For more up to date information on his book etc. see Alex's Web Site

Alexander Baburin, Ireland's only GM so far, gave a series of three lectures in the club from 8.30pm to 10.30 pm on three Mondays, from 8^th March 1999 on pawn structures from his new book and basic rook and pawn endings, with time for questions at the end. Two further lectures on 15^th and 22^nd March dealt with other topics such as: more complex rook and pawn endgames, attacking with pawns, the initiative. Alex also had signed copies of his book "Winning Pawn Structures", price £18. (for more information about his book see below.) The lectures were a big success, enjoyed equally by some of our lower rated club players and by visiting Irish international players from other clubs. Entry fees of £3 for members and £5 for non-members were subsidised by club funds. The first lecture topic was later published in his Coffee Break Chess e-mail newsletter which can be downloaded below. The remaining lectures provided a mind provoking and enjoyable end to the season as a prelude to the club championships.

Winning Pawn Structures published in 1999 in UK by Batsford; 256 pages, paperback., by Alexander Baburin, GM.

The book deals with three very common pawn formations - the Isolated d-Pawn; Hanging Pawns and the Isolated Pawn Couple (e.g. c3/d4, no White pawns on the b- and e- files). Such pawn formations arise from many openings and you can't really play chess without coming across them at least from time to time.

The book is fairly advanced, so you may need to be 1700+ to fully appreciate it. It contains some deep analysis and its not easy reading. The book deals with all the phases of chess, but most of all with the middle game.

In Russian chess literature in the 80s there were too many books, which were merely compilations. The same old (though often great) examples went from one book to another. I did not like that, so in my own work I used mainly new (some from 1997-1998) or little-known games. Of course, some classical examples found their place in the book too.

Buying the book 'Winning Pawn Structures', essential information

Prices and details were correct in March 1999

For customers living in the EU using this table you should be able to work out the total cost for yourself.

£1 (Irish) = DEM 2.48 (Germany) = FL 2.8 (Netherlands) = FRF 8.33 (France) =BEF 51.2 (Belgium) = LUF 51.2 (Luxembourg) = ESP 211 (Spain) = PTE 255 (Portugal) = ITL 2460 (Italy) = ATS 17.5 (Austria) = FIM 7.6 (Finland).

Payment. You can pay by checque in your national currency. Please note that the currency and the location of the issuing bank should match. For example: US bank/American dollars. European customers can pay by Eurocheques (even those which were available before 1999) in Irish punts. Please put Dublin as the place on such a cheque.

If you need any additional information on how to order the book and how to pay for it, please e-mail me at ababurin@iol.ie

Coffee Break Chess is Alexander Baburin's free e-mail newsletter. You can download CBC 5 of March 13th here. The e-mail tells you how to receive the newsletter to your e-mail. Although the diagrams may not show up (The diagrams may work thanks to Joy Burniston!) in the e-mail that I saved here in html, the chessbase light file has the game he discussed at our lecture. It gives the moves in training mode so you have to guess the move at the critical positions. To view the game you need to download the chessbase light viewer, at http://chessbase.com/contents/Contents.htm, also free. Its well worth the effort.