Mtal wrote on 04/05/20 at 21:46:49:


Poisonous Anti-Benoni line, (Hint) Gelfand faced it with black then later used the idea with White. Provided you can afford it the video course is excellent, particularly if you are a visual learner.

Mtal wrote on 04/03/20 at 20:29:27:
fair


I have the book and generally I have found it to be pretty good. I've used it in a few correspondence tournaments and it is fair to say that I haven't experienced any major problems...all the lines seem to be pretty sound but white does have to work at creating the advantage and in many cases simply try to outplay your opponent from a sound position....I think it is a matter of spending time to become familiar with the resulting positions.

As for the Catalan, again pretty mainstream and as Topnotch says using the move order you avoid ....Bb4+ lines. In the Open after 6...dxc4 he goes for 8 a4 after both 7...a6 and 7...b5.

In the Closed Catalan he looks for the e4 push by building with Qc2 and Nbd2.

I have experienced the line Topnotch mentions in paragraph three above on a number of occasions. It is difficult to make anything much of whites position and it is perhaps a line that could have been expanded a little more in the book.

I'm very happy that I have the book and it already has numerous pencil notes written in it which suggest that it is going to be well used over the next few years.

Hi, for anyone who has read the book, how is his catalan reconmendation? Is it the regular catalan lines pretty much or does he have a twist to it? What does he give vs the slav?

an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 12/18/19 at 15:03:13:


Good  to know... I guess the reason for this is that once the Publisher agrees to have a Kindle version, Amazon has more control on what to put in the preview.

On another note, I wonder on what grounds the Catalan may be considered a "simple" opening for White... perhaps a better title for the book would have been "Keep it Fianchettoed", but maybe since the 1.e4 book was so successful, they maintained the same title formula.

Anyway, it looks like an interesting book IMHO.

TD wrote on 11/22/19 at 18:01:24:


It’s finally here! I’ve been studying and playing this since the summer so having the print version too is great.

winawer77 wrote on 06/27/19 at 16:09:57:


Thank you.

Is it bad to let Black take on d4, like 1. d4 Cf6 2. Cf3 c5 3. g3 and continue like reversed Tarrasch ¿ I expected something like this instead of declined Blumenfeld or Schmidt Benoni.

3. g3 is like a lazy way of playing Catalan against everything, even without c4 played. To me it keeps things much simpler.

About Grünfeld, why not b3 without c4, transposing to strange Colle-Zukertort where White has double fianchetto ¿ I thought that b3 with c4 lines against ...c6/...d5 Fianchetto Grünfeld were equal like Awrukh and Swidler proved.

Stigma wrote on 06/27/19 at 17:13:49:


It looks like his line is almost exactly what you would expect based on what you wrote -- White simply gets the bishop pair on f3, loses time retreating, makes normal moves like a4 and Re1 ... But Stockfish seems to give White an edge.  He doesn't consider ...f5 in combination with Bxf3 though.

I know what you mean about this line though -- I have never studied it that rigorously or faced it in a slow game but seem to get it in Blitz every couple months, and always feel like I screw it up.

Often playing on auto-pilot, I'll do something like
1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3 c5 3 d5 g6 4 Nc3 Bg7 5 e4 d6 6 Be2 Bg4 7 Nd2 Bxe2 8 Qxe2 0-0 9 0-0 a6 10 a4 Nbd7 11 a5 Re8 12 Nc4 b5 13 axb6 Nxb6 14 Nxb6 Qxb6

Comp still likes White here and is probably right and I played plans that frequently get recommended in books in Benoni structures (playing Nd2 to avoid ... Bxf3 and get to c4, playing a4-a5 if Black doesn't play b6, etc).

But feels like I'm playing Benko gambit without the extra pawn.

Sometimes instead I've tried Nc4-a5, and trying to go to c6, instead of trading on b6.  And during the blitz game I felt like I'm Karpov trying to exploit a weak square (and sometimes the move is good if the tempos work out) but you can also just get the Nc6 in a world of trouble if e7-e6 works for Black and the Nb6 and Nf6 are hitting d5.

Sometime I use the extra tempos to develop the Bc1 but then b2 can be weak, or sometimes I've tried to push e4-e5 quickly but you really need to get the moment right.

So perhaps there's no big rush to move quickly as White, and trading the Bg4 on e2 instead of f3 seems to be nothing special, the Nd2-c4 plan might be more effective in Benoni than Schmidt Benoni.