GMTonyKosten wrote on 11/20/12 at 10:42:44:


Please do!!  I don't receive many questions or user feedback, so if you request something there's an excellent chance I'll cover it.

chk wrote on 11/20/12 at 08:47:30:

I don't think I covered any lines with the Botvinnik versus ...c5 in my book. A strong GM played ...c5 and ...e5 against me once and it was a hard nut to crack - I tried playing f4 and b4 but got nowhere.
Maybe a subscriber should ask JB to look at this sometime?

I don't know that I've ever seen much on 1. c4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. g3 g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. e4 e5.  I notice that ECO (2001) had one column and a few notes on it (with most of the lines ending with equality, as one might expect); Carsten Hansen's book on the Symmetrical English (2000) was even more succinct.  Odd that some books don't even mention 5...e5.

Intro to Botvinnik? LMAO You can make such intro using chessbase by yourself since Lilov DVD (like all his stuff) is highly superficial and he probably used less than 1 h to made it. This is just disgrace for producers to let such stuff be on the market. This is laughing in customer faces selling them garbage. If someone wants repertoire in english it's better to get one of Dzindzi DVD's. Of course they are not perfect and Dzindzi is also not 100% honest with customer, but they are much better than Lilov's.

jhbchess wrote on 09/07/12 at 04:37:53:



This DVD is a CRAP and waste of money. I bought few DVDs from Lilov and he is as bad as Schiller. WASTE OF MONEY.

Thanks very much. I appreciate it.

I've been on ChessCube for a while, but haven't been on regularly and haven't accumulated very many points yet. That's good information though, I'll make a point of playing there more often.

I've been going over my openings again, and noticed that ChessCube has a two-part video set by Andrew Martin Titled "Low Maintenance Openings - Botvinnik System"

It's described as:

Watch as IM Andrew Martin teaches you the typical plans and ideas of the Botvinnik System in the English. This is an easy and aggressive opening in which White aims to build up a kingside attack while limiting Black's counterplay. In part one you will learn the basic strategy of the system, based on playing c4 and e4 with a kingside fianchetto. A solid system with no heavy theory.
Chapters include:
Black plays with e5
Black stays flexible and prepares b5
How to play against systems with c5
Transposing into other openings

Volume two deals with:

    How to meet the symmetrical English approach
    A typical club-level encounter shows what to avoid with Black
    A 1971 masterpiece in the reversed Sicilian or classical setup
    Keeping Black's counterplay in check in the classical setup
    Early alternatives for White

I was wondering if anyone has seen these and what you thought. I'm not expecting a lot as these are obviously aimed at the newbie level (yes, I know, appropriate for me), but as the Botvinnik is a big part of the "Dynamic English" I thought $16 for a few hours of video was okay, and they look like fun.