|
Thanks, Slates, and everyone else here, for so much interest. I believe the e-book should be downloadable around early April or so, but I'm not totally sure. Is it really the case that 1 d4 d5 2 c4 c6 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 e3 Bf5 is still more popular than 4...Bg4? Interesting one. That was obviously true when I first began proper work on 4...Bg4, roughly when Leko played it against Bareev towards the end of 2006, and expressed total confidence in it. I was happy to have found a relative sideline in good theoretical shape, even though I'd be reasonably happy with 4...Bf5 too. But it seems everyone else had the same idea! Every week on The Week in Chess at the moment there are several high-level games with 4...Bg4. It has been an interesting experience, adjusting my coverage as new games roll in - anyway, I feel confident of the recommendation 4...Bg4 as a practical method to equalise and quite often generate strong middlegame counterplay. For inspiration, check out the new Caruana game that Bibs just mentioned! I should perhaps add the general point that although popularity is - sometimes - a fair guide to a line's soundness, it is never one of my criteria for selection. Indeed, in several cases I have chosen relatively unfashionable (only unfashionable, not crazy!) lines partly because it is here that I have felt able to contribute more of my own ideas. Anonymous, I have given a complete bibliography in the book, which will answer your question in full: apart from the usual electronic sources I have referred to a large number of books, including repertoire books for White. There hasn't been a monograph dealing with the whole Slav complex since Graham Burgess's book in 2001 - an excellent work, but inevitably a little dated in places. If you want a quick, recent overview from a great player, try Shirov's DVD of his best Slav games. (There's another discussion thread on this I think.) But Shirov's is not a repertoire work, and my book doesn't actually overlap with it at all. Hope that more or less covers the question!
|