|
|||||||||||||||
|
Chessville
Advertise to Single insert:
|
Tradition is a word that does not get used in chess very much. Tradition seems to be limited to types of events or certain rituals. The annual Cambridge vs. Oxford match is certainly a tradition, the German Bundesleague is a tradition, and while the annual Melody Amber tournament holds a great fascination for chess enthusiasts it has little in terms of tradition over the annual tournament at Hastings. Shaking hands before and after games is the most common of chess rituals, though it sometimes takes on a special meaning in the press. There is another chess tradition that has developed in the last 30 years. Though relatively unnoticed, books on the Ruy Lopez (Spanish game) from Great Britain has become something of a standard. Starting with The Ruy Lopez: Winning Chess with 1. P-K4 by Leonard Barden in 1971 the amount of high quality material coming from England on the Ruy is amazing. Books on the Closed, Open, Marshall, Classical and non-a6 defences line any Ruy-fanatic's shelves. In my estimation easily two thirds of opening books in English pale in terms of research and development to the volume on the Closed Lopez by Booth, Wade and Blackstock. Now, a new work has appeared from a new author. Play the Ruy Lopez by Andrew Greet lives up to the legacy set and is a more than welcome new addition to 1.e4 players' libraries. In this day of endlessly long lines of the Meran or Kings Indian and the increased popularity of the Scotch game it is easy to forget that the Ruy is historically the second most popular and heavily analyzed opening, only behind the entirety of the Queens Gambit. To attempt to write a repertoire book on such a subject would seem to require the author to bypass or skimp on analysis of many lines, attributing them to the heap of "not usually played." Greet has none of that. The depth of dedication to the work that Mr. Greet brings to this book is shown in chapter 1 on "Unusual 3rd moves". In this chapter he suggests ways to play for White against all of the "hack" moves that we commonly see at clubs or in coffee houses, you know the 3... Bd6/...g5/...Qe7 defences. On 3... Qf6 he even goes so far as to mention the line 3... Qf6 4.c3 g5?! which was brought to public attention by Italian GM Marriotti in the early 70's. The Alapin defence 3... Bb4 receives the most attention in the section and gets a good head butt for it. This same level of attention goes into the chapters on the Steinitz, Cozio, Schliemann and Bird defences. To be clear, all of these defences have been played by the leading players for over a hundred years which means that they can't just be sent to the scrap heap without so much as a proper review. They all receive excellent attention and make it likely the player of the White pieces will be more than happy with the positions obtained. In the fianchetto defence I found one small omission: in the line 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 g6 4.d4 exd4 5.Bg5 the line 5...f6 is examined with 6.Bh4, but the manouver Nh6-f5 isn't mentioned. I only know this as I lost a game to Canadian GM Peter Biyiasas many years ago in the line and decided that it was standard. Otherwise, this is excellent material. I want to make special mention of Greet's suggestion against the Classical 3...Bc5, namely 4.Nxe5. This is one of those moves that doesn't immediately come to mind as a strong possibility, but does seem natural enough. Greet goes to some length explaining his own view on choosing this line and why he did. Then he offers some excellent analysis in what has probably not even been a side line in most books. Very good stuff. I personally found his work on the Steinitz Deferred to be the most interesting. Of all variations in all of the openings I think this is the least understood and most neglected. Being a repertoire book there is only a suggested repertoire for White, but it tackles the most direct variation with 5.Bxc6+. I found this work to be quite fascinating as I had wanted to play the Steinitz Deferred from the Black side for many years and felt this particular line to be very welcome to the second player. After reviewing this material I don't feel as confident of it and in fact I am wondering if I know anyone who does play the Black side that I will be facing in the near future! On page 241 Greet mentions that he feels the "business end" of the book has been reached, referring to the common position 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6. Greet is advocating the Worrall attack with 5.Qe2 as the line to play. This does cut out some of the heavily analyzed lines that have become common place. Yet, those lines are only being replaced by similar ideas that have much less analysis. So, to my mind the question was how good are the recommendations being made? I looked through a few lines and found that I agreed with the assessment in each case and was willing to take the lines at the value Greet suggests for them. One thing I looked for was, what I believe to be, an old recommendation from Alekhine's "107 Epic Chess Battles" of 5.Qe2 Be7 6.00 00 7.c3 d5 8.d3 d4 9.cxd4 where Alekhine suggested 9...Bg4 as a pawn sac. I don't know if there is any theory on that or if it is just a bit of whimsy from Alekhine, but I didn't find it mentioned. Still, the overall work on 5.Qe2 is a standard for future works.
This is a repertoire book and
functions extremely well as such. The amount of work is enormous and
suggests that virtually every defense was considered. The quality of
analysis is always a concern, but this book comes through with flying
colors. Working through the chapter on the Steinitz Deferred will convince
a reader of that. Yet, the best part of the book is that it has the voice
of a more common player, not a strong GM who makes many assumptions in his
notes. This book is perfect for an aspiring international star or a once-in-a-while club player.
|
The Chessville
The
|
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
