To ErictheRed

Obviously GM Hebden "has been who has been" not because his repertoire, rather his playing strengh, but pawn special openings have worked well for him, at nearest the top level. 

I also have Kaufman book, what puts me off of it is the sicilian treatment.   


To TalJechin

I've been looking some Trompowsky games some time ago. I think that there are too much "kaos" in them. I don't understand this positions naturally.

Hi Hollbox,

Of course, without knowing your style, it's hard to make recommendations.  I haven't seen the Sam Collins book, so I won't comment on that.  I'm basically of the same strength as you; USCF 2100 or so trying to make 2200+.

I personally think that all those "d-pawn special" repertoires are more or less junk.  Sure, White won't be worse when he plays them--he may even have chances for a slight edge.  But in general they don't put much real strain on Black to find good moves.  Most people play them as White because they are comfortable in them and can find reasonable moves easily, but the same thing can be said for Black in these openings: it's fairly easy for Black to find reasonably good moves; he's just not under a lot of pressure.  Also, I don't think Summerscale is entirely objective (but then, what repertoire book author is?).

I would recommend Kaufman's book.  In my mind, it presents a repertoire that is much more ambitious than most opening books offer, at least in the strategic sense.  Openings like the Exchange Spanish might not be super sharp, but they offer plenty of chances to outplay your opponent; i.e., they create a very strategically unbalanced position where it is not always so easy for Black to find the best moves.  The same thing can certainly be said for the Tarrasch line against the French, 3.Bb5 against the Sicilian, etc.  I think Kaufman's book offers a much stronger repertoire than the other books; it's much closer to a "repertoire for life" than the others. 

That said, Kaufman's book isn't perfect, and if you choose to play his repertoire (or at least most of it), you may want to supplement his book with other material.  But I guess that goes with any single volume opening book. 

Without knowing your style- i'd be reluctant to recommend any of these books as being the right one for you. Instead I'll just make a few comments on the books below.

1) Collins book - when I got this initially I thought the book was brilliant but I do have to quibble with quite a lot of the repertoire having looked at it.
The Panov line v Nc6 is a forced draw !
The c3 line advocated is no longer being played . I seem to recall a thread here putting questions in this line.
The Scandanavian- I think GM Prie may have put a spanner in the works
On the Scotch- i am not sure that his lines are that good -
The games in the Petroff are very one sided.

Notwithstanding the above - it is was very well written .

2) Dynamic English - absolutely first class  in its day. Tony Kosten's book is the best book introducing English opening. On the actual recommendations - some of these are showing their age eg the Symmetrical lines . 

3) Summerscale's book is good but a bit brief on the crucial lines but what he writes is very entertaining and well presented. You'd probably need to do a few updates but an ebook on Colle -Zukertort has just been done here . So over to you on this one.

There are other repertoire books out there eg Pallister and Cox on 1d4 and Mcdonald on 1e4 . 

Good luck

Andrew

What do you think about this three repertoires?

An attaking repertoire for white, Sam Collins
A killer chess opening repertoire, Aaron Summerscale
Dynamic english, Anthony Kosten


And between this two?

An attaking repertoire for white, Sam Collins
Chess advantage in black and white, Larry Kaufman (obviously only the white side) 


Which do you think that fits better for "new old" player of 2000-2100 points aiming for 2200?


Thx