Defensive Chess Patterns, playing from an inferior Position: one Piece down, so what?

by Rodolfo Pardi, Evelyne Nicod (Illustrator)

Many chess books try to teach you how to eventually win, a few if any will tell you how to defend, here you will find suggestions on how to play in (even dead) lost situations. Thirty odd endgames you are likely to encounter soon or later, where you could fight for your half point. If you read other books of mine you will recognize some of the patterns, but here they are arranged in a systematic way. A good visualization is not needed, as the sequences are of really a few moves. Enjoy the book and your games. Rodolfo Pardi, librarian, arbiter and instructor of FSI (Italian Chess Federation) Where's the problem? You might be one piece down for several reasons, what will you do, resign? In a blitz game I saw stalemate the opponent while having two Queens and a pawn against a lonely King, so let's consider the situation before resigning. Sometimes chess players resign a position which is not lost. Moreover, there are some examples where a game was resigned in a completely winning position! A Sample game can be seen here, where Black resigned in a winning scacchi.vecchilibri.eu/partite/resign... There are many reasons for being a piece 1) willingly. You do like, as I do, aggressive games, so gambit lines are preferred, you give a pawn and as compensation you have better development and the initiative. You are not scared, as you are used to play this way, but if your game is slowing down, the opponent exchanges a piece after another, all of a sudden you find yourself in the endgame one pawn down, fighting for a draw. 2) with your great surprise, you took a bait, and found yourself a piece down following an opening trap you were not aware of. 3) as the result of a tactic 4) as an error of visualization during a sequence of captures, at your surprise on the board some piece is missing, that should be there 5) what remains after an unsound sacrifice 6) a plain blunder, you left a piece unprotected, or worst you gave it freely away 7) worst of all, you are outperformed by your opponent in a long strategical sequence of small disadvantages, till your pieces have no mobility, and finish trapped Sounds new? What will you do, hang down your head and cry? In this handbook you will find my idea of the correct approach to (try to) save the some guidelines, some techniques, some examples. Remember, never give up! >>> As usual with my books the translation from Italian is not impeccable, therefore I suggest to click to look inside to check if you will understand.

134 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 18, 2014

About the author

Rodolfo Pardi has had many careers in his lifetime. He was an electronics engineer for military aircraft equipment for 25 years, then a publisher for 20 years. Since 2010, he has been librarian, coach and arbiter of the Italian Chess Federation (FSI); he prepared more than 20 chess manuals in English and many more in Italian, covering many subjects not often seen in chess books.

His book, Chess Patterns, became a bestseller on Amazon.com.  As with all his chess books, there are plenty of diagrams, reducing the need for a chessboard. Piece names are not foreign capital letters, but figurines - one of the first ebooks with this feature.

Books are also linked to sample games on his website, keeping the books neat, but making it easy to follow many more games, and download the PGN versions. Additional free training material is also available on the site.

Most books target novice and club players, up to 1700 ELO.

While English is not his native language, the books are well-structured and easy to read.

The cat covers are designed by Evelyne Nicod, to be found in Goodreads as an illustrator.