Dreev University - Dreev's Universal Positional Playbook 

Dreev University – Dreev's Universal Positional Playbook

Two Generations, One Blind Spot

At the 2026 Sinquefield Cup, Vincent Keymer had a positional resource that would have given him a clear advantage against Sindarov. He never found it. Twenty-six years earlier, in the same type of position, Nigel Short had passed over the very same idea.

Two players from completely different generations, both rated well above 2650, missing the identical point. That is the quiet danger of positional play: the mistake leaves no evidence. No blunder, no lost material — just a position that turns slightly worse while you are still convinced you played a solid game. The hardest part is learning to catch these moments yourself — and that recognition is exactly what Dreev's Universal Positional Playbook is built to train.

A Method Built Around Your Own Decisions

That is exactly what GM Alexey Dreev sets out to do. Every lesson stops at the precise moment a decision had to be taken, and before the answer arrives, the choice is yours to make. It is the same training principle that runs through the entire University, applied here to the area where the biggest gap between good and very good players tends to hide.

The examples come from everywhere. Dreev revisits his own games — including a duel with GM Romain Edouard presented as a full video lesson — and returns to the Fischer–Spassky match of 1972, where several of the most celebrated moves in chess history turn out to be positional errors once you check them with modern eyes. He also draws on the 2026 Sinquefield Cup, with Caruana, Giri, So and Praggnanandhaa, and on the Spilimbergo Open 2026, an Italian event GM Pier Luigi Basso follows every year and where he gathered a remarkable collection of grandmaster positional slips — the same kind that decide club games every weekend.

What's Inside

• 23 lessons divided into 5 units
• 45 exercises to solve
• Full video instruction
• Multilingual PGN: English, German, French, Spanish

Where It Fits

This is the second volume on the subject. Dreev University – Positional Play laid the foundations, and this Playbook builds directly on them, continuing the same line of thinking rather than repeating it. The same logic connects the wider University: Practical Mistakes, The Art of the Quiet Moves, Feel the Momentum, Dreev Dreams and the endgame volumes all train the same muscle from a different angle.

Work through Dreev's Universal Positional Playbook and start seeing the moves that never announced themselves as mistakes. Get the course and put your own positional judgment to the test.

INTRODUCTION BY GM PIER LUIGI BASSO

SAMPLE CHAPTER

SAMPLE VIDEO