Reviews
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By JT, and GF. This will be an ever-expanding area, and input from readers will be a big help in selecting material for review, and also for deciding what aspects of the material to emphasize. I do have a list to begin with, and some reasonably strong opinions… |
The Grünfeld
There are many, many books on the Grünfeld, from gentle guides to hefty technical reading.
I've referred to ECO D (3rd edition 1998) and the new Everyman book; The Grünfeld Defence by Nigel Davies (June 2002) which is full of interesting new ideas and worth getting.
The Adorjan (& Döry) guide Winning with the Grünfeld (Batsford 1987) is now very dated, but still provides an education in important themes - a good illustrative game rarely goes completely out of fashion. This book is a good starting point.
The antidote tome, Beating the Grünfeld, by Anatoly Karpov (Batsford 1992) is fascinating largely because it gives insight into AK's preparations for duelling with his nemesis Kasparov. It is heavy going though, loads of theory and deep analysis. The book also limits itself to variations that Karpov used in his matches, though it must be noted, that there were a lot of them. I like this book a lot, though it falls somewhere between being a collection of games and an opening reference. Karpov makes it clear that there is no recipe for success against the Grünfeld, but also notes his record against it has been pretty good.
I must have a closer look at some of the other books I have piling up on my shelves. I know that I was not pleased at all with the inappropriately titled The Complete Grünfeld by Suetin, and that I promised myself to have a deeper read of Lalic's Guide to the Grünfeld for the Attacking Player.
In the meantime, I will confess to often using a German translation of Botvinnik and Estrin's book (Grünfeld Defence). It always seems to have been slightly out of date, but I have also always found it to be a handy reference for those lines that have, more or less, stood the test of time. It is the kind of book that opening books used to be, before you needed a laptop and megabytes of electronic acreage to keep up. It covers all the variations, and informs you without overload. Old-fashioned perhaps, but it is still a useful tool.
The Dutch
I am using ECO A (4th edition 2001) and the new Everyman book Classical Dutch by Jan Pinski (September 2002) which is worth getting.
The boom in the Dutch resulted in a lot of half-baked books that were largely bound database print-outs. Ehlvest's Batsford title on the Leningrad is a soporific case in point. I have shovelled my way through to the Winning with … series sector of my book collection, but cannot locate Robert Bellin's work on … the Dutch. I would welcome reader responses on that title, because I have liked Robert's other work, and he is a lifetime practitioner of the opening.
The Benko
More often than not, I am on the review lists for chess publishers, and this results in a warehouse area at home where often I have to shovel my way through to the relevant material. If I had a more complete collection, I would have to start making furniture out of it. There are a lot of chess books out there.
This is another area where I will need some help. I have been told there are some very good books on the Benko, but that would be hearsay, your honour. If hearsay happens to be good enough for you, then John Fedorowicz's reference book has been recommended. I must say that circumstantial evidence supports this, as he is one of the most successful exponents of the gambit.
The English Defence
There is a little Batsford edition with this title, from 1987. Since it was written by Keene, Plaskett, and … Tisdall, I will refrain from saying too much. It covers the critical developments by examining annotated games, and I think it covers the most important themes rather well. It needs to be updated, though this is often a problem for slightly offbeat openings - they develop a bit more slowly since not as much evidence is produced in terms of games, *so many of the reference books languish between editions.
The Budapest
Bogdan Lalic recently produced a book called, unsurprisingly, The Budapest Gambit (Batsford 1998). My blind reaction was scepticism, since Lalic didn't strike me as a Budapest kind of guy. But when I opened it up, I was impressed - very; tremendous selection of material, conscientiously written, and by and large an objective examination of the opening. Now my biggest concern is not overlapping too much, since Bogdan has taken most of the best games. If you want to play the Budapest, you can consider yourself well-armed with this book. Verdict: Get it.
The Blumenfeld
The only book I am familiar with is by Jan Przewoznik and Malcolm Pein (Pergamon 1991) . It is not a huge book, but then, there isn't really all that much theory on the opening. I used it as a basis for my own campaign with the opening, and found it very useful. Although optimistic, it does a good job of indicating which lines are most important, and the main games are chosen with intelligence. The ideas and themes are also discussed, and most of the book refers to Przewoznik's own notebooks, with references to hard-to-find articles. Highly recommended.