I'm still waiting for my preordered copy through a large U.K. based internet bookstore; according to them it's still 'awaiting publication'. Now, to my horror, I see that they've pushed the expected publication date back until March 16 - whereas a couple of days ago they were still stating that publication was February 16. From this I conclude that N.I.C.'s original print run has been snapped up! 

Well, Kaufman will be happy about that, no doubt. More power to him; seems the book's been getting consistently positive feedback from those who've actually got a copy.

Antillian wrote on 02/05/12 at 21:39:38:


Not anymore. They had it for around a day last week but I was hesitant to enter my credit card on public WiFi. Now it seems they are out of stock.

Daniel wrote on 02/05/12 at 20:59:48:


Chess4less.com has it. They are a US retailer. 

emary wrote on 02/05/12 at 11:17:32:


Perhaps Kaufman wasn't happy against the line given in 'Dangerous Weapons: 1.e4 e5'.

ChessDirect and London Chess Centre have the book I believe. The book is quite good, and I am reading the Breyer chapter right now.

emary wrote on 02/04/12 at 23:30:02:


I have had the book (Two books really) for about a week now, and must say that I am very impressed with it. Even the innovative flipping the book upside down to switch from the White to the Black repertoire is appealing, at least to me.

The line highlighted in the quote was something I discovered about three to four years ago while preparing the Spanish Four Knights for my White repertoire! I too think this is black's best line against the Four Knights.

Along the way he also shows that the old recipe of playing the Giuoco Piano with c3 followed by an immediate d4 is not as easy for black as theory suggests, and that the line deserves to be more popular than it is. Here again I totally agree, moreover I think black has zero winning chances in those lines, and that is the reason I prefer the Two Knights defence when facing lower rated players.

He deals with the pirc/modern and improved philidor succinctly and effectively. I particularly like his handling of the pirc, combining a mix of solidity and aggression. His line against the Pribyl Indian or Pirc/Rat as ive seen it called by Cyrus Lakdawala in his recent step by step book on the 1...d6, is also thoughtfully covered, here he chooses an approach for white that for some reason has been neglected in repertore books, including his earlier The Rep in Black and White, but which nevertheless I have considered the best approach for many years.

I primarily got this book after hearing rumours that he had virtually refuted the mainline of the King's Indian defence, a defence I have championed for many years. The rumours of refutation are not fully exagerrated, he does indeed come very close, and the lines he proposes in both the Nc6 mainline and the trendy Na6 lines have been giving me a major headache of late in finding suitable antidotes. The only silver lining in the KID section for black is in the Nbd7 line, where he gives a game of Alex Lenderman, however I had analysed the line given very deeply about six months ago in preparation for a tournament and concluded that it allowed black an extremely dangerous initiative. In the Lenderman game black failed to find the key novelty and quickly went down in flames.      

Not being a 1.d4 player I can't attest to the effectiveness of all his suggestions, but I like his approach to the Benoni, Dutch, Clarendon Court Defence, Budapest Gambit and others. Not 100% sure about his Benko coverage though.

In conclusion his current work has far surpassed his previous one done eight years ago, which was also ground breaking.
Simply stated, this is best Repertoire Book I have ever seen in my life and even though it is early days yet, I predict it will earn the book of the year award.

Tops

Thanx, LT! I'll be sure to watch with keen interest,...thanx again for sharing...

Did a bit of research on this opening pairing and; Kamsky, Sasikiran & Harikrishna are some of the more noticeable players playing the Grünfeld and Breyer on a consistent basis. I think the choices of these openings together is because they give interesting games whilst being very solid, assuming you know the theory ofc. They're secondary weapons against d4 include: Semi-Slav, Chebanenko & Nimzo/QGD. Against e4: Various Sicilians, Caro & Hari plays the French as well as those.