Chess Advantage in Black and White Book Review

The Chess Advantage in Black and White

Larry Kaufman

McKay Chess Library

Target audience 1400-1800 (I think)

First of all let me say that putting a complete repertoire for both the white and black pieces in one book is a daunting task.  We’ll disregard all of the research that goes into the book for a minute, and focus on the fact that the author will have to have his repertoire choices fight with each other at some point in time.  Mr. Kaufman advocates lines that are more positional and less theoretically heavy.  This should get the reader to familiar positions without falling into any traps.

He has a nice setup, every opening is introduced at the begining of the chapter with statistics and general ideas laid out.  He then goes on to give the opening moves with variations listed and notes on where to find that variation discussed in the chapter.  He presents the material through annotated game fragments.  He’ll let the reader know the outcome of the game and,  when appropriate give improvements.  This was a great way to present this repertoire as you see the same themes and patterns over and over.  It also saved space as he didn’t include complete games which probably made this hefty (497pages) book even heftier.

Some folks have complained that there wasn’t a index of variations, which I understand is a pain, but how would you go about putting one together?  For white alone you would branch off to a half dozen second moves!  After all after 1.e4 black can play e5, c6, c5, d5, g6, b6.  By my estimation the index of variations would have to be about 10 pages long, forget it, look at the table of contents to find what you’re looking for.

With the White pieces the author suggests the Ruy Lopez exchange variation which I believe is a good choice.  It is a classical opening but doesn’t contain reams and reams of analysis as many of the other Spanish lines.  He also recommends Moscow/Rossolimo variations against the Sicilian.  This proves to be an economical choice because you have the same ideas, exchanging the light squared bishop for a knight and hoping to damage the opponents pawn structure.  Seeing as you will most likely see these two openings a combined 80% of the time at the patzer level this takes care of most of the work you will have to do with the white pieces.

Against the Caro-Kan he suggest the Short variation which is an advance variation.  I have won many games in slow time control games online with this variation and this made me very confident when facing the Caro.

Against the French he advocates the Tarrasch variation which is good but I never quite got it.  No matter how hard I study this thing, I ALWAYS end up dropping a pawn against the French.  Again this variation is more positional in nature and at the Patzer level it is seen very infrequently.  Most of the people I played it against confessed that they spent little to no time studying it because they never face it.

Against the Pirc and Modern the author goes with a controlled space grab and the postions offer white more space and white is slightly better in all lines.  This book helped demystify these defenses for me and gave me tremendous confidence when facing these lines.  I no longer feared the Pirc or Modern after this book.

Against the Alekhine he recommends the exchange variation which I think is very hard for Black to play against.  I play the Alekhine exclusively against 1.e4 and this is what I least like to see.  Against the Petroff he recommends the Kauffman attack which I found to be loads of fun for white.  The added bonus is that like the Tarrasch against the French NONE of my opponents had seen this.  This was an added bonus.  By the way this attack is not named after the author it is named for an Austrian Master who was active during WWI.

For the white pieces the repertoire is solid and cohesive you should end up with similar ideas every time and that should put you in the driver’s seat.  You won’t be in the sharpest lines or the most topical but the ideas are easy to grasp and it should do well for weekend chess warriors like myself.

Now we come to the black repertoire…

This is where the author almost lost me.  When I first got the book I was assuming he’d got with a Philidor Defense, or a Caro-Kan or possible a classical Sicilian.  But he chose to play the open games.  Which makes sense seeing as the white repertoire is so classically influenced.  Problem is he chose the Berlin defense against the Spanish.  Talk about a class A snoozefest!  This is absolutely no fun to play as black.  The Berlin arises after 1. e4, e5 2. Nf3, Nc6 3.Bb5, Nf6 4. O-O, Nxe4 5. d4, Nd6 6. Bxc6, dxc6 7. dxe5, Nf5 8.Qcd8, Kxd8 9. Nc3, Ke8  leaving us with the following position. 

I don’t know about you, but i really don’t want to play this way with the black pieces.  Apparently it is hard for white to get an advantage, but on the flip side I don’t see too many chances for black to have any fun either.  However I must say that this choice while wildly unpopular with BDK and myself makes sense when you think abou the context of the book.  It’s not mainstream, it’s not too theoretical and is simple to learn.  Hey you can’t get everything.

Being that you won’t be playing the Sicilian with black in the repertoire there is no need to go over all of the Anti-Sicilian lines, however being that you will be playing the open games the author had to include defenses to the Italian Game, The Scotch Game, The Four Kinghts, The Ponziani, the King’s Gambit, the Center Game/Danish Gambit, Vienna Game/Bishop’s Opening!  While these are not all necessarily sharp that is a lot of stuff to cover in open games.  Again at the patzer level you can expect to see the Danish and King’s Gambit quite a bit. 

Overall I wasn’t too happy with the Black side of this repertoire vs. 1e4.

As bad as this section was in my humble opinion the author more than made up for it with his coverage of 1.d4 defenses.

He recommends the Semi-Slav defense against 1.d4.  Now this may seem like a departure because the Semi-Slav can be very theoretical, but he presents this material in such a clear detailed manner that I couldn’t help but fall in love with this defense right away.

He has a great introduction to the defense, which includes how to play the opening moves so you don’t get tricked by a sneaky transposition.  This was incredibly helpful and this section is worth the entire price of the book for me.

He recommends the Meran variation, and the Moscow when white avoids the Meran.  Overall great stuff and this was one of those times when I just “got it”.  This might not be to everyone’s liking as if white decides to go for an Anti-Moscow you end up with this insanity.

1.d4,d5 2.c4, e6 3.Nc3, c6 4.Nf3, Nf6 5.Bg5, h6 6.Bh4, dxc4 7.e4, g5 8.Bg3, b5 9.Be2, Bb7 10.h4, g4 11.Ne5, h5

Now this is fun!  Although probably not to everyone’s taste.  This is what puzzled me, why such fun stuff here, but such a drag against the Ruy?  People with better ratings than I can probably better answer that.  The only drawback is that the author’s recommended move order allows the Marshall Gambit.  I won’t go into detail here, but it is a very aggressive and I suspect completely sound gambit for white.  So far none of my opponents have had the stones to play it but I imagine that further up the ratings ladder there are plenty who will; I’m not looking forward to it.

The author goes on to adress 1.c4 when your opponent skips out on an early d4, as you can trick your opponent into playing into one of the Semi-Slav move orders he gives.  He also goes over the various 1.d4 2. other than c4 lines.  Once again everything seems to fit into the repertoire quite nicely.

Overall this is an excellent book.  Barring the open games as black I’ve used everything else in here.   My copy is pretty beat up from the constant use over the past couple of years.  AND ONCE AGAIN I SEE IT IS OUT OF PRINT!!! Currently it’s going for $54.95 from the used booksellers at Amazon.  So if you see this at a used bookstore and it costs less snatch it up!  Put it on Ebay if you don’t intend to use it yourself.  See money making advice here as well as book reviews, how helpful am I?