topandkas wrote on 04/30/11 at 12:35:31:


Just one player.

Hint: the key line shows up in a fairly recent Eljanov game (his opponent reacts very badly), and it's not a line currently viewed positively for white if black follows the commonly recommended antidote (Krasenkow claims black is doing well, for example).

I read at Quality Chess' blog that Avrukh's Grunfeld book will be in fact a 2 volume work! The editors received 700 pages or more, so it would be logical to split it in two volumes.

Grunfeld is now a big headache for a 1.d4 player. He has many options for sure, and some of them are dangerous in practice but everywhere Black seems to be theoreticaly fine. With the candidate's matches close i cannot but wonder if we are going to see any Grunfelds, or the Slav once again will be the main battlefield for the World Championship matches.

Hehe liking your teasing ways BPaulsen! ...do you second a lot of strong players? And any hints on which line or plan one should focus his attention to look for said improvements? 

@Amentanoitos: Thanks for your constant contributions to this forum. The threads may not always seem as active as could have been but be sure that at lot of people including myself enjoy and appreciate following the threads at a distance. 
As for The Safest Grunfeld Im also strongly considering buying this book, but with Avrukhs book just months away I wanted to see how people like this book before I go ahead and purchase it. But the few people that already have this book, have expressed positive sentiments.

@gewgaw: You referred to Houska's book but you actually meant Dembo's book! I have to notice that there are a lot of recent developments in the ...Na5 line against Bc4.

I have ordered the book but probably i'll be able to get it in my hands in 15 days or so. I am curious about 1.c4 and 1.Nf3. Do they say that Black equalises there?

Phil Adams wrote on 04/12/11 at 14:44:43:


- what an excerpt!! 

The safest sicilian was the only opening book I studied from the first to the last page and this excerpt ensures, that I´ll will study this book in the same way. Impressive stuff and I´m curious, how Delchev convinces me from ...Na5 to ...Qc7; I guess, he´ll succeed.

I don´t like the position after

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 c5 7. Bc4 Bg7 8.Ne2 Nc6 9. Be3 O-O 10. O-O Qc7 11. Rc1 Rd8 12. Bf4 Qd7 (12... Be5) 

10. ... Na5 is the most common move recently and even play at the highest level. Maybe they took ...Qc7, because Houska covered ...Na5 in her book and they wanted to be creative.
My opinion about black´s options:
....Bg4 --> lots of long forced lines, riskfree for White, Black has to suffer for a draw and has to find too many only moves; Topalov - Shirov
... Na5 --> my pet line; good winning try; not so many forced lines;
...Qc7 --> advertised as Fisher´s move, but Black get`s no real counterplay; I hate it to move my queen to e8 [qd8-qc7-qd7-qe8]; Topalov v. Svidler was a nightmare for me;
...b6 or ...e6 --> maybe these moves work, too; I´ve no experiences with them; 

The marketing on the Chess Stars site got off to a bad start:

Quote:


I'm sorry, but I don't face 1.Nd4 very often and I'm unlikely to need a big 350-page book on it. 

Jokes aside, judging from the pdf excerpt this looks like a great book, organized just the way I like it with the themes and plans first, only then concrete theory.