Elburg reviews "A Killer Chess Opening Repertoire"

Only this Monday afternoon I got hold of some copies of the revised "A Killer Chess Opening Repertoire". Since then I have been very busy and haven't really had the time to examine the book closely. My first impression is that most (possibly all) of my late corrections/additions made it to the final varsion.

Today I found the first review of the book at John Elburg's chess reviews. As expected he is quite positive. My guess is that Gambit on their info page will only quote his concluding line:
Conclusion: Impressive update!

Elburg points out that there is no bibliography and thinks this would have been useful for the reader. Well, he may be right. However, as a matter of fact I originally wrote a quite extensive bibliography but eventually decided to skip it as it would either have been somewhat misleading or would have needed a lot of comments. For instance it would have been somewhat misleading to list the large number of books that I consulted only to find out that they had nothing new to offer.

Elburg also mentions my analysis on Trygstad’s 1.d4 f5 2.Bg5 h6 3.Bh4 g5 4.e4 Rh7!? which may be the part where I did the most analytical work (or more precisely: where I had Rybka slaving for the longest time).

As a matter of fact only a tiny fraction of my analysis was actually included in the book. Initially I spent a lot of time trying to find a way to a clear advantages in the semi endgames resulting from Williams' mainlines in Dangerous Weapons: The Dutch. However, although I succeeded finding some quite promising paths, the positions remained difficult and there was a very real risk that Black would be better prepared for these positions. There were also space issues to be taken into consideration (the book's 192 A5 pages have been utilized more fully than I have ever seen in a chess opening manual). So in the end - just before the final proofs had to be sent - I retraced a few steps, searched for moves that Williams had ignored, and was happy to find a quite promising option that could be covered within the space available. Now I look forward to analytical feedback from Dutch players.

Block with the Rook

I am not sure how the publishing companies reason about the matter, but as an author it seems an obvious advantage to be able to build on other authors' analysis; that is to have a recent work on your subject available. In order to do so, you need in practical terms to publish your work 3-4 months later than your competitor. This may seem a lot but you must calculate at least six weeks for typesetting and printing and you will frequently need one week to get hold of a newly published book.

I have for some time been curious about what Everyman would offer in their Dangerous Weapons: The Dutch: Dazzle your Opponent! Some of the answer is now available as downloadable pdf-files at their website.

I was not very surprised by their suggestions of 1.d4 f5 2.Nh3!? and 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.h3!? as weapons for White. While it was obviously impossible to devote much attention to these lines in 'Win with the Stonewall Dutch', I noted that both lines had some sting while researching the book. The Everyman team probably will poke some holes in our very limited coverage of these lines but that's the nature of chess analysis (and I doubt that either of the lines will become very popular at master level).

More of a surprise was their suggestion of 1.d4 f5 2.Bg5 h6 3.Bh4 g5 4.e4 Rh7!? (Dia) for Black.

In our Stonewall book we decided to recommend 2...g6 as it seemed less theoretically volatile, so in this line there is no overlap between the books. However, in the forthcoming revised edition of Summerscale's 'A Killer Chess Opening Repertoire' we recommend exactly this line for White.

Before agreeing to update the Summerscale book I set the condition that if it turned out that his 2.Bg5 analysis was getting shaky, I would replace his analysis with something less tactical (4.e3/4.Bg3 and 3.Bf4!? were the obvious candidates). However, I could find no major problem with his recommendation of 4.e4 and sent Gambit a manuscript based on 4.e4, including some analysis on 4...Rh7 (which Summerscale didn't mention in his original book). My conclusion (based on Rybka 3.0 and a friend who for some time hoped that 4...Rh7 solved all Black's problems in the 2.Bg5 variation) was that 4...Rh7 was close to lost for Black.

Now I must say I am a bit anxious to see what Williams' 21 pages of analysis offer. Unless I am very unlucky I will have his analysis available for the final proof-reading stage of the Killer book. In the meantime, here is a game that Williams needs to improve upon in his analysis:

Daniel Gormall - Simon Williams
EU Union Ch (Liverpool) 2006

1.d4 f5 2.Bg5 h6 3.Bh4 g5 4.e4 Rh7 5.Qh5+ Rf7 6.Nf3 
6.Bxg5 hxg5 7.Nf3 probably is less exact. Black was somewhat better after 7...Nf6 8.Qg6 Nxe4 9.Ne5 Nd6 10.Be2 e6 11.Bh5 Qe7 in Alzate-Rodi, Buenos Aires 2005.
6...Nf6 7.Qg6 Nc6 8.Bxg5!?
8.Bc4 seems promising.
8...fxe4 9.Ne5 Nxe5 10.dxe5 hxg5 11.exf6 exf6
11...e6 may be better. The chances after 12.Nd2 Qxf6 13.Qxf6 Rxf6 14.Nxe4 Rf5 15.Bd3 Bg7 16.c3 was roughly equal in Kharitonov-Gajewski San Agustin 2003.
12.Nc3 Bb4 13.0–0–0 Bxc3 (Dia)

14.Bc4!
This seems to secure White the better chances.
14...Bxb2+ 15.Kxb2 Qe7 16.h4! d5?! 17.Bxd5 Qe5+ 18.c3 Be6 19.Bxe6 1–0

Dangerous Weapons - Dutch

For the moment I find the Dutch defence one of the most interesting opening subjects. Nonetheless I was not exactly ecstatic to see that Everyman is announcing a new book in their series Dangerous Weapons: The Dutch.

The three authors are all very competent so of course my slight feeling of disappointment has to do with timing. I would much have preferred to have the book available before completing "Win with the Stonewall Dutch". The book is being set and is announced for March so there is not a lot to be done anyway. But there might just have been room for some small but valuable updates.

One advantage of writing on the Dutch is that a complete repertoire can still be fitted within a reasonably sized book. But the anti-Dutch lines are constantly expanding and in the not too distant future they will demand a separate volume.

I hope the book will be balanced in the way that it doesn't concentrate too much on White's minor systems. There are a lot of minor systems for Black that would fit perfectly in the Dangerous Weapon series.