STEFANOS wrote on 02/01/09 at 22:01:12:


Yes, I have two of the three (or perhaps more) editions of Bagirov's Alekhine book.  But I wasn't thinking of Bagirov not only because even his most recent work is out of date by now, but also because it's quite dry, in the old, ultra-formal style of Soviet chess literature.  His books on the English are the same.  He doesn't give the hand-on-the-shoulder sort of guidance that you get from some modern writers, such as Gallagher.

Also, I don't know about you, but I find that such Alekhine games as actually occur are so often marked by suboptimal play by one side or the other that they are seldom useful as a guide to good practice.  My experience building up a fairly extensive set of Alekhine notes has been that existing theory and practice is so sparse that I often have to develop my own theory.  This observation may be less true of Miles's variation, but so far I haven't collected a set of notes on that one.

Bibs

I think Davies played the Alekhine for some time.

to all of you

My queries of my last post was not intended as a criticism to Timothy Taylor (I am aware of his nice book on the Bird). But knowing whether
I writer plays (will start playing?) or not the Alekhine gives me n
appropriate frame of mind when reading the book.

I have nothing against non-Alekhine players writing about the Alekhine. The survey on the Miles by Dorian Rogozenko in
chess Base Magazine 123 is excellent, in my view (and I am not
a fanatic on the Miles) - more on this below

I would prefer a book on the Alekhine, based on "forgotten lines
that may not be worse than the ones played now".

The inclusion of Nakamura on the advertisement gives me some hope
since he usually doed not play normal lines. I remember him playing
4.    Nb6 after 4. Nf3 and the old d7-d5 (instead of e7-e6) after
4...g6 5 Bc4 Nb6 6 Bb3 Bg7 7 Ng5 which were lines that (in my
view) have never received a proper post-morten.

I wonder what is the politics of Everyman with respect to deciding
that an opening needs a new book and then who to assign to writte it.

I was really expecting an updated reissue of JCox's book.
His book is really nice and if one is not happy due to conciseness, one
can also get hold of a more comprehensive book (or get databases
with lots of games). By the way, something never mentioned before.
In general people praise this book becasue it is a good "starting out book". But, you can also see his non standard opinions in certain parts of the book (eg., as White playing the exchange and after cxd6, play
the line by Khelmintsky instead of the Voroznev)
I got also used to his posts after the book, which make a nice addition to the book.
I think his posts were quite suitable for enlarging your knowledge
on the current Alekhine.
I did not think he would ignore a few recent games on the Miles
(and as I said I am not a Miles fanatical but if the best players are playing it, it shpuld not be bad).
Among them, I consider the game Adams-Short which is usually mentioned because of a nice tactical trick at the end. But it seems to me that
Short introduced a new move on THE line that is critical according to
Rogozenko , 6. Bd3 Nd7 7 0-0 ! (according to Rogozenko, the only line offering some chance of advantage)) NxN 8 dxN . Then, either after
8... Nb4 or g6 he claims some small advantage to White.
Nigel Short tried 8... Be6 and he seemed to be Ok.
By the way, yesterday at Corus he also introduced (I think) a new move on another line of the Miles.

Although I am praising the book by J Cox, I dont want people to feel that
I am expecting in a negative way the book bt TTaylor. I wish him
the best for the book and I will be looking for it.

ps: as a curiosity, i think many (all) of you know that Alekhine
died sitting in a room of an hotel in Estoril (close to Lisbon - Portugal).
Last week I organized in the same hotel, a Winter School on
Network Optimization. The room where the lessons were given, is
called the Alekhine room.

Pity about the writer as new material on the Alekhine always of interest. Taylor may improve, but have not been so impressed thus far, alas.

Taylor akin to Davies, Martin in quality.  Bills to pay, books to write. Which means writing on subjects that not specialist in: cheerful and encouraging, some good explanations, but  a number of omissions and/or errors, quite brief, do not add too much of their own, next one...

Pity as Everyman has some clearly conscientious authors such as Tsermi, Vigus, Greet. Emms, Palliser always good quality. Then the run of the mill stuff.

lg wrote on 01/30/09 at 08:52:01:


In my experience there are quite a few positions that arise from Alekhine's where Black looks more or less O.K., but White can pretty well strangle him, or at least make a good pass at it.  So I think I really wouldn't trust the evaluations of someone who hadn't played this defense, particularly in a "Play the Alekhine!" context, unless perhaps he was a very strong player.  I have a suspicion that Alekhine's is actually viable, but I think that having had a great deal of experience with it makes it easier to stay alive -- whether over the board or in correspondence.  I suppose that's true of any system, but Black is at best skating rather close to the edge with this defense.

About Burgess's books, I like them for their comprehensiveness, but I think he is rather glib in his assessment of many positions.  Among Alekhine books, you really can't beat Cox for detailed positional evaluations, but of course his work is only a summary.  As of yet, Alekhine's has no Gallagher.

Does anyone know what is the "relation" between the writer and
the Alekhine Defence.
Just to have an idea whether the book will be written by
i) Someone withOUT experience of playing the Alekhine (as far as
I understand the author is an expert on the Bird)
or
ii) Someone with experience of playing the defence
???
In general, I would favour ii) since experience seems to be relevant.
Athough one may complain that an author playing the defence may
not show everything, or even how only a little (Alburt's book is an example).
However,
Burguess books and the recent one by JCox are really nice exceptions.

Eh?  "Worshiper" is a standard form; some (American) dictionaries list it before "worshipper."

Excellent post of Markovich's, although really book blurbs are too easy a target....

Genuine enquiry; is 'worshiper' a typo or standard US spelling of 'worshipper'?

Willempie wrote on 01/29/09 at 14:21:17:


People don't know what's coming out. Since I'm not a writer nor owner of publishing house, I find it very informative to announce new books. After all we're discussing mainly about variations in opening books.