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Code: 2021-SP- Grandmaster Preparation Calculation -
Aagaard (2012) 430.00
Grandmaster
Preparation: Calculation by Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard is the first in a five
book series (position play, strategic play, endgame play and thinking inside
the box are the others) designed to give aspiring players without trainers the
tools they need on the road to grandmastership. Such aims are ambitious to say
the least but Aagaard delivers.
This reviewer
remembers when an English language translation of Hort and Jansa’s What’s the
Best Move was published in 1980 and what a big deal it was. Previous to that,
students of the game had only books on combinations and chess solitaire to go
through, but they were nothing like the work by the two Vlastimils. The 230
test positions, all from their own games, were challenging, even with three
choices offered. I still remember taking a Greyhound bus from Philadelphia to
Boulder, Colorado, in 1981 with IM Walter Morris and the difficulties both of
us had finding the correct solutions.
The 75 positions
offered in the final chapter (Difficult Positions) of Aagaard’s book are on a
different order of magnitude of difficulty from those in What’s the Best Move.
Fortunately, students have roughly 375 positions to solve before that to
prepare themselves. These positions are arranged around eight chapters that
deal with specific themes: candidate moves, combinational vision, prophylaxis
comparison, elimination, intermediate moves, imagination and traps.
Each chapter starts
with four to five pages of examples accompanied by explanatory prose which
builds up to the exercises which are the heart of the book. They are
challenging and the time to solve them reflects this. Don’t expect to gobble
them down like three move checkmates.
Failing to solve the
exercises can still yield benefits if the student tries their hardest.
Calculation has detailed solutions that clear up misconceptions.