fjd wrote on 11/01/19 at 17:45:46:


Thanks for the heads up! I was interested in the book as I am pondering switching back to 1.e4 so it was good to see most chapters for free unfortunately I doubt I'll go on to buy this now.

Some interesting ideas in there, and I'm happy to see his improvement over Sielecki in the Two Knights Caro-Kann, which I would probably not have noticed myself. Also in the Caro-Kann, 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Nf3 Nf6 6.Nxf6+ Nxf6 7.c3! was going to be my secret weapon but now Kaufman has drawn some attention to it.

Still for many lines it is gobsmackingly superficial. I'm in a bit of shock of his non-analysis of 4.exd6 cxd6 Exchange Alekehine.  And the Scandinavian analysis feels like the first draft layout of the repertoire, not the actual analysis.

Hmm, with (4. Bd3 Nc6 5. c3 Nf6) 6. h3 ...but evidently with no mention of (the old book answer) 6...e5.

Shucks, I was rather hoping you would prove correct in predicting the Exchange C-K.

Ray F wrote on 10/29/19 at 01:53:53:


For those who have it, an outline of the suggested lines in the repertoire would be much appreciated.

grandpatzer wrote on 10/17/19 at 07:49:27:


His repertoires are chosen so white gets the most advantage possible, even if black defends best. The opposite for black: white gets the most minimal advantage possible.

You need a combination of engines and a backtracking analysis GUI for that. ChessBase doesn't support this, but ChessAssistant/Aquarium do. That's the general idea - I think he does use some personal judgement for some lines.

This structure also means that if there's a good defense for black or an improvement for white found, the repertoire will shift around entirely (as it has done 1. e4 -> 1. d4 -> 1. e4).

It seems reasonable that players change their repertoires as they wish.
Authors can do so too. I don’t see how this can be deemed ‘Bad’.

I liked his first book. The second, not so much.

gillbod wrote on 10/16/19 at 09:53:57:

I see that that is half as many pages as in his book of 15 years ago, but that book had maybe half as much material per page.

My interest is piqued, but I have some reservations. Covering the French Tarrasch with only 16 pages? Giving 2.Nc3 and 2.Nf3 against the Sicilian, and also giving both the d3 Spanish and Italian against ...e5?

Sure, there can be thematic similarities between the lines which can make coverage easier. But there are only around 180 pages in the white section of the repertoire, so I'm a bit skeptical.

Nonetheless, I'm a sucker for a popular repertoire book. Especially a positionally-oriented one.