BPaulsen wrote on 05/24/14 at 04:42:57:
TalJechin wrote on 05/23/14 at 11:13:42:
Got curious and got the book. I used to play it a long time ago, and in that respect it works fairly well by reminding of useful and typical tactics. It probably works best for former Dragoneers, people mainly playing online blitz, and those who get Angst when opening an Informator!
In a way it reminds me of Facebook, reading the book is like having two people explaining the opening on FB, one is telling you the need to know stuff and the other is interjecting ways for White to go wrong mixed with a lot of references to popular culture, 2½ Men, Friends etc - it seems the author must be watching a lot of TV!
The are also some new chess terms I hadn't seen before, like "the AC/DC bishop" and "the Marco hop" - I'm perhaps from the wrong age group and country, or maybe it's the author's own terms...
To the group it's aimed at it will probably fill a void in the market and enthuse some new players to take up "the AC/DC". Though, in time they may want to consult a more theoretical source for specific lines.
How do the recommendations stand up, in your opinion? Specifically the Gurgenidze.
I'm not asking for any specific analysis, just some general thoughts.
Well, his main source on the Maroczy seems to be Tiviakov's dvd.
I played the AD back in the later part of the 80s to early 90s, so it's hard for me to have an opinion - iirc I played ...Ng4, ...Nxd4-e6 back then, or Qa5, a6, Rfc8 etc - without an early Nc6xd4 which is Lalic's main recommendation. Among the alternatives he mentions is one game with ...Nh6, ...0-0 and f7-f5 (Furman-Spassky, 1957) which looks like an enterprising idea, but he doesn't give any details on it. Presumably there's something wrong with it if it was only popular in the 1950s...
Anyway, I doubt I'll be playing the AD in anything more serious than blitz - it's probably the easiest open Sicilian to learn and play, but gets a bit monotonous when you play it too much.