Rating: 
Summary: Good strategy book
Review: A book like this one stays with you forever... Pachman's book is very thorough and organized. As a manual for the middlegame this book should be read after going through tactical training books like 1001 mates / combinations by Reinfeld, Polgar's brick, or any similar book with combinations.Once the tactical training is finished, Pachman's book will aid you to develop the complex strategical aspect of the middlegame.
Pachman's examples are very illustrative and going through the book twice provides good returns in OTB games. For instance, the chapter about rooks and the handling of minor pieces will by themselves pay for the book... One of my objections to the book is its chapter about the minority attack. To my taste it was confusing and not as well written as the rest of the book. How does it measure up with other strategy books? Maybe some people are going to be upset about this but the book is clearer than Nimzo's "My System" and It is more complete than "Judgement and Planing" by Euwe. [ I haven't have the chance to read other books on strategy ] But let us be fair, Euwe's and Nimzo's book are excellent counterparts to Pachman's book and I also like studying them. Is it worth buying Pachman's book? In my opinion, yes.
Rating:
Summary: Good strategy book
Review: A book like this one stays with you forever... Pachman's book is very thorough and organized. As a manual for the middlegame this book should be read after going through tactical training books like 1001 mates / combinations by Reinfeld, Polgar's brick, or any similar book with combinations. Once the tactical training is finished, Pachman's book will aid you to develop the complex strategical aspect of the middlegame.
Pachman's examples are very illustrative and going through the book twice provides good returns in OTB games. For instance, the chapter about rooks and the handling of minor pieces will by themselves pay for the book... One of my objections to the book is its chapter about the minority attack. To my taste it was confusing and not as well written as the rest of the book. How does it measure up with other strategy books? Maybe some people are going to be upset about this but the book is clearer than Nimzo's "My System" and It is more complete than "Judgement and Planing" by Euwe. [ I haven't have the chance to read other books on strategy ] But let us be fair, Euwe's and Nimzo's book are excellent counterparts to Pachman's book and I also like studying them. Is it worth buying Pachman's book? In my opinion, yes.
Rating: 
Summary: In my view, better than My System
Review: Do you want to improve your chess. Are you rated under 2000? Then this is a good place to start. This is much easier reading than the often verbose and self-serving My System. Pachman's writing is clear and insightful. Buy this book and play through every few years. You will almost certainly gain new insights into chess with every reading. This book should be on every aspiring chess player's shelf alongside Larry Evan's New Ideas in Chess, Hans Kmoch's Pawn Power in Chess, David Bronstein's Zurich 1953, Bobby Fischer's My Sixty Memorable Games, Mikhail Botvinnik's 100 Selected Games, Mikhail Tal's Life and Games of Mikhail Tal, Alexander Alekhine's Best Games and Richard Reti's Masters of the Chessboard. That is some pretty lofty company, but Modern Chess Strategy is worthy of it. Oh, and you can't beat the price.
Rating:
Summary: Best Positional Book!
Review: I have read many many chess books, and this is one of the top 2 to really come to an understanding of the middle game. Goes over all the positional aspects of the middle game - how to use each piece to its full potential. Even a big section on pawns! The other book I'd recommend is "The Art of Attack in Chess". This book is the tactical side of how to attack once you have positional superiority. 2 WONDERFUL books!
Rating:
Summary: Strategy Book
Review: I like this book very much,this book is as good as'' How to Reassess your Chess'' by Jeremy Silman . And the price is very cheap !
Rating:
Summary: Just short of perfect...
Review: I obtained this book quite by accident, really. I had no idea who Ludek Pachman was but since I was in the market for a book on strategy, it seemed to fit the bill. The explanations of such simple yet important topics as the pawns, the center, the minority attack and others are undertaken without too much confusing chess master jargon. Pachman had a real gift for imparting Chess wisdom. Slight problem: the book is in the older but entirely readable descriptive notation and it's actually an abridgement that (from the translator's preface): 'attempts to compress into one volume the material contained in the three volumes of Moderne Schachstrategie, the German translation of the Czech original...' One can find the first two original volumes, as I did, without too much problem. The third volume is as rare as Hen's teeth so if you find it, grab it. Silman recommends this three-volume set very highly. I would recommend it/them only for the slightly intermediate to advanced intermediate players who are very comfortable with the basics of the game.
Rating:
Summary: Just short of perfect...
Review: I obtained this book quite by accident, really. I had no idea who Ludek Pachman was but since I was in the market for a book on strategy, it seemed to fit the bill. The explanations of such simple yet important topics as the pawns, the center, the minority attack and others are undertaken without too much confusing chess master jargon. Pachman had a real gift for imparting Chess wisdom. Slight problem: the book is in the older but entirely readable descriptive notation and it's actually an abridgement that (from the translator's preface): 'attempts to compress into one volume the material contained in the three volumes of Moderne Schachstrategie, the German translation of the Czech original...' One can find the first two original volumes, as I did, without too much problem. The third volume is as rare as Hen's teeth so if you find it, grab it. Silman recommends this three-volume set very highly. I would recommend it/them only for the slightly intermediate to advanced intermediate players who are very comfortable with the basics of the game.
Rating:
Summary: A required addition to your chess library
Review: I started playing tournament chess back in the 70's. I dropped out of the chess world for a couple decades only to have my fascination with chess rekindled this year. Even back then, back in the days of descriptive notation, back when the Fischer-Spassky match was recent history, back when the USCF was 60,000 members strong this book was suggested to me as "The best middle game book you can buy". "My System" by Nimzowitsch can be a bit too dense for the class level player. Pachman's book is much easier to understand. Recently, I've been reading Jeremy Silman's book "How to reasses your chess". I'm finding that now that I've read Silman, Pachman makes a lot more sense. I'm now realizing that Pachman's strategies and Silman's "Imbalances" are just different ways of describing the same thing. Once you start seeing the ideas behind the strategies THEN you really start playing chess. This book is a great step to get there. This book, combined with Capablanca's classic "Chess Fundamentals" will give you a very strong grasp of modern chess strategy.
Rating:
Summary: A required addition to your chess library
Review: I started playing tournament chess back in the 70's. I dropped out of the chess world for a couple decades only to have my fascination with chess rekindled this year. Even back then, back in the days of descriptive notation, back when the Fischer-Spassky match was recent history, back when the USCF was 60,000 members strong this book was suggested to me as "The best middle game book you can buy". "My System" by Nimzowitsch can be a bit too dense for the class level player. Pachman's book is much easier to understand. Recently, I've been reading Jeremy Silman's book "How to reasses your chess". I'm finding that now that I've read Silman, Pachman makes a lot more sense. I'm now realizing that Pachman's strategies and Silman's "Imbalances" are just different ways of describing the same thing. Once you start seeing the ideas behind the strategies THEN you really start playing chess. This book is a great step to get there. This book, combined with Capablanca's classic "Chess Fundamentals" will give you a very strong grasp of modern chess strategy.
Rating:
Summary: The Bible of positional chess
Review: If you want to learn the deepest secrets of positional play and it's important principles, explained by a strong Grandmaster and one of the greatest chess authors , but you can't stand Nimzowitch's arrogancy, then it's your book. It explains from the improvement of one's pieces and iots best squares to the secrets of positional play, with deep studies on strategies like the minority attack. If you play the Najdorf-Opocensky Sicilian, you must read the chapter about the backward pawn. A must have to everybody who want to improve his positional play.
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