Help me correct my book's introduction

Introduction

As a chess coach, I often hear my students complain about the difficulty of playing the middlegame. They ask questions like: "Ok, I've just finished my development and my pieces are well placed. Now what?" When I was doing some research for this book on the Internet, I entered some chess forums and I noticed that even strong players have doubts concerning how to play the middlegame. "I'm an experienced player, but sometimes I feel lost playing these more strategical positions…", someone admitted. And there was this funny person who said: "I'm planning to become a GM by the end of the year, but I have no clue how to play these rather vanilla positions." Another player commented: “Many times I can’t find a plan. Some positions are too complex, especially in the middlegame.”

If you somehow identify yourself with any of those players, this book is for you. The main purpose of this book is to get you familiar with relevant middlegame patterns and ideas, frequent in real games. After doing the exercises and reading the solutions carefully, you will be able to quickly identify the moves that make sense in many different types of positions. Finding a plan will become easier, and making random moves will be less frequent.

Although this book is mainly intended for the intermediate players, it is not completely forbidden for beginners, nor for the more advanced chess students. The exercises vary in difficulty and themes, and their solutions are explained in detail. As to the positions in the exercises, they are all taken from real games, in their middlegame stage. Please, understand that the focus here is the strategy; the problems are not tactical puzzles, although some tactics might be involved once in a while.

Now, before we jump to the fun part, I feel I have to explain this book’s title: 'Sensible Chess'. Well, a sensible person is someone who acts according to the rules of logic and who makes wise choices. And chess is all about making good decisions, especially in the middlegame, where choices abound. After doing the exercises and learning from their solutions, you will become a better decision maker over the board. You will definitely play a more sensible chess.