Drazen Marovic: Dynamic pawn play in Chess

Gambit Verlag, paperback, Englisch, ISBN: 1-901983-43-9, 256 Seiten, 2003.

How to use your pawns to fight for the initiative and central control.


This book tackles fundamental questions such as: How should pawns be used to fight for the centre? and How does the central pawn formation affect planning for both sides? These issues are central to understanding chess. Marovic discusses central pawn-structures and their impact on play both in the centre and on the wings. He begins by surveying how the pawns role in controlling the centre has been developed over the last 150 years, and how this has led to the refinement of concepts such as the dynamic backward pawn and the positional exchange sacrifice. The bulk of the book is devoted to discussions of the main type of centre: Open Centre; Closed / Blocked Centre; Fixed Centre; and in particular the Mobile/Dynamic Centre.

Drazen Marovic is a grandmaster from Croatia, who has won medals as both player and trainer for various national teams. His pupils include Bojan Kurajica, World Under-20 Champion in 1965, and Al Modiahki of Qatar, the first Arabian grandmaster. Marovic has a wealth of experience as a writer, editor and television commentator on chess. He is currently the trainer of the Croation national team.