I have a hard time imagining Sokolov writing a whole book about odd stuff like 3...g5/a5/Na5 etc - Fide might revoke his GM-licence if he does that!

So, I'd expect it to be about interesting (new?) ideas in the slightly less common main lines.

For one thing, I'd be interested in a combined rep for black in the Berlin and Open, 3...Nf6 4.0-0 Nxe4 5.d4 a6 6.Ba4 b5 7.Lb3 d5. Having two mainlines available, which both avoid the Exchange variation, seems like a nice idea.

Btw, has there been, or are there any new books coming on the Open since Flear's?

Speaking of grotesque replies to the Spanish, how stands 3...a5 these days?  They call that the Bulgarian Defense, don't they?

Edit:  Ah, now I see it's mentioned above, but I'm still curious to know what White's best play is supposed to be.

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You're lazy
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Thanks to the industrious 

tracke wrote on 05/19/09 at 14:58:52:


Can you give us a link?

Greetings and obfuscations:
TonyRo wrote on 05/20/09 at 17:52:50:

If you have not read it, the great gentleman chess player I.M Gerald Welling wrote an article for 'The Myers Opening Bulletin' number 6 examining Brentano 3...g5 and a number of historical articles written by Alapin and Brentano himself. I was able to reproduce this article for the ‘Unorthodox Chess Openings’ Newsletter with corrected and improved information from Mr. Welling with his kind permission. Like any attacking system, there is always a degree of risk and as Mr. Welling’s original article says: The Brentano is not for mice!
Stefan Buecker wrote on 05/20/09 at 20:25:56:

Mr Buecker, I am big fan of your written work for the simply reason because anything you do produce is thorough both analytically and historically. That is why I am perplexed about your ‘We’ll see’ comment. It really does depend about which piece of theory you are alluding to and what source you are quoting from. If you are talking about the often quoted game Behting – Lebedew cr 1903? The playable improvement of 8…Be6 has been around for just as long having been suggested by Alapin himself and successfully used by the likes of Hector and Lach. Maybe the equally often quoted game of Geller – Taimanov , Zurich 1953 ? The playable gambit scheme of 10…Qe8 (intending d6 with f5 ) has also been around since year dot as well. Thank you for you time.
Regards
HTH

I beat an IM with the Brentano recently in an ICC 15-minute game, got all excited, thinking "Maybe it's good!" and analyzed it for maybe 15 minutes, concluding it was terrible with good play from White. 

The 3...a5 Popov line is not as daft as it looks.

However, I still prefer my treatment with 3...Na5 - which has previously been discussed elsewhere on this forum. I wonder whether Sokolov will cover that?

These unexplored resources will certainly make the offbeat weapons 3...g5 (Brentano), 3...f6 (Steinitz), 3...a5 (Popov) or 3...Bb4 (Alapin) much more popular than they recently are.

New in chess has announced a new opening book (according to amazon.de):

The Ruy Lopez Revisited: Offbeat Weapons and Unexplored Resources
by Ivan Sokolov
~240 pages, ~€23, forthcoming (december09)

I hope to see some original analysis about 3...Bc5, Sokolov has played some interesting games in that line.

tracke