This is the sister companion to the previous book.
The presentation is the same, and the same poor binding issues affected my copy of the black repertoire book as well. This was also a wildly popular book the past two years so the possibility of these lines being well traveled by many of your OTB opponents is pretty high. This time we get only 56 pages of fluff before hitting the repertoire.
We get the accelerated Dragon as black. This is a solid choice and as good a place as any if you are going to take up the Sicilian. The other benefit is that when dealing with the anti Sicilians you won’t have to face any Bb5 lines. Another point of note is that since you will always be fianchettoing early it won’t be a huge deal for you to face the Grand Prix attack. Black is normally “forced” to fianchetto in these lines, so if you play a Sicilian where that’s not normally part of the plan this could cause some problems. In the Accelerated Dragon you always fianchetto so it’s no big deal.
Against 1.d4 we get the Nimzo-Indian, Bogo Indian Complex. While no one would argue that the Nimzo is one of blacks best choices against 1.d4 there are definitely a lot of positional considerations to take into account. Many of these were beyond the grasp of this reviewer. Granted I’m only a class C putz, but I think it’s a bit beyond alot of folks that this book is intended for.
Once again everything is covered, the English opening as well as all 1.d4 openings where white avoids 2.c4 Although I like the book I don’t think it’s as good as the the white repertoire book. This is probably due more to a bias on my part than anything else. It just seems that in the white book there is a definite aim to get the reader to play attacking chess while with the black pieces the author seems to want you to really hold back with more positional openings. I know that you are a move behind with black but the whole thing didn’t have the same cohesive feel as The Chess Advantage in Black and White, by Larry Kaufman.
I would recommend it if you want to start playing the Sicilian, I think the simple plan in the Accelerated Dragon is a good jumping off point. As far as the Nimzo, I think a book with complete games would probably be a better choice. This would allow you to get a better feeling for the ideas in the opening. Something that I don’t think transfers as well with a variation tree book such as this one. I also think there are more “fun” ways to play this opening, as it has attracted the worlds best players, all who are different types of players. Kasparov and Karpov don’t play the Nimzo the same way.
Filed under: Book Reviews
It’s nice as intro book but with black one has to make a choice which opening one plays against 1. e4, 1. d4, 1. c4 and 1. Nf3 and buy a more specified book of these openings. Afterall we are just patzers which means that we can go around in the chess world with a limited opening repertoire since our opponents will have to do the same since more opening theory hacks into our study time to other parts of the game. And lets face it, knowing an opening is nice but not many games at our level is won in the opening.
I own this book but have only really read one section. When I did read that section, it was perfect timing: The day before a tournament last year, I went over a line against the Grand Prix Attack, just by pure coincidence. And what do you know, my first game in the tourney I have the black pieces and face the GPA. I handled it perfectly and crushed my opponent. So I am partial to this book just for that reason