ghenghisclown wrote on 01/24/12 at 01:10:35:

Not as far as I can see. He only has one game (3 pages) on the quiet Italian, and the plan involves ...d6, ...Ne7 and ...Ng6.

Thanks for that game. Not i hadn't notice. After the publication of the book i check TWIC's every week but this game probably hasn't made it to a TWIC yet? I know a couple of GMs that have tried but failed to "refute" various lines of GM 10 till now! And they ask me what to play! And i always say that we hide nothing from the book! 6.dxc5 is the most critical but of course Black can play it after a Reti-English move order (where White has already played g3). The most practical aproach is probably Kaufman's recommendation 10.a3 (as we noted in the introduction of GM 10) but after 10...Ne4 White cannot demonstrate anything serious. I am curious to see if Watson will review any of these 2 books (GM 10 or Kaufman) and say something about 10...Ne4. Also 10.Bf4 is nice. In the book we make a good case for this move as we offer a mini-repertoire for White to show that Black cannot equalise with anything else other than the offered 10...h6!N

As for the Benko suggestion, is this the same line Brunello played against Caruana in the recent Italian championship?

Markovich wrote on 01/24/12 at 02:49:06:


The UK, Australia, and New Zealand are small proportions in terms of population compared with the USA. However, you forget to include the entire Commonwealth. The Commonwealth includes any nation that is or was part of the British Empire, and those countries at least have (British) English as the official language or one of their official languages, and they learn English in school so their populaces know English. Not to mention, continental Europe learn British English in school, as well as most of Asia, Africa, etc. if students choose to learn English.

So in addition to the UK, there is Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Fiji, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Turks and Caicos, Cayman Islands, St Vincent, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, St Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, Jamaica, Belize, Bermuda, South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi, Zambia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Hong Kong, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malta, Gibraltar, and so many more that I cannot even name all of them. Then add the populations of these countries and the total is approximately 2 billion people speaking, writing, and reading British English. In other words, 2 billion people using "whilst". Most chess books are in British English anyway: Everyman, Quality Chess, Gambit, Batsford...

But I suppose they would not have problems with the spelling in the book. I am only saying that 2 billion is quite more than 312 million...

Bringing the conversation back to 1e4 e5 for a bit...I believe it was MNB who, on another thread, suggested that one reason to prefer the Two Knights over Bc5 was because Black's d5 idea vs White usual c3&d3 doesn't work if White delays c3 until after Black plays d6? I see that this idea would be covered in Chapter 14 of Lysyj and Ovetchkin's book (we'll have to wait), but is it mentioned as a idea for White here in Kaufman's opus?

Kaufman doesn't address 10...Ne4, no.

Nikos I was talking about Dembo's Grunfeld book not the Scotch. Also I would like to correct a mistake of mine from upthread.

The book said "[the Hungarian variation] is the only one of the many lines that offer equality for Black". I missed the first 'the' and thought he said 'it is only one of the many equalising lines'. Sorry everyone. In the black section he concedes that white has a small edge with 8 Be2 (but not with 8 e5).

@MNb: Believe me when i say it, the Tarrasch book was truly co-authored. In fact, when the final version came to the printer i was pretty sure that Jacob did a bit more than the 50% or the work. OK, most (not all!) of the ideas where mine, but many of those where just crap and the specifics was all the point where Jacob did all the work. And as far as the Marin's 1.e4 e5 books are concerned, i talk about their structure with the introductory text and the theory after, not about the specific lines. I know many people that completely disagree with me (GM Kosten is an example that comes to mind!), but it is just me and what i like!

@gewgaw: Yes, the book is way ahead of current theory and praxis. I know at least 5-6 titled players (some GMs, or soon-to-be GMs) that work seriously on the book for tournament use.

@Gilchrist: That is exciting! Does he consider 10...Ne4? And how his analyis compares with the book? I mean does he go for the ending a pawn up or he plays 11.Qc2? 

Jamaican, Guyanese, Trinidadian, Antiguan, Barbadian, Canadian, etc. English have their own unique spoken mannerisms, but the spelling is what is distinctly derived from British English and not American. A Jamaican, Guyanese, Trinidadian, Antiguan, Barbadian, Australian, Canadian, or New Zealander will 10 times out of 10 spell "centre" as such, and not "center".

Whilst in university, I have met a few people from the Netherlands, and they say that they learnt British English (both spoken and written style) in primary school, but know some American English due to media such as television and internet, with those in Germany, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, etc having the same phenomenon. I do not usually see chess books in American English though. But then again whilst there are chess books in Dutch, I do not see too many chess books printed in Afrikaans, but I suppose there are much more differences between those two than BrE and AmE.