Chess Theory - Middlegame Theory

Middlegame Theory

Middlegame theory is considerably less developed than either opening theory or endgame theory. Watson writes, "Players wishing to study this area of the game have a limited and rather unsatisfactory range of resources from which to choose."

One of the earliest theories to gain attention was that of William Steinitz who posited that the player with the advantage must of necessity attack, or else risk losing that advantage. Steinitz counseled that a premature attack against one's opponent in an equal position could be repelled by skillful defence, and so a player's best bet was to slowly maneuver with the goal of accumulating small advantages. Steinitz himself did not lay out his whole theory in one place, but Emanuel Lasker in Lasker's Manual of Chess and Max Euwe in The Development of Chess Style expounded and developed Steinitz's theory.

Leading player and theorist Aron Nimzowitsch's influential books My System (1925), Die Blockade (1925) (in German), and Chess Praxis (1936) were, and remain, among the most important works on the middlegame. Nimzowitsch called attention to the possibility of letting one's opponent occupy the centre with pawns while you exert control with your pieces as in the Nimzo-Indian or Queen's Indian defences. He pointed out how in positions with interlocking pawn chains, one could attack the chain at its base by advancing one's own pawns and carrying out a freeing move (pawn break). He also drew attention to the strategy of occupying open files with one's rooks in order to later penetrate to the seventh rank where they could attack the enemy pawns and hem in the opponent's king. Another of his key concepts was prophylaxis, moves aimed at limiting the opponent's mobility to the point where he would no longer have any useful moves.

In 1952, Fine published the 442-page The Middle Game in Chess, perhaps the most comprehensive treatment of the subject up until that time. The mid-20th century also saw the publication of The Middle Game, volumes 1 and 2, by former World Champion Max Euwe and Hans Kramer, and a series of books by the Czechoslovak-German grandmaster Luděk Pachman: three volumes of Complete Chess Strategy, Modern Chess Strategy, Modern Chess Tactics, and Attack and Defense in Modern Chess Tactics.

Another key turning point in middlegame theory came with the release of Alexander Kotov's book Think like a Grandmaster in 1971. Kotov outlined how a player calculates by developing a tree of variations in his head, and recommended that players only examine each branch of the tree once. He also noted how some players seem to fall victim to what is now known as Kotov's Syndrome: they calculate out a large range of different lines, become dissatisfied with the result, and realizing that they are short on time, play a completely new candidate move without even checking whether it is sound. More recently, Jonathan Tisdall, John Nunn and Andrew Soltis have elaborated on Kotov's tree theory further.

In 1999, Watson's Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy: Advances Since Nimzowitsch was published, in which Watson discusses the revolution in middlegame theory that has occurred since Nimzowitsch's time.

There are also many books on specific aspects of the middlegame, such as The Art of Attack in Chess by Vladimir Vuković, The Art of Sacrifice in Chess by Rudolf Spielmann, The Art of the Checkmate by Georges Renaud and Victor Kahn, The Basis of Combination in Chess by J. du Mont, and The Art of Defense in Chess by Andrew Soltis.