You are right and thanks for mentioning it.

But I still think that the spirit of my post is valid both concerning publisher and reviewer. A book could be excellent for lower rated player but not for higher rated, and the opposite.
As I understand Carsten Hansen's review the book is rather good for lower rated player trying to learn the Leningrad.

My interpretation of Carsten Hansen's review is that the book is not bad but the publishers’ promise is. Promising the book is both for GMs and for Club players.
My understanding after reading the review is that the book is not good for 2100+ but very useful below2000.
Must be impossible to write a book that is excellent to all in the range of say 1600 – GM level.

Must add that I don't have the book but base my opinion only on Carsten Hansen's review.

Bowen wrote on 12/01/10 at 05:29:04:


Since January 2010, the maximum rating Carsten provides for a book is 4 stars out of 4.

If you want a good laugh, you should read the review of 'In Your Face Chess Novelties'. 

MNb wrote on 11/01/10 at 11:29:01:


I liked his book on the French, "How to play against 1.e4" - and maybe everyman should have castled the authors between "How to play against 1.d4" and "Play the Dutch", not that I don't like Palliser's work on the first, I think he one of the most consistently good chess authors, along with John Cox and some others.  But covering the Czech Benoni, would have suited McD better, as his strength is summarising plans and manoeuvres in closed positions. The Dutch may look closed too, but it's much more critical once it opens up a little and then the bird's eye view is not enough.

Quote:

I had no time to read it much, but it seems he forgot some transpositions between the Qe8 and c6 systems (with an exchange on c6. So the "alternative main line" given by Kindermann ( 8...Na6 without a5) isn't covered, if I'm not missing something.
Something is missing for Nc6 players: how to play against an early d5, say on move 7, avoiding that system. What would you recommend TalJechin?

I ordered the book, and it should arrive to me on Wednesday. How is the coverage of 7...c6 and 7...Nc6?

How would those of you who have the book compare it with Kindermann's Leningrad System?

I was looking forward to this book a lot. The first book coverage of my beloved 7...Nc6 8.d5 Na5 variation. I have to say, I also am very disappointed with this effort. I've been working on this line with a club mate of mine over the past year and the analysis we have accumulated is far more comprehensive than anything mentioned in this book.

In the main 7...Nc6 variation the choice of 9.Qa4 c5 10.dxc6 Nxc6 11.Rd1 Nd4?! is a strange choice considering that the reliable 11...Kh8 is much sounder, and is the modern way of playing this position.

Coverage of the Lisitsyn Gambit is also very sparse. In 176 pages in this book, this gambit gets a full 1 page coverage. He covers the same ground as Khalifman, albeit in one very lightly annotated game segment. After 1.Nf3 f5 2.e4 fxe4 3.Ng5 e5 4.d3 e3 5.Bxe3 Nc6....McDonald only mentions 6.g3  The two main moves in this position are 6.Be2 and 6.c4 and are not even mentioned. Admittedly, even Kindermann's coverage of this gambit was light, but he at least mentioned all possible moves, rather than just quoting the 3rd most popular choice 6.g3 as the only reply, and stopping there.

He concludes this coverage by quoting the game Husser-Bronzik, Bad Worishofen, 2008. There is no meaningful analysis of any variations past move 4 (and even up to that point its basic stuff). After Black's 9th move we have the last annotation given to this game 'Annoyingly for White, he can't centralize his knight as after 10.Nc3 d4 or 10.Nd2 d4 he loses a piece.' Yeah, thanks for that...

Sadly, this is a theme throughout the book - annotations that do not really add any value used extensively in place of actual coverage of variations. Even if its supposed to be taken as a beginner book, it still comes up short. Poor.