Nigel Davies new book seems to have greatly empowered you.
But books come and go and Davies is not known as a Trompovsky specialist. In fact he seems to be writing as an authority on every opening under the sun these days.
Davies is becoming almost as prolific as Soltis and Schiller is. Such output often reflects in the quality of the work.
Since I do not know the precise contents of the book, I will tell you where he would need to impress me:
A) He would need to show something convincing against: 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 d5! 3.Bxf6 exf6 or 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 d5! 3.e3 c5 These lines are perhaps black's most reliable against the Tromp.
B) As a KID player myself, I sometimes opt for a more frisky option than the safe equaliser outlined above, namely: 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 Ne4! 3.Bh4?! c5! [or c6!?] and now 4.f3 g5! is definetly good for black but 4.Nd2!? is well worth investigation, but even here my intuition tells me that Black should be fine.
C) 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 Ne4! 3.Bf4 d5! [I prefer this to the more popular c5!? as it is more reliable for black], White may try a deferred BDG with 4.f3, 5.e4 but in this case I think the simple 4...Nf6 5.e4 e3! is quite comfortable for Black. See the game Benjamin vs Yermolinsky for an example, at least I think it was Benjamin.
D) Finally 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 Ne4! 3.Bf4 d5 4.e3 c5! 4.Bd3 Nf6! Is now considered quite promising for black, despite Peter Wells scepticism in his excellent monograph 'Winning With The Trompovsky', which by the way is still the most compelling book on this Opening.
E) 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 e6 This is a very popular choice for Black, but I think that the simple 3.Nd2 is quite nice for White and scores well, one of his ideas being to setup a Stonewall Attack formation with the usually bad dark squared bishop outside the pawn chain.
So there you have it, the Tromp in a nutshell.
My question to you now is, what does Davies have to show, that Hodgson, Wells and Gallagher have not.
In otherwords, show me the money.
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