Attacking Repertoire for Black is Cancelled

It's often hard to know exactly how reliable published information is - in particular if the publishing medium is the Internet. However, when the German chess book retailer Niggemann informs that Collins' book 'An Attacking Repertoire for Black' has been canceled, I assume they have a reliable source - most likely the publisher Batsford/Anova.

Although it came as no great surprise (see my blog entry of May 31), it's really a pity that the book probably never will materialize. It's a great title; a subject that's likely to interest a lot of club players; and it promised to discuss some really interesting subjects.

In particular I was eager to see Collins' ideas on the Stonewall versus 1.c4 and 1.Nf3. It would be a great selling point for a book on the Stonewall if it offered a complete answer to the Closed games. The subject hasn't received a lot of attention in sources that I have access to. Actually the only systematic treatment I could find was an old article in a Spanish language magazine and some analysis from White's point of view in Khalifman's 'Opening for White According to Kramnik'.

There of course still is the possibility that the book will appear by another publisher, but that would most likely delay the publishing date too much for me to include it as a reference for my upcoming Stonewall book.

Collins' Book Available Too?

I still haven't received my copy of Aagaard's Stonewall II, but I have good hopes it will happen tomorrow. Meanwhile there are rumors that Collins' Attacking Repertoire for Black is now available from Amazon UK. There is a small discussion at Chess Publishing Forum about the reliability of Amazon's announcement. I remain skeptical as long as the book isn't listed on Batsford's/Anova's website.

Postscript 9th September 2007
Today I received unofficial but reliable information that the book will definitely not appear before October 15th and probably not before Christmas! A pity but not really a great surprise.

Ghost Books?

One of my favorite chess authors from the eighties is Robert Bellin. Among his books that I read and enjoyed were:

• The Classical Dutch, Batsford 1977
• Queen's Pawn, Veresov System, Batsford 1983
• Trompowski Opening and Torre Attack, Batsford 1984
• Test Your Positional Play, Batsford 1985 (with Pietro Ponzetto)
• Winning With the Dutch, Batsford 1990

So when I saw that Batsford announced a book "London System Repertoire" by him - first for January 2005, then for February and finally for June, I worried about competition. But although it is still advertized by Amazon, it now doesn't seem likely to ever appear (or will it be re-launched when Batsford feels my London book is aging?).

Now when planning a book on the Dutch Stonewall, there again are books that have been announced for some time and then seriously delayed. First I noticed a Batsford book by Collins with the title "An Attacking Repertoire for Black", which proposes a repertoire based on the French and Stonewall defences:

It was announced for August and later September 2006 and now it's said to be expected August 2007. Will it ever appear?

Then I saw that Quality Chess announced two updates by Aagaard of his Everyman book Dutch Stonewall; one in Swedish and one in German. The Swedish version appears to have been canceled but the German book is still announced to be published in May.