I think GM Marin's book is absolutely outstanding, although the approach that Marin employs (both in format and style) is sufficiently unusual that I can understand why some people might find it a bit strange and, as such, also a bit offputting.
GM Emms' book "Play the Open Games" was excellent for its time (e.g., circa 2000), and set a high standard with respect to the difficult task of providing the basis for a "pre-Ruy" 1.e4 e5 repertoire for Black. GM Davies' recent recent 1.e4 e5 repertoire book is quite good, and has some interesting repertoire suggestions. However due to the format (complete games) of Davies' book and its broader coverage (more than half of the book is devoted to Ruy Lopez lines), the 100 pages in Davies' book covering the same general territory as Marin's book simply cannot compare in terms of depth of opening analysis and quantity of commentary with Marin's 287 tightly-packed pages. (That having been said, I like the complete games format and think it is one of the best ways to introduce yourself to a new opening.) I also feel that the quailty of analysis in Marin's book, his willingness to wrestle with and try to improve on existing theory, goes somewhat beyond what Davies did (although I thought Davies' book also was a pretty good effort in these respects).
The introductory "historical games/fragments" sections in each theoretical chapter in Marin's book is a little unusual for a repertoire book, and it certainly true that the games/fragments don't always fall strictly within the repertoire. However, these games/fragments were not necessarily chosen for their current theoretical significance, and Marin's idea of showing the historical evolution of theory in the relevant lines is a very interesting way of illuminating the modern theory presented in detail in his ECO-style charts. I also think that the analysis Marin provides in these introductory games/fragments is simply superb and provides a lot of insight into the critical ideas for both sides. Nonetheless, it is certainly true that the bulk of relevant analysis in this book is provided in the ECO-style charts and the footnotes thereto.
Personally, I like the way Marin has used the ECO-style charts. Marin has used the ECO-style format (i.e., ECO-style charts with main lines, footnotes for deviations, and evaluations much as you would find in ECO), but improved on it greatly by including many (and sometimes rather lengthy) textual comments that contain a wealth of insights into the moves and evaluations given. In fact, the footnotes to the ECO charts are the heart of this book, and they are nothing like the notes in ECO itself. I give a few randomly chosen footnotes below to provide some feeling for their style and textual content:
*************************************
footnote 21 on page 68 starts out: "10...Rh4 Black intends to provoke the following move, in the hope that he wil be able to take advantage of the weakness of the light squares. In doing so, he has failed to understand that the advance of the g-pawn consolidates the f4-bishop and enables the development of its light-squared colleague...[a game fragment is given, followed by an evaluation of +=]...Black managed to draw without ever coming close to even losing, but White's chances are preferable anyway."
footnote 18 on page 138: a textless footnote, containing analysis of the critical opening stages of three games from a Marshall-Capablanca thematic match in the Max Lange Attack.
footnote 53 on page 195: "21 Rad1 Rad8 =+ (Black's advantage in space offers him the better prospects, but White's control over the dark squares makes the position double-edged in a strategic sense.) 22.Qc1 Rxd1 23.Nxd1 (23.Rxd1?! would let Black break the blockade with 23...e3-+) 23...Qa5!? (Black intends to prevent the installation of the knight on e3 as long as possible, but maybe 23...Ba6=+ followed by Bd3 would be more promising) 24.Nc3 Qb4 25.Qd2 Re6 26.a3 Qb6 27.b4 Qa6!? (27...Rd6?! 28.Qf4+=) 28.Qd8+ Kh7 29.Qd7 Qxa3 (29...Qc6!? was recommended by Blatny but it is not clear why Black should be better after 30.Qd4 f5 [30...e3 31.f3] 31.b5) 30.Qxb7 Qxc3 31.Rxe4= 0.5-0.5, Golubev-Malaniuk, Alushta 1994."
footnote 37 on page 222: "This standard plan is the simplest. Transferring the knight on e6 starting with 10...Na4 11.Be2 Nc5 is a natural alternative, although it implies some loss of time....[A line is given with several alternatives analyzed, including game cites and evaluations. The line contains the following two interior comments: "(The redeployment initiated by this move is more efficident than 16...Bb7 17.Bc3 +=, Grosar-I. Sokolov, Portoroz 1993)" and "(The bishop should be ready to neutralize Black's pressure along the h1-a8 diagonal with Be4 and, eventually, put pressure on the e6-knight by means of a further Bd5.)"]...[A final fragment and evaluation, plus game citation]..."Black's pressure against the enemy queenside offers some compensation for White's activity in the centre."
foonote 4 on page 263: "Now 16.Nf5 is less effective because after 16...g6 17.Ne3 (17.Ng3 does not really form part of White's plan, because it doesn't let him concentrate his forces around the e5-pawn) the e4-pawn would be permanently hanging. True, the immediate capture on e4 would be strongly met by Ng4, but a simple move such as 17...Re7 keeps the position under control. The e3-knight is denied access to both squares from where it could attack the e5-pawn."
*******************************************
In fact, a big majority of the foonotes to the ECO-style charts have textual comments in addtion to (and sometimes in lieu of) moves and evaluations. I don't think Marin's use of these charts is so strange; I think that the ECO chart and footnotes is a very efficient way to organize moves and comments if you are trying to conserve space and pack in the maximum information into the minimum number of pages, and this is probably why Marin chose to use it. The main problem I always had with ECO's approach to opening theory was the absence of textual explanations. That is certainly not a problem with Marin's chosen format.
If you are wedded to a certain kind of format for opening books, this book is probably not for you. However, if you have an open mind about formats and are willing to try anything that works, you might well find that Marin's format is superior to many of the options. I find the ECO charts very useful for getting a quick visual fix on the main line variations (one of the best features of the ECO format is its clear and readily comprehensible organization of theory) , while the comprehensive footnotes display many of the best features of more traditionally formatted opening books (variations/evaluations interspersed with useful explanatory text). Of course, reasonable minds can differ on such things.
Some comments were made about the problems associated with Marin advocating some drawing lines for Black in a repertoire book. I have encountered only a handful of these "drawing lines" so far, although I have already spent many hours with this book. In most instance where the repertoire recommendation might fairly be characterized as a "drawing line" a brief inspection of the footnotes will provide reasonable alternatives for Black that avoid the drawing line. In a few cases where the main repertoire suggestion allows a forced draw that is difficult to avoid (e.g., after 1.e4 e5 2.f4 Bc5 3.Nf3 d6 4.c3 Bb6 4.d4 exd4 5.cxd4 Bg4 6.Be3 NF6 7.Nc3, arguably the main line of the 4.c3 variation, Marin recommends 8...Nxe4!? as an equalizing measure; however, after 7.Nxe4 Qe7 8.Qd3 Bf5, White can force a draw with 11.Qb5+ Bd7 12.Qd3 Bf5 13.Qb5+, etc., as show in footnote 31), there are always fairly obvious alternatives (e.g., 8...d5 9.e5 Ne4 10.Bd3 f5!?, a line given by GM Davies, or even 7...d5!?, both of which appear to be fine for Black) that allow Black to avoid the draw if he needs or wants to win. Marin might have saved the reader a little time by providing alternatives to the drawing lines in every case, but every repertoire book's choices need to be tweaked a bit by the reader to suit the reader's preferences and to avoid perfect predictability, so this is hardly a major criticism.
There are a few obvious omissions in the repertoire. Some of these omissions have apparently been cured with the PDF file posted at the Quality Chess website. The omitted lines are generally not particularly critical theoretically speaking (in fact they appear to be relatively minor lines), and the more critical theoretical lines (e.g., Scotch mainlines, Giuoco Piano, Exchange Ruy, Four Knights) are covered very thoroughly, with a substantial amount of original anaysis included. However, it is fair to say that the proposed repertoire is in some ways incomplete, albeit not in a way that seriously detracts from the usefulness of the book.
There is also one strange inclusion. For some reason Marin included the Exchange Ruy Lopez in this book, which is counter to the normal procedure of grouping 1.e4 e5 lines into two categories of Ruy and non-Ruy lines. I am not sure of the reason for this, although Marin does suggest in his introduction to this section that the Exchange Variation is thematically very different from the Closed Ruy, and maybe this is his reason. In any event, his coverage of the suggested repertoire (after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.0-0 f6 6.d4, Marin recommends 6...Bg4 as his main line) is excellent (193 footnotes to the two-page ECO-style chart, including over 31 pages [!] of footnotes, many of them containing lengthy textual explanations).
As is probably apparent from the above, my perception of this book is extremely positive. At the end of the day, all formatting issues aside, the proof is in the pudding and the quality and depth of analysis and insightfulness of the explanations in Marin's book appear to be to be unusually good. If I had to pick one opening book out of the many I have as being objectively best in terms of quality of analysis, orignality, and depth of explanation, it would probably be a close call between this book snd Dorian Rogozenko's Sveshnikov Reloaded. Although the standards for opening books seem to have risen in recent years (I am old enough to remember the potboilers that were published in the '80s), these two stand out in my mind as being truly outstanding in virtually all material respects. (No, I have no connection with Quality Chess. My only communications with them were some disgruntled e-mails from me about a year ago regarding a book that didn't arrive soon enough for my tastes.)
Just my opinion (and an overly long one at that).
-Geof
|