Not Quite Fresh

A closer reading of "Stonewall II" supports my suspicion that this book has had a long production time. The preface mentions the Italian version which obviously came before the German (and the planned but probably canceled Swedish version). However, the clearest hints are a couple of Aagaard's remarks where he refers to the English version of the book which were published in 2001 (and probably written in 2000):

Game 28 (Page 105): "Five years later and a by far stronger player, I must say that today I am less convinced by the advantages of this move."

Game 72 (page 171): "The text move has not been played in any serious game during the last five years, so my annotations from 2000 are still valid".
(my translations)

So my conclusion must be that this book probably was completed some time by the end of 2005. The only indication of a later revision is the preface which is signed by "Jacob Aagaard, Glasgow 2007".

Does this change my generally positive impression of the book?

Well, not that much, actually. A theory book is always best served fresh but it cannot stay up-to-date for very long anyway. It's real worth will always be the ideas and insights it provides - otherwise we would all just be studying databases. And Aagaard's book contains a lot of useful advice for players of most strengths.

The Modern Dutch Stonewall was developed into a mainstream opening by Jussupow, Short, Agdestein and Dolmatov mainly from 1985 to 1995. After that it has had relatively little exposure on the very top level and development has been slow. Finesses are still being discovered but in a mainly strategical opening what was true in 2005 is still mostly true. However, the long production time makes me wonder whether the publishing company, Quality Chess, may have some business problems. Their homepage remains a strange mix of old news and some sporadic recent updates. If that is the case it's a pity because they seemed a worthy challenger on the chess book publishing arena.

Stonewall II

Monday evening I finally laid my hands on a copy of Aagaard's 'Stonewall II'. I have not had the time to study it any detail yet, but here are some observations and first impressions:

• There are enough verbal annotations to make the book hard to read for non-German readers. In particular this is the case for the long introduction (almost 60 pages).
• As far as I can see, all the games from the first edition are still there - mostly in the same order. One has been moved and one has had the name of a player corrected.
• I have not yet been able to determine to which extent the annotations of the older games have been updated but obviously some new game references have been added.
• There is a list of complete games, but surprisingly the games from the introduction can not be found there.
• There is no complete index of variations, but at the end of each chapter there is a summary of important lines with references to relevant complete games.
• The book seems to be only very lightly updated after 2004. I have so far only found four game references to 2005 games (Pogorelov-Moskalenko, Salou 2005; note to game 10. Feller-Petrisor, Herceg Novi 2005; note to game 10. Mamedjarova-Gleizerov, Abu Dhabi 2005; note to Game 17. Rogers-Jasim, Gibraltar 2005; note to game 67) but no doubt there are some more hidden in the notes.
• It seems that the new games are somewhat better annotated than the older ones, but this is only my first impression.

Compared to the original English edition, there are 17 new games:

Mainline 7.b3
Game 5: Farago-Ulibin, Obervart 2001 (1/2-1/2)
Game 13: Korotylev-Ulibin, Genf 2001 (1/2-1/2)
Game 17: Romanov-Gleizerov, Minsk 1997 (0-1)
Game 20: Agdestein-Straeter, Germany 2001 (1/2-1/2)

Mainline 7.Bf4
Game 29: Hanley-Williams, Port Erin 2001 (1-0)
Game 31: Kahn-Vajda, Hungary Ch 2003 (0-1)
Game 34: Barkhagen-Jussupow, Stockholm 2002 (1/2-1/2)

White's Rare 7th
Game 51: Schandorff-Sandner, Germany 2004 (1-0)
Game 53: Schandorff-L.B. Hansen, Denmark 1997 (1-0)

5.Nh3
Game 58: Dreev-Radjabov, Tallinn 2004 (1/2-1/2)
Game 63: Anand-Schmittdiel, Germany 2004 (1-0)
Game 70: Kempinski-Radjabov, Antalaya 2004 (1/2-1/2)

Lines with an Early e3
Game 83: Cu. Hansen-Hillarp Persson, Copenhagen 2004 (1-0)
Game 85: Sasikiran-Krasenkow, Calvia Ol 2004 (1-0)
Game 89: Bareev-Jussupow, Prague rapid 2002 (0-1)
Game 90:Yakovich-Kharlov, Elista 2001 (0-1)
Game 93: Bareev-Grischuk, Enghien-les-Bains 2001 (0-1)

PS: For the Table of Content see my entry of August 8th.

Addendum:
Another 2005 reference: Lomineischvili-Tereladze, Georgia 2005; note to game 61. I will add more here if I come by anything.

Elburg Reviews Stonewall II

I had expected to be holding my copy of Aagaard's new Stonewall book by now, but I am still waiting for it to arrive from Niggemann (via Sjakkbutikken - the major Norwegian chess retailer).

In the meantime I try to extract some information from an early September column by John Elburg where he reviews the book together with several other interesting new books. Unfortunately there is not much new to be learned as Elburg is as blandly positive as he generally is. However, he confirms that there now are 94 games and that also the older games have been somewhat updated. A curious detail is that Elburg informs that there is no bibliography in this German edition while it obviously is in the mysterious Italian version.

Not a Defence

At the German site Freechess.info there now is a review of Aagaard's "Stonewall II" . There really isn't that much new to be learned about the book (the game Astrom –Ulibin, Göteborg 1999 was already included in the English version) but it's interesting to note that it seems to have changed title from "Die Stonewall Verteidigung II" to simply "Stonewall II". See my entry of July 25 for the "original" cover.
One can speculate what the reasons are for the change. Maybe the publishers simply decided that they didn't like the passivity that can be associated with the word "Verteidigung" which means defence. Or maybe it was the strange mix of German and English that didn't appeal. My personal theory is that the word "Verteidigung" doesn't score well on Google's rankings and may make the book harder to find for potential buyers.

As an aside there is a funny remark by the reviewer:
"Vielleicht hätte man noch ein Extrakapitel zu diversen Ablehnungen in das Buch aufnehmen können, ich denke hier in erster Linie an die Zugfolge 1.d4 f5 2.e4. Natürlich wird ein erfahrener Spieler diese mit 1…e6 umgehen, doch etwas unerfahrenere Spieler könnten hier schmerzvolle Erfahrungen machen. Wie ich unlängst erfahren habe, gibt es im Staunton-Gambit mit 1.d4 f5 2.e4 unter einigen Großmeistern eine noch geheime bisher nicht gespielte Variante, die Weiß deutlich im Vorteil sehen soll!"
In English this roughly translates to:
"Maybe an extra chapter about various early deviations could have been added; what I primarily have in mind is the the move-order 1.d4 f5 2.e4. An experienced player will of course bypass this with 1...e6, but players with less experience may collect some painful lessons. As I have long since discovered, some GMs have found a secret and not yet played variation in the Staunton-Gambit 1.d4 f5 2.e4 which gives White a clear advantage."
This is a quite central move-order question in my coming Stonewall book and I will not comment much on it in this blog. However I think I should make my preliminary conclusion clear: If you play the French against 1.e4 there certainly are some reasons to prefer the 1...e6 path to the Stonewall over 1...f5, but the Staunton gambit isn't among them.

Addendum
The publisher's have (somewhat curiously) announced that there will not be an English version of this revised Stonewall book, and the Swedish version apparently has been canceled. But today I found that an Italian version seems to be on its way.
My knowledge of Italian consists of a few tourist phrases and a little chess jargon, but doesn't "completamente rinnovata e in esclusiva mondiale per Caissa Italia" indicate that this is something more than a pure translation? That theory seems to be supported by the claim of more than 100 annotated games while the German only is said to contain 94.

Not a Ghost After All

It seems "Die Stonewall Verteidigung" by Aagaard has become a reality after all. After numerous delays Niggemann now announces it as 'Neu'.

The Table of Content according to Niggemann (see below) is a bit disappointing as it seems the book's structure is exactly the same as Aagaard's earlier 'Dutch Stonewall'. However, the 'Katalog' (German language) informs that there are 94 annotated games. That are 17 more than the older English version.

5 Vorwort
7 Einleitung
65 Weiß zieht 7.b3
97 Weiß zieht 7.Lf4
123 Weiße Alternativen im 7.Zug: 7.Sbd2, 7.Se5, 7.Dc2
145 5.Sh3
171 Andere Abspiele im Stonewall
183 Weiß spielt frühzeitig e2-e3

Well, I will buy the book anyhow, and it will be very interesting to see how much new material there is.

Stonewall around the Corner

Much of my attention is centered around the Dutch Stonewall these days. I was exited to see that there seem to be some progress with Jacob Aagaard's 'Die Stonewall Verteidigung II'. Quality Chess' home page has no new information but I found a new date and a picture at ChessWare Schachversand. It's a bit confusing to find it announced as 'new' when it appears to be available only from August 6th but there now seem to be good reason to believe it will soon appear.

I wonder how a competing book will influence the sale of my book for Gambit. It's not at all clear that potential customers will buy only one. Actually, based on my own experience I would expect most Stonewall players to want both.

By the way there seems to be no news about Collins' 'Attacking Repertoire for Black' for Batsford.

Update 2007-08-04
Expected arrival of Aagaards's book at Chessware is now August 10th. A new delay but nothing dramatic. Still no news about Collin's book, which is still announced for August 1st at Niggemann.

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.