I apparently cannot get through with this one to Mr. A, maybe because it makes his whole line of argumentation redundant. BTOG II was essentially a reprint. With very limited time on his hands, we asked Mihail to look into comments made on the first edition. This and his own practice was the backbone of the expanded reprint.
Some of the books mentioned were not out when the original book were written, and to be honest, I told Mihail that the Emms book was pretty dated. I know it is a very popular book, but it is filled with simple mistakes, as it is probably the last opening book not to be computer checked in any way. For example, there is this line:
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Bc4 Nf6 5. O-O Nxe4 6. Re1 d5 7. Bxd5 Qxd5 8.
Nc3 Qa5 9. Nxe4 Be6 10. Neg5 O-O-O 11. Nxe6 fxe6 12. Rxe6 Bd6 13. Bg5 Rde8 14.
Qe1 Qxe1+ 15. Raxe1 Kd7 16. Rxe8 Rxe8 17. Rxe8 Kxe8 18. Kf1 Kf7 19. Bd2 h6 20.
Ke2 Ke6 21. Kd3 Kd5 22. Nxd4 Nxd4 23. c4+ Ke5 24. f4+ Kf5 25. Kxd4 Bxf4 26.
Bxf4 Kxf4 27. b4 h5 28. a4 h4 29. a5 a6 30. b5 g5 31. Kd5 g4 32. c5 Ke3 33. c6
bxc6+ 34. Kxc6 axb5 35. a6 Kf2 36. a7 Kxg2 37. a8=Q Kxh2 38. Qa2+ Kh3 39. Kd5
g3 40. Ke4 g2 41. Qf2 1-0
He mentioned this line as very dangerous for Black. In reality 23...Ke6 was an immediate draw. As I had seen the game live, I had spotted it myself, but any computer would have pointed it out. I remember checking the book over back then and finding many of these mistakes.
I am not out to criticise John's book, it was exactly from that point where the culture in chess and chess writing changed to everything being fritzed, but it does mean that as a source it would be heavy chewing.
About 10.Qf3. If indeed this is worse for Black, then there are the other 6-7 options I gave to turn to.
In essense all openings will give Black problems to solve, but this does not look any more threatening to me than any of the other options you can work out. After 1.e4 e5 I have Maybe a million games in my database. 8.Nd2 represents 3 of these. In only (!) 336 pages there will have to be made some choices.
Anyway - "Perfectionism is spelled p-a-r-a-l-y-s-i-s" Winston Churchill.
I should maybe add this - we are at the moment working on the first two volumes in our Grandmaster Repertoire series, which will be announced properly in August. John and I have tried really hard to include all possible sources. I can assure you that 1) this is really hard and 2) most of the recommendations existing in other books are utter rubbish.
There are two recent books that recommend some gambits and try to make them look playable by suggesting new moves here and there without analysis. With analysis these suggestions become rather humorous, one of them transposing to the main line with two tempos less. So far I have not come across any new recommendation in the sources we have seen that are really improvements. We will do more to include responses to them, but honestly, many writers out there do not put a lot of work into their analysis, unfortunately. Maybe the conclusion we need to make is to pay more attention to the ideas given here on Chess Publishing
.