Greetings,

wcywing
See the Chessville Review of Beating the Petroff.

It ONLY covers the 3.Nxe5, d6; 4.Nf3 line, which is what the authors recommend as White's answer to the Petroff.

However, it would give you a good idea of what you might face, as the book is recent (2004).

The best part, as the reviewer points out, is the sections covering typical middle-game and endgame positions/play.

Quite cheap too from Amazon

Kindest regards,

Dragan Glas

Greetings,

wcywing
Best to stick with what you're already familiar.

I don't know which books on the Petroff you have...

Janjgva's book, published by Gambit, appears the least confusing - there doesn't seem to be any books which actually explain the ideas behind it, they all seem to concentrate on reams of variations.

[Having said that, perhaps Watson's Mastering the Modern Chess Openings is the one for anyone wishing to gain a insight into the ideas behind this and the other openings.]

Raetsky's/Chetverik's (Everyman) and Yusupov's (Olms) books are more advanced than the average club player - particularly the latter, which is encyclopaedic and would best suit a Karmnik or Yusupov (who is a Petroff-specialist)!

The only other book is written from White's perspective - Beating the Petroff by Kotronias and Tzermiadianos (Batsford) - though it does contain good descriptions of themes, etc.

It is also for the stronger club/advanced player but not as advanced or as confusing as either of the other two.

Kindest regards,

Dragan Glas

Greetings,

kylemeister wrote on 02/09/08 at 20:14:34:

kylemeister, if you use Firefox, there's a add-on called Zombie Keys, which enables you to "type" these characters using special key combinations.

Kindest regards,

Dragan Glas

lg wrote on 02/09/08 at 19:49:26:


There's a book on the Archangel and New Archangel (maybe the latter takes in the Möller*) by Polish IM Panczyk, though it is some years old now.  Those are mainstream lines; some of that early ...Bc5 stuff is more offbeat and might be found in a book like Glenn Flear's "Offbeat Ruy Lopez."  Then there are of course books like ECO (which incidentally Flear recently wrote that he still uses).


*yes, I know it's supposed to have the o with a line through it, but I only know how to type the Swedish version

The Zaitzev, yes I like this defense!
However the sharp lines Markovic refers to (12. a4 h6 13.Bc2 cd 14. cd Nb4 15. Bb1 c5 I presume) don't occur often in typical OTB chess games. Instead you will see lots of positional lines (11. ed, 12. d5, 12. Bc2 and 12. a3) in most of your games. That's fine with me, I don't seek razor sharp positions in every game. For me the Zaitzev is mainly a dependable system against the Lopez, it can be a bit dull but at least it's a system which I have used for 15 years and I'm too lazy to learn something new.
Also be prepared to meet an occasional 11. Ng5  Rf8 12. f4?!, you know it's really played at club level.   

If you want to play the Open Spanish while avoiding the Exchange Variation, then I can suggest the following line: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.0-0 (Against the solid 4.d3 you can consider 4...Ne7!? with the idea 5.Ne5? c6 winning a piece in view of ...Qa5) 4...Ne4 5.d4 and instead of playing the Berlin Wall with 5...Nd6, consider 5...a6!?. White's best move is then 6.Ba4, after which 6...d5 7.de5 Be6 is the Open Spanish. Remembered this line from Soltis's excellent book "Transpo Tricks in Chess". 

As you will see in the above book, Giovanni Vescovi (a strong GM), when faced with this line, played the inferior 6.Bc6?!, obtaining a worse position out of the opening as White! For more info on this and many other variations, buy the book!

rossia wrote on 02/08/08 at 17:12:09:


I'm not sure about that.  The main lines of the Zaitsev are quite sharp, for example.

most ruy lopez lines seem to be bookish, but with the archangel, black can play that sooner than a marshall or closed main line.  do b5 followed by a Bc5.  however it is more tactical than most spainish games.