A Cunning Chess Opening Repertoire for White

A Cunning Chess Opening Repertoire for White

Graham Burgess

Gambit

2013

256 pages

23.95 paperback

9.95 Kindle Edition

When I received this book for review, I decided to take a different approach to reviewing it than I normally do. Since it is written primarily for players of the White pieces, I decided to try playing it exclusively both on line and over the board when I had the white pieces. Since I had not played 1.d4 for many years I had thought this would be a good test. I am a typical club player, stronger at correspondence, weaker at blitz and only average at best when playing over the board at a normal time control. Since opening knowledge is so key these days to being successful in tournament play, I decided to evaluate this book by playing all of the lines as White that the author recommended, both online, in speed chess, in club play, and in over the board tournaments. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the lines worked pretty much as advertised and while I suffered a number of setbacks, almost none of them resulted from the actual lines suggested in this book but rather from poor judgement on my part later in the game. The lines are solid, just enough off the beaten path to avoid a lot of theory prevalent in the main lines and in general are fun to play. It also serves as a good training book in that you will learn a lot about the game by playing them and be competitive at the same time. The book is well structured and offers the reader a lot of choice about how to respond to the lines his opponent plays. This includes a good set of responses to almost every possible defense to 1d4. I found that the book did an excellent job of giving me very playable lines in a variety of game situations and that the more I played the lines, the more confident I became. It is also an excellent book for players who don't have a lot of time to becoming opening "specialists" and developing a comprehensive repertoire against all of the main lines. If the main purpose of an opening is to give you a playable middle game, this book  succeeds in doing that admirably. What doesn't the book do? It is not going to cover some of the really off the wall lines that are out there like the Englund Gambit (1.d4 e5). For those you are going to have to enhance your knowledge by doing a little research. Its move order does avoid the Budapest and the NimzoIndian. It also offers a complete chapter on  how to avoid some of the better alternatives that Black has when  you do not allow the Nimzo but you are going to have to put some work into mastering them. Unfortunately, there is no way around putting in some work these days on the opening when people have access (and in many cases the time and training available) to master many opening 15 or 16 moves deep. In summary this book is an excellent value. Highly recommended.