walkingterrapin wrote on 08/18/11 at 19:08:05:
I am starting to become more interested in the Modern Steinitz as my old mainstay the marshall is becoming played out. I am doing a little research now and would be interested to hear any opinions on the validity or not of this old school opening.
It is quite valid. Definitely recommended.
It's more like a system rather than a variation: both sides have lots of possibilities. This is good because you can vary yourself within the MS, if you want to surprise your opponent or want to replace a variation you don't like. Black can play solid, but can also go aggresive.
I suggest you get Taylor's recent repertoire book "Slay the spanish" which uses the MS as main weapon. He gives some good variations for black to play, mainly based on the legendary Keres (my hero) who had a staggering life-time 70% with the MS with black! He gives loads of illustrative games as well which are very good and instructive.
There is not much else although I use ECO-C quite a bit as well. I still have the first edition which has some very good and complete analyses of the MS. Taylor's book is a repertoire book and doesn't cover all the variations. This forum also has some good discussions, although they may be confusing if you're just learning the system.
The MS is totally out of fashion (not clear to me why), so any white will have very limited experience with or maybe none at all, may not know what to do, may not understand the system as a whole, and / or may have forgotten the theory altogether.