Pawn Power in Chess

by Hans Kmoch

"One of the few books…which, at a glance, one can recognize as an immortal." — Chess .
The proper use of pawns — of paramount importance in chess strategy — sometimes even puzzles experienced players. This profoundly original and stimulating book by an International Master and prolific chess writer offers superb instruction in pawn play by isolating its elements and elaborating on various aspects.
After a lucid exposition of the fundamentals and the basic formations of one or two pawns that virtually constitute the keys to winning chess strategy, the reader is shown a multitude of examples demonstrating the paramount significance of elements of pawn manipulation. The author’s masterly explanation makes it perfectly clear to the beginner as well as the advanced player how the fate of a game depends on pawn formation and how pawn power holds the proceedings under its remote control. Over 180 games and diagrams illustrate the author’s theory and make it easy to follow the points made in the text.
Hans Kmoch played with distinction in several international tournaments and is the author of a number of books and columns on chess and chess tournaments.
“We consider it the best publication on chess strategy since the end of World War II.” — Die Welt.

Genres: Chess, Games, Nonfiction, Reference

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

Reviews

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

Frequently considered a classic in chess literature, but I think it suffers too much from Kmoch's desire to create a comprehensive terminology for his theories about pawns. Full of insights, particularly once he gets to pawns and pieces, but organized too theoretically to be practically useful. Also suffers from not being in algebraic notation.

[Gary Patella · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gives great insight into the strategies one should employ based on the type of pawn structure. Thematic tactics are also shown in certain structures, and the addition of illustrative games shows how the principles take shape in actual games. There is a lot of information contained in this book, so I will have to read it again at some point in the future.

[Buffalonickel · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you can get by the author's unusual pawn jargon ("candidates", "passers", etc.) the book is a pretty good read.

He is also slightly guilty in forgetting that we are not all strong chess players and lets his exercises get over the heads of those who are not chess masters.

[Jasper Riogeist · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a person who likes chess, I can admit that this book was pretty dull. As a low intermediate player, I found the style of learning in this book to be slow and hard to pay attention to, often reading a few pages and realizing I had no idea what I was reading. If you are a beginner or intermediate player or just want to read a chess book that you'll enjoy and learn something from, read a different book.

[Melanie Brennan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to make a cheat sheet for the terminology, but the concepts were very helpful for me

[TjeerdFokkens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another classic and therefore a more or less essential read. This was a tough one though. Firstly, there is the descriptive notation which I learned especially for this book; how confusing! N-B1 never means what you think! Secondly, there is the well-known issue of the overload on terminology; an example: "The conversion of the duo into a leuco-bound chain creates a bad ram and enhances the melanpenia of Black’s position,…" Yeah.
The text systematically discusses different pawn structures and one can learn many things here. Annotation is generally good, sometimes a bit much and not always on point, but usually finely dosed and accurate.
Not particularly recommended, especially for modern-day readers, but decent.

[Cody Oldham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Duos, Rams, sweepers, sealers, meloprenia and leavers. Interesting ideas and some relevant chess information, however a bit out there with the definitions. If nothing else very original even being so far in the past.

[Liam Davis · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book might have been practical, but Kmoch’s heavy jargon and refusal to use Algebraic notation make that usefulness almost impossible to access.

[Randy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pawn Power Chess is the first book on pawn structures I've really studied. I seriously studied it cover to cover, entering every game into a database and adding notes in every game and variation. That means it will hold a special place in my heart, like other classics people rave about but which might not actually be great. My System is the other book people go on and on about, but may only be awesome because it enlightened someone when they were young. I was turned onto this book by a video I watched by the late IM Danny Kopec called "Pawn Structures & How to Play Them". Kopec was enlightened by this book as a teen and clearly loved it. You can still buy the Kopec video streaming on Amazon. Warning: the production quality of chess videos from the early '90s is uniformly low and Kopec does not cover the book exactly but gives you a taste before you jump into a 300-page book on pawn formations.

If you look on Amazon, you will see all the kids gripe about the descriptive notation. I would suggest that just playing over these games and examples is too passive to absorb this material. If that's not true for you, then jump to a more advanced book. To make studying this book active rather than passive, go get the games in the book from a database like ChessBase or chessgames.com, they are all out there. Putting them into your own database, (the 21st Century version of your "chess notebook"), where you can work with them hands-on. Then the descriptive notation stops mattering. There is always the occasional situation when you realize why algebraic is better than descriptive, but when you have the PGN of a game in algebraic, it's not hard to figure out that BxN means Bxf6 when you are reading the annotation.

The terminology Kmoch made up is much maligned, but it's not the main point of the book. The most common word used is lever and Kmoch didn't invent that. He shows why there is a whole chapter in Pump Up Your Rating called "No Pawn Lever – No Plan". The games describing levers were very instructive for me. There is a whole section relating the pawn structure to each of the pieces. This was very useful for me since it started to explain the problem of "where do the pieces want to be, based on the pawns". From that part on, Kmoch's annotations are instructive and excellent. The book was written in the '50s a golden era of chess: this was the time of Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953 and the ascent of Tal The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal. After seeing Nunn and others go back over classics with a computer, it is remarkable how accurate Kmoch's annotations are when compared to modern engines (Komodo and Lc0). I think this has something to do with the immortal element of the pawns in chess. Kmoch, like many teachers, occasionally falls into the trap of saying that a move which fits his idea is good or bad based on the game result when that might not be exactly true. Despite the occasional explanatory liberty, the lessons still stand up today. I think this book is an excellent entry to advanced books like Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide, Small Steps to Giant Improvements- Master Pawn Play in Chess or Winning Chess Middlegames: An Essential Guide to Pawn Structures (which Sokolov also made a 3 hour video lesson for).

What is missing from this book is good coverage of "Isolani" structures. Kmoch skims the subject, but several books cover this structure exclusively and perhaps make up the second level of books to consider: Winning Pawn Structures and Isolani Strategy.

Pawn Power In Chess is better than it's reputation, but not in the elite class of chess books, even if I will never forget having read it and recommend it to everyone.

[Ernest Cadorin · Rating 2 out of 5]

read all the theory and worked through some of the games

[Subhash.cbp]

Nj