In my opinion the best introductory repertoire to the English is Soltis' underestimated book "Winning with the English Opening" Revised Third Edition by Chess Digest.

Certainly old, i.e. 1997, but Soltis' strength lies in explaining ideas for a no-nonsense repertoire. I think his proposed repertoire is easy to play and has a more strategic, positional emphasis. Despite the title, he is not trying to prove to be better with white but tries to reach middlegame positions where white has realistic chances of outplaying his opponent based on specific positional considerations, i.e. depending on the vairation weak hanging pawns, weak squares, specific levers to roll up the center, space advantage, etc.

Of course I do not know much about you and your strength, but it is my opinion that this book will serve you well against oposition as high as 2100/2200. And while this book is certainly not of the same size as Marin, it is my experience that you wont need that much detail  until you roughly reach 2100/2200.

Once you feel more comfortable you can branch out and add Marin for the Botvinnik, reversed Dragon, Keres, Rubinstein for example, as well as some good Reti book for the c6/d5 and e6/d5 systems which I meet the most at club level. A good introductory book in my opinion is "The easy guide to the Reti opening" by Dunnington as both Dunnington and Soltis play the Reti with b3.

I would not start with Marin due to the volume of his three books, considering your comment that your time is limited.

Darthmambo wrote on 02/05/12 at 07:10:44:


If you're over 2000 then you'll benefit a lot from the Grandmaster Repertoire 3-5 trilogy by Marin. If you are below 2000 then you'll find 'Mastering the Chess Openings Volume 3' by John Watson, 'Starting Out: The English Opening' by Craig Pritchett (I think) and 'Chess Explained: The English Opening' by Zenon Franco more useful. MtCO 3 has the best overall coverage in my opinion, and there are a few other books I haven't mentioned which may also be of interest to you.