Does anyone have the Yates/Anti-Marshall DB? If so, what did you think of it?

Re Chatalbashev, Nf3+Bd3 without h3 is certainly a line I would be interested in with such a product (I've expressed curiosity as to whether it is addressed in Reloaded Weapons in the Benoni), and one which has been given as leading to +=.  The 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 g6 4. Nc3 Bg7 5. e4 O-O 6. Bd3 d6 7. Nf3 e6 8. O-O exd5 9. exd5 Bg4 10. h3 Bxf3 11. Qxf3 Nbd7* 12. Qd1 Nh5 of Dautov-Evdokimov 2005 was portrayed as a good novelty at the time (and has since been played by Morozevich), but didn't look particularly appealing to me.

*a bit more history:  in the 1970s ECO (Euwe) gave 11...Nfd7 12. Qd1 Na6 as leading to equality citing Dzindzichashvili-Tal; in the 1990s 13. Bd2 (instead of Dzindzi's 13. Bf4) was given as += according to Hübner.

I'm generally happy with what I've bought from Modern Chess. The updates to some of the databases are a nice extra service. Though it's slightly annoying that the updates are typically web-only and not added to the pgn downloads. You would have to save the updates manually to have them available offline.

TopNotch wrote on 04/05/18 at 21:37:26:

I picked up this one as a useful surprise weapon. Lots of good material, but one big problem is coverage of one of the most critical lines, where White plays Bd3 and allows ...Bg4, is inexplicably brief.

Chatalbashev comments: "If White decides not to spend time on h2-h3, then the resulting positions are rather dry, both sides do not have big chances for a win..." But anyone who looks at a database and at Rios' excellent annotations to Spassky-Fischer, Sveti Stefan/Belgrade m (26) 1992 in his book Chess Structures will realize that's an understatement of how dangerous this line is for Black. I must admit I wonder if Chatalbashev is intentionally downplaying that...

In fairness, the line Chatalbashev actually gives (though too briefly) is probably better than what Fischer played.

proustiskeen wrote on 04/05/18 at 15:00:28:

Thanks for that tip, I'll give it a go!

Thanks for the replies, everyone, they're very helpful. It's Marin's works that piqued my interest and my main concern was precisely the one pinpointed by Straggler, that all I'd be getting for my money would be a smallish collection of annotated games, comparing very poorly with, for example, ChessPub in terms of value for money. The analogy with Everyman ebooks is a good one, which gives a useful perspective on this. I think I'll give one of these Modern Chess databases a try. Marin's insights are always valuable, so I'll start there.

Thanks again for your input, mn, tipau and Straggler.

When I signed up to the website I received one of the opening databases for free (Position Grunfeld Part 1). I also own the Catalan Part 1 opening database. I can't comment on the Grunfeld database but I've looked through the Catalan lines and they go into a fair bit of detail, with a lot of good verbal explanations as you'd expect from Marin. The English grammar isn't perfect but I didn't find any bits I couldn't understand.

I've been looking through the Modern Chess website and there's some interesting stuff on there. I'm particularly interested in their opening databases. The ones I've looked at are priced at 19.90 euros each, which is approximately the price of a printed book, but what isn't clear from the samples on the website is how much material you're getting for your money. I presume what you buy is downloadable and doesn't have to be accessed via the website. Does anybody who has bought any of these have any observations that might help me, please? Is the material you've seen well done, and is it good value for money? Thanks in advance.