@ericthered: I dont know any new literature. But the ebook here on collarme is very good.

@Markovich: Sure thats the way we all love chess. It is not that I wanted to complain about it. If so I could play calmer stuff. I only intendet to give my opinion to the question "best versus notboom"?.

And again, the advantage for white here is not that the so called "theorie" states white is better. The theorie says it is unclear. But i feel even if black knows the stuff he hartdly ever can neutralise the white initiative. He can objectivly equlise with learning the moves by heart, but the king will still be under fire until the end of the game.

In my experience I often reach with black a position after the oponing where at least my "eloctonic friend shredder" think black is better. But still I am going to lose it quite often as, I still have to play very acurate until move 40, one smoll mistake and the white advantage is huge. Ok with 2100 i am not a "chess god" and my experience is not that important. But after working trough several chessbase games I feel that on GM level still it happens the same. 

So my advise to white players who fear the notboom. Just try it. Maybe dont play the 8.Ba5 line as black has some counter attacks hidden and black will know them for sure. Just place your pieces on active squares and make normal moves. Dont think about the minus pawn. This sort of positions hardly ever reaches an endgame.

Possible play is 8.Be2 and on 8....Na6 Bc3. Often black react with a latter f6 followed with e5. But to defend this center is not easy. the pieces stay on the board and the black king has no safe heaven.

lnn2 wrote on 05/17/06 at 06:26:27:


Ah, tell me about it!  24 is feeling very old now.    I remember being happy to get my hands on books by Burgess on some main-line openings.  Learning main line openings from that style of presentation as a class C/B player was really a pain.  (I never had a coach for guidance.)  In retrospect, I probably would have been better off reading Informants.  I would haved loved Chess Stars publications back then.

I think my choice of openings back then was largely determined by what material I could find.  For instance, I think Ward's book on the Dragon (back when he was an IM) was largely responsible for my dependence on the Dragon throughout my career.  Now there are so many books, it's hard to make up one's mind.  I suppose it's partly to my advantage having had to grind through these opening systems on my own, but it's a bit frustrating when all these great books come out when I don't have time for chess anymore.  OK, enough reminiscing, it's too depressing.

chessy wrote on 05/17/06 at 09:34:41:


Yeah, that's all true.  If you play the "Triangle" you have to steel yourself to the possibility of defending this gambit, which has several dangerous forms.  But what do you expect when you play for a win as Black?

It's interesting that on this thread, we have both White and Black players wringing their hands over the difficulty of preparing for, and playing, such complex and critical lines.  So, chess is a very hard game, what's new?

It is interesting to hear that IM's read "Starting Out"-books. 

As 200 or so pages won't be enough to cover any details I guess it can be seen as a guide for further database/Informant/NiC yb/Chess pub reading, with some notes about ideas, move orders and such. (One can compare with the MASSIVE Chess-stars series on 1.Nf3 and 1.e4.)

I like John's book on the Alekhine and recently bought the "d4 deviations" book. (I might try something else than 1...f5 for the next CC tournament.) Both books are good choices for slim volumes. I wonder how this new book will turn out.

Neil McDonald is writing the "Starting Out: 1 e4!" book, which will be published soon after the d4 book. It will be interesting to see his choices too.

there are plenty of opening books out there if you want to play second and third rate openings. you can play the BDG or the London if the main lines are too much. I am an IM and I will be getting this book.

hehe

I have to say that John Cox is tackling some topics in his opening books that most authors would probably rather avoid.

Alekhine (awkward, messy, too unexplored in places, "Burgess did it")
d4 Deviations (too many transpositions, boring, trifling, "Burgess did it (Torre Jungle )")

And I am happy that he chose to write about these topics (especially d4 deviations)!  His work is very readable, and I like his balance in detail in his choice of variations.

And now a repertoire book for 1.d4 (Starting out!?) recommending all these main lines...

I think you could write a book just cataloguing the main lines for discussion.  This certainly has my interest.  I can see the cut-and-paste option for the summary thoughout the book:  "Refer to the lastest New In Chess yearbooks and Informants."

Seriously, I do like the concept of summarizing the main lines.  This is something I feel is lacking in chess literature.  I think there are too many books that keep recommending auxiliary repertoire options to "surprise" the opponent.  Even though this will be a summary, it still seems rather ambitious.  Well, I look forward to seeing this book.