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Very Hot Topic (More than 25 Replies) Any info on Everyman's "Play the Queens Gambit" (Read 28274 times)
Beetlejuice
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Re: Any info on Everyman's "Play the Queens Gambit
Reply #27 - 05/25/06 at 20:17:18
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Excuse me. Not a big deal but: The Chessbase CD on the Chigorin defence is by Breutigam, not by Marin
  
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Bonsai
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Re: Any info on Everyman's "Play the Queens Gambit
Reply #26 - 05/25/06 at 12:37:54
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Oops. I didn't notice at all. Well, I'm sure I would have known if I'd bothered to read the introduction...

As you actually seem to have the book, does Chris Ward actually try to improve over the lines below, or does he even show he's aware of these analyses?

1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nc6 3.cxd5 Qxd5 4.e3 e5 5.Nc3 Bb4 6.Bd2 Bxc3 7.Bxc3 exd4 8.Ne2 Nf6 9.Nxd4 0-0 10.Nb5 Qg5 
http://www.france-echecs.com/diagramme/imgboard.phpfen=rxbxxrkx%2Fpppxxppp%2Fxxn...
From what I had read Ward's book is suggesting either 11.Nxc7 or 11.h4 for white, after which - as far as I am aware - black is supposed to be fine in both lines (in fact there are often different solutions for black given by Marin in his ChessBase CD and Broznik in his Chigorin book):

A.
11.Nxc7 Bg4 12.Qb3 Rad8 13.Qxb7 Rd6 as suggested by Marin or 13.h3 Bc8 14.Qb5 Qg6 like in Flear-Miladinovic, Athens 1999 (which is covered by Broznik).

B.
11.h4 Qh6 12.Nxc7 Bg4 13.Qb3 Rad8 14.Qxb7 Rd6 as suggested by Marin or 14...Ne4 as analyzed by Broznik.
  
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IMJohnCox
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Re: Any info on Everyman's "Play the Queens Gambit
Reply #25 - 05/25/06 at 11:57:45
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To be fair I think you might have been misled by the (IMHO rather annoying and also used for my own book) format. There is a chapter which as you describe ends on move 10 or 11, then an illustrative game which goes a bit deeper. I agree actually that Chris is still a bit optimistic about this line, but not half so bad as you've suggested.
  
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Bonsai
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Re: Any info on Everyman's "Play the Queens Gambit
Reply #24 - 05/23/06 at 16:40:05
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I do not agree with his choice of variation for white in the chigorin. 3. Nf3 bg4 4. Nc3 seems to me like a better fit for his repetoire than the line he gave which is, as bonsai put it, scary for white.

I'm not sure whether 3.Nf3 Bg4 4.Nc3 really fits better with his repertoire, doesn't he often try to avoid Nf3 systems? And 3.cxd5 is definitely super-ambitious like a lot of Ward's other lines.

However I've finally had a chance to look at the book when I was on a business trip to London and dropped by the big Chess & Bridge shop in Euston Road. I did have a look at the Chigorin chapter and saw that he basically says that after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nc6 3.cxd5 Qxd5 4.e3 e5 5.Nc3 Bb4 6.Bd2 Bxc3 7.Bxc3 exd4 8.Ne2 Nf6 9.Nxd4 0-0 10.Nb5 Qg5 the only question is whether white should play h2-h4 before taking on c7, but that white is great in either case. And then he leaves it at that. Erm, wait, this is - as far as I know - the most theoretically and topical line in the 3.cxd5 system, it's supposed to offer black a massive attack if you take on c7 immediately and 11.h4 Qh6! is supposed to be pretty good for black, too, but Ward just leaves the reader alone in this situation???

Okay, I suppose this repertoire has a target audience that will not be constantly playing against theoretically well-prepared opponents, but abandoning your readers in such a sharp position after giving them a - as far as I know - completely over-optimistic assessement of their position does seem pretty extreme. At least Dunnington (when he recommended the same line in Attacking with 1.d4) gave a bit of extra analysis and all the black ressources had not been found at that time either, but nowadays black's various promising continuations should be fairly well-known.

Surely Ward checked something like the Chessbase magazines and/or the Informator? It's not like I expect he would look at Broznik's great book about the Chigorin, I of course greatly appreciate it when author's look precisely at what's been recommended in specialist books for the other side of the opening (e.g. Delchev/Semkov checked Experts vs. the Sicilian and Kindermann did make recommendations against Khalifman's Kramnik repertoire), but why do people tend to try to dismiss perfectly good and reasonable openings like the Chigorin (or the Modern Benoni etc.) as just bad with so little analysis? Sometimes author's should just be more honest to their readers and they should simply admit that there are just a lot of perfectly reasonable systems against their pet opening/repertoire that give the other side interesting play and/or an equal or nearly equal position. Do they maybe feel they would discourage readers when those reaslise that a lot of these footnotes are perfectly viable choices? Or do they feel readers would feel the author should have worked harder on all the lines that are assessed as equal and that the author should somehow have magically produced at least a "a bit better"?

And just to clarify this: I am not saying that Ward is particularly bad in this respect, in fact I haven't even looked overly closely at most of the rest of the book. It's just that in my opinion the example of his coverage of the Chigorin is a particularly typical case of superficial work and I believe his coverage here is a bit like saying "I recommend you should play 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.Bc4 as white and black can hardly dare to play 4...g4 as white then gets a great position due to the many opportunities for sacrifices on f7." Surely nobody would think that would suffice as a white repertoire at any level?
  
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Re: Any info on Everyman's "Play the Queens Gambit
Reply #23 - 05/18/06 at 19:28:04
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Alumbrado: Sakaev and Semkov (2nd ed) calls 9...Nxg4 dubious. It's 11.cxd5 instead of 11.h3 following Kempinski-San Segundo, Pula 1997 and Kotsur-Sriram, Jodhpur 2003. (They give 9.Rg1 an exclamation mark, btw.)
« Last Edit: 05/19/06 at 03:54:27 by Alias »  

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Re: Any info on Everyman's "Play the Queens Gambit
Reply #22 - 05/03/06 at 14:07:46
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I do not agree with his choice of variation for white in the chigorin. 3. Nf3 bg4 4. Nc3 seems to me like a better fit for his repetoire than the line he gave which is, as bonsai put it, scary for white.
  
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Re: Any info on Everyman's "Play the Queens Gambit
Reply #21 - 05/03/06 at 09:08:12
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BTW I have discovered a fairly significant gap in the coverage which suggests that both the book and my 'review' above are not quite as thorough as might be desired.

Specifically, in the Anti-Meran line 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.Nf3 Nbd7 6.Qc2 Bd6 7.g4 Bb4 8.Bd2 Qe7 9.Bd3, Ward appears to omit any coverage of the (surely critical) 9...Nxg4!? - one of the points of 8...Qe7 being that 10.Rg1 can now be met by 10...f5 11.h3 dxc4 12.Bxc4 Ngf6 when the g7 pawn is protected.

Kaufman gives this line for Black in The Chess Advantage in Black and White and concludes that after 13.0-0-0 a5 it is unclear (while noting that the computers, perhaps unsurprisingly, like Black).

I have played around with this position a bit without generating anything like concrete analysis.  My impression is that White's compensation is value for the pawn but not much more.  Ward should certainly have mentioned this possibility, in my view.  So perhaps only 6/10 now!
  

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Re: Any info on Everyman's "Play the Queens Gambit
Reply #20 - 05/02/06 at 18:24:41
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That's quite interesting that he is recommending that line against the Chigorin considering that this line seemed rather scary for white in those lines e.g. shown by Broznik.
  
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Re: Any info on Everyman's "Play the Queens Gambit
Reply #19 - 05/02/06 at 16:06:40
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Chigorin (1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nc6) - 3.cxd5 Qxd5 4.e3 e5 5.Nc3 Bb4 6.Bd2 Bxc3 7.Bxc3 exd4 8.Ne2
Albin (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5) - 3.dxe5 d4 4.a3 Nc6 5.e3 Be6 6.Nf3
Baltic (1.d4 d5 2.c4 Bf5) - 3.cxd5 Bxb1 4.Qa4†
Tarrasch (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5) - 4.cxd5 exd5 (4...cxd4 5.Qa4†) 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.g3

After 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 (or 2...c6 3.Nc3 e6), Ward only covers 4.e3 for White - so no Marshall Gambit.
  

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Re: Any info on Everyman's "Play the Queens Gambit
Reply #18 - 05/02/06 at 15:09:36
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Also, does he cover the Marshall Gambit 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 e6 4. e4, or only 4.e3?  Thanks!
  
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Re: Any info on Everyman's "Play the Queens Gambit
Reply #17 - 05/02/06 at 14:56:09
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hello, 

what lines are recommended by Ward against Chigorin, Albin, Baltic, Tarrasch (and any other miscellaneous lines)? 

thanks in advance!
  
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Re: Any info on Everyman's "Play the Queens Gambit
Reply #16 - 05/02/06 at 10:51:56
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Quote:
i think everyman chess made a big(formal) mistake.
this is a "starting out"!! queen´s gambit book and not what is written on the cover "play the" queen´sgambit
if you compare: 
play the french(watson)
play the kingsindian(gallagher)
play the nimzoindian(dearing)
play the 1.-b6(bauer)
all of them have better explanations, more details ect. ect. these books play in another league
the first 113 page in "play 1.d4!"(palliser-batsford) does the job much better then chris ward in his new book.

realy strange because his(chris ward) nimzo-4.Nf3 book is of high quality.


I don't agree with the idea that this ought to be a "Starting Out" book - it is clearly a repertoire book for White, whereas the SO books are designed to give an overview for both sides.

I would say that Palliser's book is aimed at quite a high standard of player, whereas Ward's is more for the average club player, who will certainly have some fun with the lines recommended here.   
In comparison to Palliser's QG repertoire, the lines Ward goes for are rather more ambitious (eg. 3.e4 against the QGA, whereas Palliser goes for the Furman; various 0-0-0 systems in the Exchange QGD, whereas Palliser goes for mainlines with Bg5; the 6.Qc2/7.g4 Anti-Meran whereas Palliser seeks to avoid the Semi-Slav altogether) and the book is perhaps rather too optimistic (for White) in its assessments.  I think the slightly less strong target audience for this book will have enough detail to be getting on with most of the time, though.

Overall, the chess content seems good, although it could have done with a more diligent editor, as there is at least one major error with a game score.  Still, it is towards the end of the game in question so it does not affect the opening analysis.  More seriously, there is an instance where the same position is considered in the notes to two different games, with different ideas presented for White, and no indication that the author is even aware of the duplication.

My main quibble is the style of writing, which is (presumably at the behest of the publishers) rather infantile.  This book treats readers as if they are children, easily bored and in need of constant excitement.  There are far too many instances of Ward using the word "cool" for my liking.  But then maybe I am just a boring old stick in the mud.  For my taste it would profit from losing some of this sort of flannel and including a bit more analysis for the more advanced readers.

I would give Ward's book 6.5/10, rising to 7.5/10 if you can ignore the patronising style of writing.
  

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Re: Any info on Everyman's "Play the Queens Gambit
Reply #15 - 05/02/06 at 02:49:03
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Is there anywhere that we can see an exerpt of the book, like you can with most Gambit books?  I really think that nowadays publishers owe that to us readers, because for most of these chess books we can't browse them at our local bookstore.
  
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Re: Any info on Everyman's "Play the Queens Gambit
Reply #14 - 04/29/06 at 14:09:13
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i think everyman chess made a big(formal) mistake.
this is a "starting out"!! queen´s gambit book and not what is written on the cover "play the" queen´sgambit
if you compare: 
play the french(watson)
play the kingsindian(gallagher)
play the nimzoindian(dearing)
play the 1.-b6(bauer)
all of them have better explanations, more details ect. ect. these books play in another league
the first 113 page in "play 1.d4!"(palliser-batsford) does the job much better then chris ward in his new book.

realy strange because his(chris ward) nimzo-4.Nf3 book is of high quality.
  
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Re: Any info on Everyman's "Play the Queens Gambit
Reply #13 - 04/27/06 at 20:31:28
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Some parts will definitely be, especially if you want to, say, use the Shabalov Gambit without having to buy a large tome like Sakaev. Guess it also depends on your QG experience and which lines you're interested in. Chris certainly explains the key ideas well and has some interesting ideas.
  
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