Positional Play by Jacob Aagaard, Dojo Book Review

GM Kraai continues his quest of reading or rereading all the books in the Dojo Training program.

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[yzfool]

This was very helpful Jesse. I am a CM who l made it to 2K ELO without beating a single Expert OTB. My tactical awareness and an opening repertoire supporting tactical positions were all I needed to beat Class A players consistently and get the CM title. In order to reach the NM level I need to improve my positional awareness. Every trainer can seem like a genius when they already know the answer to the position. So-called "positional chess" that GMs can't replicate over the board is useless to me. I love Aagaard's books, but in many cases, I couldn't derive any positional principles from his analysis - even the ones the examples were supposed to elucidate. Now I know why and I know how to test it, and not just in the case of Aagaard. Tiviakov & Gokbut's "Rock Solid Chess" contrasts with Aagaard's methodology. In his book, Tiviakov often analyzes a number of his own OTB games (where obviously, he didn't have access to a computer to know the answer to the position) and compares them to how an engine would have played. He discusses the differences and whether we (he) could learn something from the engine's way of playing or not. This kind of analysis is transparent and has been very useful to me. Now I can appreciate both works for what they offer, given the distinctions you raise in this video.

[AFinancialUSA]

Nice to see you again Jesse! I really loved our blitz game in Fresno...you were so kind to say I positionally had a draw (but lost on time). You are a great YouTube speaker, very soothing voice, I love hearing your GM perspective on the positions!

[michaelf]

Just as an FYI to the video editor. Probably you spent a bit too long trying to trim down Jesse's mannerisms and make the video super clean. I don't think a long form explanation video like this needs edits every 5-10 seconds to smooth everything over. A short and snappy video on the other hand might definitely require such editing.

[GeneralBlorp]

Was the editing done via AI tool by chance? Just curious… 👍

[peepshow]

I have the Aagaard books but I feel his compositions are too computer-based. I want to learn from themes and concepts that have high instructive value and I think that is not driven by a computer. That is a human touch and why I prefer "Imagination in Chess" by Paata Gaprindashvili. Those problems are classified as either a problem where you merely calculate and find the solution or where there is a barrier to solving it "reciprocal thinking" is what Paata calls it and it's basically finding a tactic you want to do but can't and removing the obstruction so that you can. Outside of that there is Hellsten's Strategy book and beyond that I can't really think of any other instructive material that any human would *need* for the middle game.