Certain situations that the author feels are important are covered. They become example positions and the planning and ideas that are mainly for one side to get to a goal is well covered. There are some limits to what this book can cover as these are only some examples of some of the many things that can occur in games. I feel that good books to go along with this one would be on positional chess like My System a book on attacks like Art of Attack and a book on opening traps and tactics like Winning Chess Traps for Juniors , then you will have covered the most important all around situations that may occur. I think this book is, by far, the best book Jeremy Silman has written!