Now that you’ve had some practice with tactics, you also need some practice with positional exercises. These are less mentally demanding (less concrete variations) but you still have to analyse and critique positions carefully to get an accurate assessment of the position, whether white or black is good or bad.

Like with the tactics, I’ll give you the positions to solve and then I’ll give you the answers in the following post.

By the way, I’ve taken these exercises from Positional Chess Handbook: 495 Instructive Positions from Grandmaster Games by Israel Gelfer, if you want to know.

Exercise #1

Find the move that wins for white and explain, giving a sample variation, as to why.

Exercise #2

Find the move that wins for black and explain, giving a sample variation, as to why.

Exercise #3

Find the move that wins for white and explain, giving a sample variation, as to why.