I agree, this looks a like a great supplement for those who keep hoping for The Dynamic English 2nd Edition.  It almost makes me regret switching to 1.e4.

Apparently they're still typesetting it at present - end of August looks likely for publication.

The book is available on amazon, has anyone ordered it yet??

Viking wrote on 07/26/09 at 19:14:15:


Well, it is not hard to find out what Marin is playing currently, since he is active in Opens in Southern Europe and most of these events get reported.

I have 14 white games by Marin from 2009. In 12 of them he opened 1 c4, 2 g3. One game went 1 Nf3 d5 2 g3 with c4 coming later.

In one game he went 1 c4 Nf6 2 d4 and the game became a KID Classical. In three other games he answered 1 c4 Nf6 with 2 g3.

8 wins, 6 draws, 0 losses

Maturin13 wrote on 03/05/09 at 16:42:21:

That's a shame for me, I don't really like 2.g3. So this will basically be an update of Kosten and Davies work, perhaps with a bit more "rigour" given it will be 2 books?

Just a personal preference - I like 2. Nc3, with the aim of transposing into some d4 lines, or even e4 lines, eliminating lines I don't like (like Nimzo, with Mikenas instead). I also prefer to push d4 early in the symetircal (anti-benoni lines). While g3 seems to do fine statistically, I like Bagirov's mindset:

"Our analysis will be mainly concerned with 2.Nc3. Of course, other ways of developing, such as 2.g3, 2.Nf3, etc., are also possible, but they are less modern, and bear more resemblance to Reti's Opening or some kind of reversed Alekhine's Defence. Playing this way is possible, but it is unlikely to give you an advantage, and therefore we will not consider these moves".

Horses for courses - I think a Nc3 book would have been more interesting and a bigger market, but much harder to write in a "pure" flank opening way. So, I'm disappointed, but other people will be happy - can't please 'em all.

I'll be interested to see how Marin intends to fight for an advantage after the 'Dangerous Weapons' 2...c6 3.d4 e4 and 2...Nf6 3.Bg2 c6 4.d4 ed4 5.Qd4 Na6. In my opinion, White is not even close to an advantage against either line, although maybe that will change with this book.

Well, a repertoire is nothing but a coherent set of openings, in this case starting from move 1 and hopefully based on M.Marin's own experience. When you ponder your answer to 1.c4 c6, you don't care if it's called a CK or a Slav, you just analyse 1...c6 as conscientiously as 1...e5 or 1...g6, pick up your best answer and print it all out for us to buy & read. Considerations like "...and now White has reached a favourable transposition into a Brols, which is covered in the otherwise excellent Winning with the Brols, same editor" are just marketing tools.

What I'm more afraid of is that Marin goes the Khalifman way with vol1 1...e5/d6, then vol2 1...c5/g6 (those are a real treat for English authors) and then ...c6,...e6, ...Nf6 in some arrangement. Another delicate point is how to set the cursor between strategy and concrete variations, in an opening where "several mid-sized errors" are sometimes needed to unbalance the position. The truth is in the variations for sure, but here it's also important to know where your pieces want to go. Hopefully Marin will produce another great masterpiece !

The problem FischerTal, is that the "objectively" best way to play for an opening advantage in the English, is to transpose into e4 or d4 lines sometimes (Caro Panov is a great weapon for example). This isn't a bad thing, as you can limit the mainlines you need to learn. So many English opening books turn out disappointing, because they try to make a go of something that will only ever really be a sideline that is not easy to play (either that, or they leave holes). I hope this will be better, but I have been disappointed a few times, so trying not to get hopes up here.