Does anyone ever play every single recommended line in a repertoire book, anyway?  If someone wants to play 3...Be7 instead of 3...Nf6, I'm sure they'll still find 75% of this book useful.  Do a little work for yourself, wow.

Also, I'm really sick of people levelling criticism at books before they're even released.  I mean come on, maybe John found some really interesting new ideas in the 3...Nf6 exchange.  Can't we at least wait until we see the book before we start pissing and moaning about his choice?

This book will cover 3...Nf6.  At best it will be the definitive work from Black's POV (at least for a few years), and at worst you can just do a little of your own research on 3...Be7.  If you're only interested in 3...Be7, don't buy the book.

I can understand that some people will be disappointed I didn't give 3...Be7; if I were a buyer I might feel that way myself. I intended to at the beginning, but I make it a rule only to write about lines that interest me and that I'd play myself, and the more I looked at it the less I liked 3...Be7 and the more I got interested in the lines I gave.

It's true that the Russians in general, under the influence of Kasparov and Karpov and before them Petrosian, have tended to go with 3...Be7 (certainly Vaganian usually does; I'm surprised he's played 3....Nf6 as often as he has). Still, one might equally say that they don't play the Pirc much, and that doesn't stop people writing books about it.

I don't have much faith in statistics or top-level fashion, though - I did my own search in Megabase at 2500+ each side since 2005, and 3...Nf6 performed marginally better, while best of all was 3...c5.

I don't think we should be dissing Short or Yusupov either; one beat Karpov in a match in his peak years and one came very close, and they've both played this opening for many years at the highest conceivable level. They aren't your average world number 145 or whatever. Anyone who can't learn from them about this opening or chess in general certainly isn't going to learn anything much from my little book.

Anyway, there it is, as someone said there's no use in bemoaning what the book isn't about.

Schandorff, by the way, doesn't show or even claim a White advantage against the line I give either; on the contrary he relies on the famous game Kasparov-Andersson, in which everyone agrees Black was fine. I discuss in the book that it seems to me that actually Black was not just fine, and that White was far from well-placed out of the opening.

The line Schandorff allows as giving an unclear position against his 3...Be7 repertoire is interesting. It's been in the public domain for 25 years or so, since Karpov played 9....Nh6, and yet it's basically never been played in OTB GM events. I didn't do any analysis to see which side was avoiding it, but I did spend some time with the resulting position, playing both sides in turn against the computer, and for myself I wouldn't like to play Black. It seemed to me that his position was very difficult to play. Of course it might have been that it just didn't suit me, or that the computer plays White particularly well relative to humans, or some such factor.

MNb wrote on 06/28/11 at 10:07:21:


Whining != Repeating. You didn't research the examples you gave from proponents of 3. ... Nf6 and instead of admitting that you were wrong you start name calling. 

And finally Taljechin is a user here so you posting a complaint on his behalf make no sense so quit it.

F22 wrote on 06/28/11 at 08:40:35:


Also, this way you're covered for 1.c4 as well.

TalJechin wrote on 06/25/11 at 10:16:01:


The NID move order means you have to learn a lot more theory: 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 and now White has a very wide variety of choices: 4. Qc2, 4.a3-4.f3, 4. e3, 4.g3, 4. Nf3, 4. Bg5. On the other hand you can pick a single variation for Black in exchange variation: 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Be7 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bf4 Nf6 6. e3 Bf5 7. Qb3. My guess is the theory of this line (called the Ubilava line) is much less than any of White's responses to NID.

Daniel wrote on 06/25/11 at 23:32:26:


Asking questions about a suggested repertoire on a chess opening forums is whining?? To me the book sounds great but I have reservations about the choices that are presented for the exchange variation. Specially since reading Kasparov's books I was under the impression that 3. ... Nf6 was simply inferior. Here I should add that IM J. Cox says that the repertoire's hero is Rafael Vaganian. GM Vaganian also overwhelmingly chooses 3. ... Be7 (84 times) over 3. ... Nf6 (28 times).

Not a matter of waiting for the book, but to prefer to have a timeframe of when books will be released in order to know when to prepare to expect it from the post.