The book's title is "Slay the Spanish", though (despite having become attracted to the risky attacking lines of the Modern Steinitz recently) I haven't bought it as I was unimpressed by the preview material.

I don't know a lot about the Bird Defence but Michael Goeller has some stuff here:
http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/kenilworthian/2008/11/birds-defense-bibliogra...
I must say that he makes a pretty strong case for it.

trw wrote on 03/26/11 at 22:03:28:


Tim Taylor recently published a book on the Modern Steinitz, called 'Slow the Spanish'.

I can't see why Everyman would reject a repertoire book on the Bird titled 'Make a Bird of the Spanish' 

To be honest I think the Bird is a respectable defence, but it's not for players who highly value equalising out of the opening. 

trw wrote on 03/26/11 at 07:47:53:

Matey, I don't think I have ever come accross a decent book on the Bird's yet
HTH
Nu Zooland...(Go kiwi!!)

Markovich wrote on 03/25/11 at 11:26:59:

All this jibber jabber about avoiding openings, it is not like the Lopez is some sort of one dimension trick unsound GAMBIT opening so why would you want to go out of your way to deliberate avoid opening which has more than enough attacking complexities for Black as there are for white. Like I said earlier I don't see the logic in playing a6, the exchange system should not be ruled out lightly for obvious reasons. I think Bird's 3...Nd4 is quite under rated. I personally like Alapin's 3...Bb4 which is labelled as crap by most books but most of them fail to mention a significant improvements given by Alapin himself. I don't beleive I am going to say this, I agree with Markovich, if you have some confidence after 3...a6 and 4.Bxc6 then the Open Lopez is the way to go (and if you really like blood then look at Dilworths attack!)
HTH

Quote:

1- Markovich would never agree with you that black should avoid the spanish.
2- the schliemann IS the spanish.

Quote:

Technically, that's the Berlin variation of the Spanish. As Matemax said, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 is the Spanish. Anything that comes after that are just different variations of the Spanish.

Quote:

Well 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 is in fact the Spanish or Ruy Lopez

If you are inexpierenced as Black you should probably avoid the CLOSED Ruy Lopez - but as you mentioned there a lots of possibilities before starting with the Schliemmann.

I recall reading Ignacio Marin's chess page in the nineties. (No relation to Mihail, I think.) I found it via the web archive. http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20030604184615/http://cmgm.stanford.edu/~marin/...

In his post "Best against 1.e4" http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20030202024712/http://cmgm.stanford.edu/~marin/... he states 

"1...e5. I definitively don't like this. After the most obvious answer, the Spanish, the game tend to be complicated but in general with a persistent white advantage. Please note that 1...e5 has been used by all the LOSERS of world championship matches: it has been one of the main reasons for the defeats of Korchnoi, Karpov, Short and Anand. I think that although in theory black game is perfectly respectable, white play is very comfortable in most lines of the Spanish. Moreover you have to add the Scotch, the clasical Italian/Two knights with d3 and, lately, even the Evans gambit (!). The Russian/Petrov defense can be a solution, but now it is looking good for white. The rest are passive or unsound openings and in general good for white."

Time has moved on a bit from the Kasparov era. I haven't studied any statistics on this, but to me it seems that 1...e5 has become much more popular at top level since Kasparov quit. Top players like Aronian and Kramnik play it regularly.

At club level, I think Giddins discussion about the Spanish main lines in his general repertoire book was good. Once you have the hang of the spanish positions, you can rather easily switch between them. As stated previously, it should be much easier than switching between sicilians.