When the book Wojo Weapons was out i got it immediately but it is a complete disappointment for me. The truth is that the most i read it the more i don't like it!

What about the theory presented? Not even one system in the book is analysed properly, considering all the sources available and NEVER seems to be theoritical challenging. Presentation of the material? Simply bad! Khalifman style, with lots of paragraphs giving different sub-variations without bold characters and many critical sub-variations missing.

Someone would say that the real power of the book is the explanations. What? Take the Tarrasch chapter for example. Do you understand anything from the way the authors present and explain the material about how you should handle the White's side? Many critical variations end very early with the statement "and White has the usual slight edge" when actually Black has the usual slight edge!

Let's go to the Slav chapter. What you can say? Bad! Many important sources are missing. All their main lines are close to be considered better for Black! Just compare with Vigus book and you'll understand. By the way Vigus book contains much more easy to understand explanations.

Let's go to the Catalan. Some inspiration in the Closed Catalan chapter but supported by bad analysis (as always) and bad recommendations! Of course of you read analysis from the Anand-Topalov match and then compare with what the book says you are going to laugh! What about this Ne5 variation which is their main choice? Bad practical recommendation for a club player but everything would be good if they offered good analysis and explanations but even there their comments and analysis are misleading! 

I really liked the concept of the book and i trully wanted to be good. 

Wonderfull Winawer? Yes, that's fine. Good inspiration, recent sources checked and new, fresh analysis and ideas in the book. But why his analysis is always so shallow? This gives you the impression that he did the book in one week. And many dangerous White's tries are "passed" so easily and you get the impression that Black is in no danger there.

I like the Georgiev's book. Fantastic! To be honest i have only read carefully the Benko chapter that i was interested the most and the other chapters i just had a look. Great explanations and to the point, excellent presentation of the material and his guidance is great offering many times practical alternatives with new analysis. Yes, this is a book that could get my vote.

But to be honest Avrukh deserves it. Have you ever seen a book like that? And in one volume? World class repertoire. You have the book and you know that at the same time 100 GMs in the world read the same lines as you. At the same time you are preparing for a club tournament with it they are preparing for a super-GM tournament with it! I can imagine the author and the editors to be "killed" with the amount of work they had to put into it. And if we want to encourage great efforts that respect the customer we should give the first place to Avrukh. Giving the first place to Wojo's Weapons makes me want to laugh, really.

Wojo's Weapons certainly wins my vote.

I suppose I will kick off the discussions, quite the honor for this long-time lurker! I really look forward to hearing Ametanoitos' opinion.

I am actually somewhat surprised that Avrukh's Vol. 2 has received such a strong response in comparison with some of the other titles listed. Vol. 1 was a masterpiece, re-defining what an opening repertoire manual can and should be, but I haven't seen nearly that same response toward Vol. 2. I had it on pre-order with Amazon, but given the significant delays in its release I cancelled that order and can only express what I've seen here in the forum about the book. There are only two times I ever see the book (Vol. 2) mentioned here on ChessPub: 1) A passing reference to it, with no real detail or emphasis placed on the opinion expressed, or 2) Black players expressing how happy they are that Avrukh chose such-and-such line because they feel he hardly challenged their systems. The KID is the only opening I've seen positive opinion toward on his Vol. 2 repertoire choices. Based on this I've thought of the original publishing delay as a hidden blessing that saved me from purchasing a lemon and avoided the book entirely.

I have yet to read Moskalenko's The Wonderful Winawer. Is that worthy of treading the passages? After reading The Flexible French I've just extrapolated my opinion of that toward TWW, which is to say 'a wonderful exploration of ideas and creative variations, but lacking a little cohesiveness.'

In this regard I've held Wojo's Weapons as best of the year. They took an elite opening, often considered off-limits to sub-2000 players due to its positional complexity, and made it understandable and playable to all level of players (in this it even surpasses Avrukh's Vol. 1 in my opinion, which is very difficult to chew on for most). I see Wojo's recommended to players in almost any Catalan topic that comes up now, which is a meaningful endorsement. Finally, I thought the introductory chapter, outlining a philosophy toward regular tournament play, to be highly inspiring and worthy reading independent of the opening material.

I am a bit lost as to what the procedure is. Is there going to be a short list from the first round of voting and if so of how many? This should be clearly stated at the outset for the sake of transparency.

Only 14 votes in two days? 

Don't be shy, have your say and if you're a forum lurker then sign up and vote! 

LeeRoth wrote on 02/03/11 at 02:49:12:


Seconded.

For what it's worth, Yasser's book Chess Duels won the ChessCafe Book of the Year Award. 

I nominate John Watson's Mastering the Chess Openings Volume 4.

If it's an overall book, I think Chess Duels is the one; I give a tentative hi-ho for Wonderful Winawer, but I should probably go through it a bit more before it's a real vote!