Just a quick update and my humble opinion on the McDonald book that was the original topic of the thread - I've just finished the chapters on the Classical, and was very impressed.  At my level (no rating to offer, but it would be very modest if I had one) the explanatory text is worthwhile without being too basic, a problem I have seen in certain other books, especially (in this series) the Starting Out: Nimzo Indian book. I finished the section on the Classical and all the time kept playing it online and despite that feeling that others have reported about the Dutch feeling a bit shaky until the middlegame is well under way (and sometimes then some!) I have had some amusing wins with it.  I decided whilst reading that I was unlikely to be able to stay with the Dutch, but the wins I've had make it worthwhile, whilst the defeats haven't been as crushing as I feared, merely games where I've gone into an inferior endgame which I can achieve on my own with no help from an opening, it has to be said - it's still fun to play the positions I'm getting in the middlegame, and therein lies a good reason (I feel) for me to persevere - my middlegame play and tactical ability is hopefully going to improve by my playing the Dutch in comparison to the QGD, where things are obviously quite different.  Still, I went through so of the games in the Leningrad chapter and can add that I stil don't feel anywhere near comfortable with those, but would still recommend this book to anyone looking at exploring the Dutch.  In my opinion, Neil McDonald has done a great job here. As mentioned earlier, I'm no great player, but I've read plenty of chess books, and I can safely say that this is one of the better ones of them, in the context of it's coverage and target audience. I'm off to go through the book again in tandem with some of the comments/lines suggested earlier in this thread.

I think you change your Openings a bit too quickly.

Switching from one opening to the other as soon as you encounter difficulties is not the answer. You have to come to grips with these problems first before even contemplating moving on.

Jumping around willy nilly only leads to a very superficial understanding of whatever opening you choose.

Regards

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Actually, that was also one of the main reason I went for the dutch. Besides, the KID started feeling like going through the motions with all that Nf6, Nh5, f5, Nf6 so it felt better to just play f5 and Nf6. And best of all, with the dutch you get a kind of chessic 'smörgåsbord' as nearly all of the pieces stay on the board, and you can use tactical and strategical manoeuvres from other openings surprisingly often...

I've gone through the Iljin main line chapter and though enlightening and very enthusiastic - there were two places were I was a bit sceptical/critical:

1) on page 94, on the virtues of a5 + Nc6-b4 gaining time on Qc2 so white's d4-d55 can eventually be met by e6-e5. (Nf6-e4xc3 Qxc3) & now ...Nc6 11.d5 Bf6 12.Qc2 Nb4 here I'm a bit worried about the unmentioned 13.Qd2 as e5 14.a3 Na6 15.Qxa5 picks up a pawn. Surely, this possible downside to ...a5 should've been worth mentioning?

2) p93 has two examples of a similar black device for gaining activity, once it's good and the 2nd time bad, but why it's different could've been elaborated a bit...

i.e 7.Nc3 a5! 

8.Qc2 Nc6! 9.e4 Nb4 10.Qe2 Nxe4 11.Nxe4 fxe4 12.Qxe4 e5! "intending 13...Bf5, activates Black's game". - At least to me it's not obvious why 13.dxe5 Bf5 14.Qxb7 here is so much worse than in the next example...

8.Re1 Ne4! 9.Qc2 Nc6? 10.Nxe4 Nb4 11.Qb1 fxe4 12.Qxe4 e5 13.dxe5! Bf5 14.Qxb7 Rb8 15.Qa7 Nc2 16.Bd2! "Black can take the exchange but his position will still be in ruins."

Perhaps McD is just quoting Williams? I'll try to check W later... At least these examples show that having more than one reference on the Iljin may turn out to be a useful thing for you, slates!

This is the only way to get a grip on the Iljin-Zjenevsky. I have changed opinions too many times myself to be confindent drawing definite conclusions...
I recognize TalJechin's experience of feeling uncomfortable. So for a long time I did not dare to play the IZ in corr. games. But I also have learned that Black's positions are very often not so bad as they look at first sight. It is true though, that even a slight mistake can lead to an inferior position very quickly.

After 7...Qe8 8.Re1 Qg6 is the main move, though Nc6 might be more precise.
But 7...Qe8 8.b3 a5 9.Re1 Qg6 10.e4 is an improved version for White, as b2-b3 is more useful than a7-a5. Hence Black must prevent 10.e4 and play 9...Ne4. An important factor is (after 7...Qe8 8.b3 a5 9.Re1) Ne4 10.Nxe4 fxe4 and the rook on e1 is a bit silly.

aha! Thanks....... so....

[In the box you are typing in, you will then get square brackets with "quote" and "/quote" in them  Simply paste the quotation between the end of the first square bracket and the beginning of the second one  ] [/quote]

Thanks - but how do I cut & paste someone else's message in order to quote it so that it appears in a box, like you have just done?  I cut & pasted and it just appeared as normal text - I tried the preview options, but they didn't make this clear.  Apologies all for non-chess related post.