Friday, October 14, 2011

A Challenging Subject

The King's Gambit seems to be an extraordinary difficult subject.

First the publication date of Quality Chess' book on the King's Gambit again was delayed. Now it's scheduled for December (the book's info page has not yet been updated). Obviously this may have been a tactical delay in order to prevent Taylor from referencing the QC book in his competing book.

The response was quick and predictable. Now  it's Taylor's book that is delayed with eigth months and scheduled for August 2012. Quality's counter move is not hard to suggest...

However, somehow I don't think tactical considerations are the main reason for these delays. More likely the problems are analytical obstacles. The two principal challenges for anyone writing on the King's Gambit are:
  • Black has got unusually many playable defences. They are not all equally strong but they are Black's choices and he may have prepared them well.
  • The established mainlines in the Kiezeritsky and Fischer defences may be fine for White in theory. However, they are quite difficult for White to handle and don't appear appealing to the typical aggressive KG player.
I will not at all be surprised if these books are delayed again. So now I am pondering the consequences for my own KG plans. The ideal situation would be to publish without any competing books at all, but that obviously isn't an option.  The second best option seems to be to publish shortly after the main competitors, being able to build on their efforts. That would involve a lot of patience but as a matter of fact I have ideas for how to fill the wating time.

4 comments:

chess downloads said...

Black can easily handle and prepare for King's Gambit. In my opinon the best line for Black is 1.e4 e5 2.f4 Bc5 3.Nf3 d6 and White got nothing
and can go wrong easily.

Sverre Johnsen said...

Well, in that line, it's Black that has most to prove.

White scores well and his position looks nice after 4.c3 as well as after 4.Nc3.

Marin's analysis in his book on the Open Games are interesting but Rybka and Fritz offer a lot of small improvements for White.

Anonymous said...

Hello, my name is Nikolaos Ntirlis. I am known as "Ametanoitos" from chesspub website (probably you remember me from some critisism i made for your Stonewall book :) ) and i am the co-author of GM10:The Tarrasch Defence. As i think i know what is happening with the KG Quality book, i can say that nothing relevant with what others (Everyman for example and the Taylor book you mentioned) has to do with the delays of the publication. The QC team are "perfectionists", meaning that they would rather die than release a project (especialy if that is written by a QC team member!) if they are not 100% sure that they cannot do something better. GM10 had the same fate! QC said "Spring 2011" and it was published eventually at Dec 2011 and (believe me) we were sending corrections of the analysis the day before the book went to printer! So, you are right to expect this this enthusiasm (i am too!) and now that the book is one of top priorities of the team you'll not wait longer (i hope!)

Sverre Johnsen said...

Hello Nikolaos,

Yes, I remember you from Chesspub, and I have your Tarrasch book. I have not had the time to study the book much but it looks nice. I used to play the Tarrasch for a brief period but don't really plan to take it up again.

I buy a lot of QC books that I don't really need precisely because of their perfectionism. There is always independent analysis and interesting ideas. As a peculiar contrast there have been some really strange gaps in some QC books. How is it possible in a book on 1 e4 e5 to forget the Bishop Opening? (I know, most lines were covered under the Vienna Game but still...). Maybe the detail focus sometimes overshadows the greater picture?

Anyway, I look forward to a good and up to date book on the King's Gambit.