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Back in the day (the 1880s), when many a game opened with 1.d4 d5, Johannes Zukertort went his own way.  His 1.Nf3 was enough of a departure that it quickly became known as “Zukertort’s Opening.”  So while the more banal players of the day started off 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3, you could see the trail-breaker Master Z begin his games, instead, with 1.Nf3 d5 2.d4…

Thus Zukertort’s approach, simple as it was, fulfilled at least one of the rationales that Soltis, in Transpo Tricks in Chess, gives for transpositions (different move orders which arrive at a common position) in the opening:

            - it degrades your opponent’s choices or improves your own;
            - it unnerves or confuses your opponent;
            - it gets your opponent to think;
            - it preserves your mental health.

Some transpositions are as straight-forward as answering 1.d4 with 1…e6 so as, after 2.c4, to play 2…f5, entering the Dutch Defense without giving White the opportunity for the Staunton Gambit 2.e4 or the unusual 2.Nc3.  Often, though, when a transposition closes one line of play, it opens another (“You have to give lines to get lines,” Fischer might have said) – in this case, Black must be prepared to deal with 1.d4 e6 2.e4 and a likely French Defense after 2…d5.

Some transpositions can be used to “repair” an opening or defense.  For example, the Hanham Variation of the Philidor Defense originally began 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nd7 4.Bc4 c6 but 5.0-0 Be7 6.dxe dxe 7.Ng5 gave White too much.  Nimzovich inserted 3…Nf6 and then after 4.Nc3 Nbd7 5.Bc4 Be7 6.0-0 0-0 Black was much safer.

Safer, that is, until White discovered that the also-recommended 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nd7 4.dxe Nxe4 turned out not-so-well for Black after 5.Qd5 Nc5 6.Bg6.  Today the Hanham Variation is still seen – coming out of a Pirc: 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nbd7 4.Nf3 e5 5.Bc4 Be7 6.0-0 0-0.

Of course, the Sicilian Defense, in and of itself, is a great Okefenokee Swamp crawling with mixed and matched lines of play that are often navigated by well-chosen transpositions

Soltis covers a whole lot of “transpos”:

Introduction
Chapter One: Double KP Openings
Chapter Two: Ruy Lopez
Chapter Three: Sicilian Defense
Chapter Four: Semi-Open Games
Chapter Five: Double QP Openings
Chapter Six: Indians
Chapter Seven: Dutch Defense and Flank Openings
Index of Opening Variations

Transpo Tricks in Chess is a veritable Disneyland for the club player moving on toward expert.  Readers will be pleased or annoyed to find their favorite finesses mentioned or overlooked (What? No reversed Halloween Gambit?  What was he thinking?)  They will enjoy the “whys” or stories behind some successful and not-so-successful transpositions.

Masters likely have most of their transposition ideas already stored in their ChessBase or Chess Assistant files.  Players below 1400 will not be chased away by Soltis’ writing, but will have to ask themselves, honestly, shouldn’t I still be spending most of my time on tactics?

The book’s layout is clear, with good use of diagrams (usually one per column on a 2-column page), bolding and white space.  I do not recall any typos or dyps, so if there are some, they’re not drastic.

The Openings Index is not only a good idea, but indispensable.

Transpo Tricks in Chess is not as “deep” as Soltis’ recent Rethinking the Chess Pieces, but for the class player, it’s a whole lot more fun.
 

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