kylemeister wrote on 03/27/09 at 02:55:05:


Good opening books always have ECO and Informator in their bibliography. So for me it's more or less the other way round. When I cross check my opening books with ECO I find that everything relevant made it into them.
But I agree with your views on repertoire books, in general. I have stopped buying them. Of course a repertoire book with an encyclopedian approach - like Avrukh's - is something else.

The idea that such books provide a "total solution" sounds like approximately what I had in mind with the "special and exclusive usefulness" bit.

Each to his own fascination; for my part I'm rather fascinated that ECO (and also, relatedly, the Informant) seems so often ignored.  Regarding my view that it is a useful reference, I might mention in my "defense" that I've noticed similar statements rather recently by Carsten Hansen, John Watson, Glenn Flear and Lev Alburt.  (I remember the first three mentioning that they still use it themselves; Alburt -- a several-time US champion -- wrote an article on the subject, saying e.g. that ECO is "a pillar of the modern chess world" and that club players should make use of it so as not to "reinvent the wheel.")

I'd make some points like

There is value and interest in looking at a variety of stuff and deciding what lines you want to play (relating to what sort of structures you tend to prefer, for example), rather than relying on the choices of repertoire-book authors. 

The choices made in such books have to do to a large degree with the tastes of the authors; for example there are no doubt numerous KID repertoires which are as good as whichever one Bologan might advocate. 

Opening-related explanations are found not only in repertoire books (nor only in opening books); the same goes for games and annotations by strong players who specialize in a given opening.   

Relying to a great degree on lines advocated in recent repertoire books presumably increases your chances of running into well-prepared opponents.


When I see things like 1700-players buying highbrow repertoire books (and feeding lines from them through analysis engines), people getting antsy because there hasn’t been a repertoire book published on their favorite defense in the last 3 years, and people asking “what opening should I play and which book/video should I get on it?”, I think things may be a little out of kilter …

kylemeister wrote on 03/26/09 at 16:39:10:


They do! I'm not Bologan. If he takes all of the information and does the work for me, there's no question that he'll do a better job of finding good, sound lines to play. 

There's also a second bonus that Bologan's main weapon is the KID. He's going to give you insights (hopefully) that you couldn't get yourself. He's got OTB experience with this opening that we can't dream of. Repertoire books are not only lines, but also explanations. 

If those two reasons special and exclusive, I'm not positive what is. 

If repertoire books are "just somebody saying 'well I think this might be interesting to play' " (people also say that kind of thing in e.g. Informants, NIC Yearbooks and Chesspub updates), I'm not sure why we see so many things like 

"we really need more repertoire books on x,y, and z"

"this [possibly forthcoming] repertoire book is just what I need"

"there hasn't been a good repertoire book on x in several whole years"

questions as to whether there is any theory on line x, which isn't covered in some recent repertoire book, when in many cases it is readily found in a general source (e.g. ECO)

assumptions/implications that line x is better than the alternatives because it was advocated in a recent repertoire book 



The "gripe" is not really with the existence of repertoire books, but with the seemingly insatiable appetite for them/the idea that they have a special and exclusive usefulness.

Matemax wrote on 03/26/09 at 06:55:33:


well it has become a lot more work then "once upon a time". 

I don't really get the gripe vs repertoire books. It is just somebody saying: "well I think this might be interesting to play". There is nobody holding a shotgun to your head screaming: "you have to read/play this!".

Imho the books from Golubev and Gallagher are excellent repertoire books. They don´t even pretend to cover all variations, but concentrate on one or two lines against the various main variations.

What I´m missing is a complete opening book on the KID covering all lines, trying to give an objective assessment of the lines. Still I can understand that such a book is not likely to come out nowadays. It would be a huge task, and there is still the danger that it will be dated a few months after it came out.

That´s the reason why I am not really looking forward to a repertoire book. It narrows blacks opening choice, and maybe his understanding of the opening.

Just imagine, once upon a time players managed to choose openings/variations to play, and follow developments in them, without repertoire books ...