dynamic Pawn

Title: Dynamic Pawn Play in Chess

Author: Drazen Marovic

Publisher: Gambit

Genre: Middlegame/Strategy

Level: Intermediate/ Advanced Intermediate/ Advanced

Content: “Dynamic Pawn Play in Chess” teaches how chess theory understood pawn structures in the center in the years 1850-2000. The book is actually a boot camp course about what chess masters do with their pawns between the opening and the middlegame, with a special focus on the developments of the 1980’s and 1990’s about the importance of the dynamic center. The chapters of the book are:

1. A Short Historical Survey (P. 5)

2. The Open Center (30)

3. The Closed Center (65)

4. Pawn-Majorities and minorities attacks (134)

5. The Dynamic Center (159-255)

As you can see the emphasis is on the dynamic center and for a good reason. The main focus of the book is instructional and competitive rather than historical. Therefore Marovic does well by preparing the reader for the kind of center that is the most popular in high level practice today. However, the “light” reader may be overwhelmed by the amount of material that is covered and by the fast pace. In order to achieve the most from this book I would recommend reading it first from cover to cover to get a perspective of the whole picture and then read it again in depth and explore the nuances. Obviously this task may not be to every reader’s liking.

Who is it good for? The book will benefit the serious player who is ready to compile a dense text for the reward of understanding what happened in chess strategy theory in the last thirty years.

The Good Things:

The book covers the development of a major subject in chess strategy, namely pawn structures.
The material is well organized and the focus is on the updated situation in opening/middlegame theory.
The writer is an experienced grandmaster and was the trainer of the Croatian national team when he wrote the book (2001).

The Bad Things:

There is not enough FUN in the book for my taste. I like those little anecdotes, stories and a writer’s personal tone.

Quote: “Napier’s counterblow in the center did not yield fruit owing to White’s superior understanding and tactical prowess, but he had a very clear idea how to meet a pawn attack on the wing and his play was based on it from the early moves. Some 20-30 years later it was common knowledge. We shall see that as years passed by, the chess master’s faith in the magical power of the central blow weakened, but all through the second half 20^th century we find illustrative games confirming its frequent validity.”

The Bottom Line: A productive serious book, aimed at advanced players and ambitious intermediate players.

Rating: 8.5/10

Review written by Chessbug.