Got the book today.
Leafing thru, it's got some interesting suggestions, and comments and it's very "readable without a board" as there are very few sidelines in the notes - but there's a limit to how little you can say and still be worthwhile reading...
For example, the main ML
7...Nc6 8.d5 Na5 9.Qa4! which has always been the theoretical problem with 7...Nc6, is dealt with on pp 147-150 in two recent otb games. And as a devotee of 7...Nc6 since the mid 1990s this was one of the first things I looked at, along with 2.Nc3 where he only gives 2...d5 3.Bf4 a6!? as the dynamic alternative. It would be nice to have an alternative to the mandatory 2...Nf6 3.Bg5 d5 4.Bxf6 exf6 etc; if it works...
Looking at the ML, sadly it literally took me
2 minutes with my corr database to find an improvement (and a rather obvious one at that!) on his mainline:
9...c5 10.dxc6 Nxc6 11.Rd1 Ne4!? 12.Nxe4 fxe4 13.Ng5 Nd4 and now he only gives the clumsy
14.Rd2 as "14.Bf1? Bd7 and White will lose at least the exchange after [...] a fork on c2".
Well, as I've mentioned elsewhere,
a theory book that ignores corr games will age faster than a vampire in sunlight, and after
14.Be3! White has a very good score in corr, as taking the exchange crashed and burned in: Klausen,T (2415)-De los Santos Serrano,A (2338) ICCF 2003, 1-0 in 28.
And the better 14...Nf5 is met by 15.Qb3 with a white advantage as in for example: Chorfi,K (2095)-Schakel,C (2383)/ICCF 2006, 1-0 in 44 moves.
Sadly I've only had the book for a couple of hours and already I'm disappointed - but hopefully, some of of his other suggestions will hold water vs the corrbase...
The good news is that the back cover promises "
2 free updates of this book available within a year of publication at www.everymanchess.com" - it will certainly be needed...