I certainly like the idea of doing reasonable coverage of a repertoire for one color in a few hundred pages.  I was hoping that one day Drazen Marovic would do something like a White version of his "An Active Repertoire for Black" -- but that book was less than 200 pages and used a format of about 120 succinctly-annotated complete games (two columns per page).

Looking at 1.d4 it looks to be 300+ pages, but I disagree that the Catalan and g3 against the KID are main options for White. Actually, those are the ones I personally have feared most as Black with these openings over the years.

Quote:

In my opinion, quality chess is one of the better publishers on the market...

We must totally admit that publishing houses are pointing at the biggest customers: the amateurs who make 90-95% of all chess players.

If you write an opening book for Elo range 2100-2400 many reviewers will take care that no amateur buys your book, cause they will state something like this: "intended for stronger players so intermediate players should stick with xxx book..."

Every serious/tournament chess players should stand on the shoulders of giants. This means that there's is no overnight recipe how to obtain FM level or so (check out Yermolinksy's book).

As I have MaS degree I see no problem with a lot of work in any field of chess, the bigger problem is time which I don't have.

When one masters for example Khalifman's "Opening according to Anand/Kramnik" he or she has made a lifetime job in chess. Pure main lines are an guarantee of openin g success.

Since it's very hard and exaustive to write such a series of openings books, we can hardly see any competition in this field. So do not expect that all chess publishers employ such a task.

When on the start of big marathon you see all this crowded people you just can not resist imagining that they will all cross goal line. But they certainly won't. 

Same is in chess. Many play chess, but only few cross 2600 mark, only the best 2700 mark.

I try to be the best, to give best what I can. Because of that I don't stick with crowd who awaits a book with 100 pages and with title "Unbeatable lifetime repertoire".

Aagaard go for the best, make Grandmaster repertoire the best opening series ever for high class players.

I disagree with that to some extent. Even though I don't play most of the openings that Quality Chess has covered thus far, Tiger's book was very high quality, as were both of Vigorito's, Dearing's Grunfeld book, both of Marin's. I also own Attacking Manual one, which so far is quite good. It appears as though quality chess cares about their books. I for one think both the Chess Explained, Starting Out, and Dangerous Weapons are sub-par books. I too believe people too often look for the easy way out with openings. I enjoy the Chess Stars and Quality Chess books thoroughly because they have staying power, and great depth. The openings covered - Classical Nimzo, Bc4 Grunfeld, Semi-Slav are all openings for big boys. Chess Stars does the same thing - no backing down, and that's what I want from a book. I'm wicked excited for the 1. e4 books, even if I have to wait eons for them.

Aagaard,

How many volumes do you expect to publish in the 1. d4 and 1. c4 series respectively?

Playing mainlines as amateur is one of the most stupid things ever!
Playing Bg5 against the semislav, the bayonet attack or Bc4 in the Gruenfeld is suicide against better prepared players ...
and it is really one of the most stupid things to lose because of lack of opening knowledge ... the whole game was a waste of time then ...
Play good lines, but not too theoretical ..

and GM's frequently do not play mainlines btw ...
Kramnik played b3 against the semislav recently and won ...
Tiviakov won the european ch with the c3-sicilian ...
kamsky plays Bb5 against the Nc6 sicilian  ...

CheckMate wrote on 08/12/08 at 14:45:22:


So what is wrong with that? It is a free market. If people like it, they will buy it, if they don't, they won't. I for one certainly welcome more choice.