Monday, April 5, 2010

Killer Chess Opening Repertoire Available

According to Gambit Publishing's Infopages, 'A Killer Chess Opening Repertoire' is now available. I don't know why Gambit now has the copyrights to the book (the previous edition was an Cadogan/Everyman book). Although I am listed as a co-author I really was more of an editor as my instruction from Gambit was to leave the original content unchanged wherever reasonable. Summerscale was not involved in the update; I don't know why and presume he must be busy with other matters.

What I did was mainly adding recent game references and analysis wherever appropriate. However, this in turned forced a considerable restructuring of the book, as some of the notes were already overly long. I believe this was a fortunate necessity as it made the book a more comfortable read. Now the book is 192 A5 pages - an increase of 48 pages or roughly a third of the original 1998 version. I didn't do a lot of independent analysis but I did spend a lot of hours together with Rybka on a few critical lines.

Now I am quite eager to get my hands on a copy - not least because of the cover artwork which looks great from the web images. Unfortunately, I fear my copies will take some time to arrive as deliveries to Norway have taken surprisingly long time lately.

Note
This entry was updated on April 8th, 2010. My apologies for making at least one of the comments below looking a little strange.

14 comments:

darkhorse said...

Then, what is "new and enlarged" about this edition? I understand that the original edition is really hard to find, so even a reprint is very welcome. Still, I'd like to know what to expect from this book.

The cover is rather strange, nowhere near the brilliant one for the Stonewall book. :(

Anonymous said...

It wasn't in the Chess & Bridge shop in Baker Street (London) on Saturday, but maybe by next Saturday?
Tim Spanton

Sverre Johnsen said...

Hi Darkhorse,

- Most prominently recent (i.e. post 1998) game references have been added throughout the book.
- As a result of this, some complete games that were previously included in the notes have now been promoted to main games.
- I have added some new Main Games where theoretical developments have made this necessary.

Sad to hear you don't like the cover artwork. I like the futuristic impression. However, I may agree that the Stonewall cover was even better.

Sverre Johnsen said...

Anonymous,

The books only appeared as available on Gambit's infopages today. I have no idea when London Chess will have the books, but I believe they are printed in the UK, so they probably London will be among the first to have the books.

Anonymous said...

Now that you are done with the new edition of A Killer Chess Opening Repertoire, what is the next chess book that you are going to focus on writing?

Sverre Johnsen said...

As a matter of fact, there will be another delay for my book writing plans as for the next month I will do a minor update of "Win with the London System". There will be more info in a blog entry today or tomorrow.

CSC Teesside said...

My review copy arrived this morning, so the book is definitely out now.

The review will follow soon...meanwhile, I like the cover!

Sverre Johnsen said...

Hi Sean,

Glad to hear that, and looking forward to your review.

I assume you are Sean Marsh of Marsh Towers and Chess magazine.

I appreciate your reviews which are generally quite enlightening. I must admit that I frequently find them a tad too positive but for the upcoming review I wouldn't mind if you continue that policy.

Sean Marsh said...

Yes indeed, I am all of those people.

I do tend to highlight the positive aspects of the things I review but there is always plenty of negativity on the net to balance things up.

Sverre Johnsen said...

Good point.

On the other hand there is a certain lack of negativity in the information provided by the publishers.

Anyway, I will be following your blog closely in the near future. May I ask if you read the original (1998) Killer Repertoire?

Sean Marsh said...

Yes, I am very familiar with the original edition and I used some of the lines in my own games.

I have the next two review columns mapped out already but then the review of your book should appear in the next one after those - which should be number 139.

David Rudel said...

Sadly the book is not available on US amazon yet.
Hopefully soon.
I pre-ordered this last year :)

Eric Kramer said...

Any change there's a .PDF version I can purchase?

Sverre Johnsen said...

Nope.

I am quite sure there will be no pdf-version of this book. It may be that Gambit is too paranoid in this matter but I can understand them. There are far too many chessbook pdfs for free download. Many of these probably were paid for as one copy at a time.

I assume that some time in the not too distant future there will be arrangements so that those with the copyrights receive their share. That will save a lot of trees.