It’s a fact that you can win some chess games just by playing one solid-looking move after another. But at the higher levels of competition, it’s not enough to play move by move: you need a plan. Chess Success is about making that plan. It shows, with fascinating examples taken from actual grandmaster games, why the solid-looking move—the “natural” move—can often be a subtle blunder. Learn to make a better move by first looking at the pawn structure of the game and understand how it’s “warped” by the positions of the pieces. Apart from this powerful new way of looking at chess strategy, the games with their unexpected twists are tremendously entertaining to replay.

The difference between a Grandmaster and an ordinary chess player isn’t just sheer brainpower. It’s the creative ability to develop a far-reaching plan. In this indispensable follow-up to his incredibly successful Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking, International Grandmaster Neil McDonald takes a penetrating look at more than 40 of the most outstanding games of the last 25 years, offering detailed, in-depth analysis of the strategic concepts behind each move. By showing how the players develop their plans many moves ahead, he gives the reader a unique opportunity to virtually get inside the Grandmasters’ heads as they play.