bulgroz wrote on 07/15/08 at 08:39:35:



I also thought it got only one star...

The coverage of the 9.h4 Panno is one of the bright spots of the book.  As with most of the book, many of the game citations are dated, but there are some places where the coverage updates Gallagher's old book and also some correspondence games that I hadn't seen before.

There are two main games on the 9.h4 Panno.  The first game is a 1992 Karpov-Kindermann game, but the authors cover in the notes what some currently consider to be the critical test of the Panno.  I'm talking about the line 9..h5 10.Nc1 e5 11.d5 Nd4 12.Nb3 c5 13.dxc6 bxc6 14.Nxd4 exd4 15.Bxd4 Re8 16.Be2 d5 and now 17.exd5!  The coverage of this line seems pretty good and includes what appears to be some original analysis.

The other main game covers 9..h5 10.0-0-0.  Its a correspondence game from 1992, which improves on an old Rivas Pastor-Mestel game.  The critical line seems to be 10..b5 11.Bh6 e5 12.Bxg7 Bxg7 13.dxe5 (the authors show why 13.d5 isn't as good; the key is 14..b4! which was not considered by Gallagher) 13..Nxe5 14.cxb5 axb5 15.Nf4 b4 16.Ncd5 Nxd5 17.Nxd5 c5 18.f4 and now 18..Ng4.  Again, the coverage here is good, and the authors comment on most of the principal alternatives along the way.

Hope this helps.  

Perhaps you can post the lines they give since I too would be surprised if this is any good given that not lot seems to have happened in this line for so long and that Gallagher thought this line was pretty poor.

I found a review on this book: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http://www.freechess.info&langpair=de|en... (the original review was in German, but here is a translation to English). 

Judging from this review, I find it strange that the book attempts to be comprehensive, when judging from this review, it seems to be set more as an introduction.

I would agree that the Controversial Samsich is much better both in terms of an introductory course in the Samisch and in playing the opening at the international level (ironically I haven't bought the book...). 

After reading all the reviews of this book, my conclusion is that the book is not a complete waste of money for players newer to tournaments (on another note, I think this book should have been in a Starting Out format), but the previous books on this system are much more useful. As far as tournament/international players are concerned, you would learn a lot more playing through 50 deeply annotated games in the Samisch from Mega Database.

Ender wrote on 02/22/08 at 21:03:22:


Very subtle Ender!

Can you post some of their recommendations in the 6.Be3 c5 without 7.d5 chapter? I would be interested to see whether they give any game references after 2003.

If it helps, I can rewrite the chapter and post it . Only joking...

Well, I went ahead and bought this book.  I haven't gotten that far into yet, but it's not as bad as some of its reviews.  It's basically a top-line survey of the Saemisch.  It is not a repertoire book; it covers the opening from both sides of the board and appears, so far, to be objective.  The authors make an effort to comment on most of the moves.  

The problem with the book is that it doesn't add much to Gallagher's book, which was published in 1995.  To be fair, the theory on the Saemisch hasn't advanced much since then, and where it has, the authors do note it.  (For example, they note the Lautier-Smirin game thought to be critical for the Panno.)  But, thus far, I have been disappointed in that I haven't learned anything new from this book.  The authors certainly aren't giving away any of their own secrets here!  

The comparison to Ward's book is more difficult.  I liked Ward's book better than this one, but Ward's book is closer to a repertoire book and does not cover all the lines I play (he gives short shrift to the Bd3/0-0 plan in the Orthodox and he doesn't really look at the h4/h5 plans in the Panno).  If you have Ward's book and like the lines he offers, then you don't need this book.  But if you want coverage of some of the missing lines, then this may be worth getting.

I haven't gotten deep enough into the book to comment on the analysis yet, but many of the games are ones I've seen before and they seem to be presented well enough.  Again, it's not the presentation that is disappointing, it's the lack of anything new.  I will comment more on specific lines as I get deeper into the book or if anyone has a line they'd like to know about.  For now, though, the customary list of contents:

Bibliography --  p4
Introduction -- p5
6.Be3 e5 7.d5 -- p7
6.Be3 e5 7.Nge2 -- p24
6.Be3 Nc6 -- p38
6.Be3 c6 and 6..Nbd7 -- p73
6.Be3 c5 -- p107
6.Be3 c5 7.d5 -- p.123
6.Bg5 and 6.Nge2 Benoni positions -- p.136
6.Nge2 and 6.Bg5 other positions -- p.160
Index -- p.174

Silman has already commented on the bibliography.  It lists five books, including Gallagher's, but not Ward's.  And that's it.  It doesn't list any magazines, databases, informants, etc., but its clear enough that the authors have consulted at least some of these sources.  The intro is perfunctory.  

Each chapter presents a number of complete games in the usual Everyman format, with a brief summary/tree-like index at the end of each chapter.  In total, there are 50 complete games, one of which is an online blitz game (between GMs) and two of which are corr. games.  Rest are mostly high-level OTB games.      

Anyway, these are first impressions only.  If anyone is interested, I will report back later on some of the analysis and specific lines.

-- LeeRoth

Ender wrote on 02/15/08 at 09:51:23:

Me too!