kylemeister wrote on 07/10/22 at 16:40:26:

Unsurprisingly, Grivas claims that White has a "slight but permanent advantage" in that position, because Black's bishop is obstructed by the d-pawn and his queenside pawns are weak. He illustrates this with a game in the "Endgame Technique" chapter (Graf - Sulskis, Moscow 2001).

His inspiration for the 7.Bd3 line seems to be Botvinnik - Vidmar, Nottingham 1936, and I see that Botvinnik nearly always played this line. I think ReneDescartes is right that some players who choose the Orthodox may not be comfortable defending against an IQP. I would add that, at my level, many of them choose it because they know little or no theory.

I like the way Grivas has organised his explanation of the line. He divides the chapter into four sections, according to whether Black plays ...a6, ...h6, both or neither. This seems more helpful than a conventional tree of variations. It would be even more helpful if he explained at the beginning of the chapter what the four sections are about, but you can't have everything.

Grivas points out that 7.Bd3 against the Orthodox QGD is closely related to the QGA. I assume he means the main lines of the QGA rather than 4.Na3, which is what he recommends. I did wonder whether this choice was prompted by a reluctance to accept the IQP, but apparently not. Since he does expect the reader to be willing to play with an IQP, I don't understand why he finds it necessary to recommend a dubious sideline against the QGA. Fortunately there are plenty of other sources for the main lines.

This series is now complete: 7 volumes, not 6 as originally planned. I recently picked up volumes 1 to 6. Here are my first impressions.

The books are physically attractive – nice heavy paper, clear print. Each volume has around 260-280 pages and is divided into several Parts. Each Part deals with a different defence (or family of defences) and consists of: an unnumbered introductory chapter; 2 to 4 chapters of theory; a “Typical Middlegame Strategy” chapter, consisting of annotated games; a chapter on typical endgames; and a chapter of tactical puzzles.

Each of the middlegame and tactics chapters has a one-page introduction which is identical every time. In the case of the tactics chapters this consists of three sentences pointing out that it’s important to know the tactical motifs which are typical of the openings you play – hardly a startling insight. Similarly, each endgame chapter has the same three-paragraph introduction (though in this case it is not given a page to itself). It’s difficult to see that this repetition serves any purpose other than to pad out the books.

As pointed out earlier in the thread, Grivas’s English is a bit eccentric. He likes to describe a line as “second-hand”, meaning “second-rate”. And he has an annoying habit of putting a word or phrase in inverted commas for no apparent reason. But it’s usually clear enough what he is trying to say.

The editing leaves something to be desired. I’ve already noticed some glaring errors. The front cover of volume 4 says “Queen’s Gambit” instead of “Queen’s Gambit Accepted”. Chapter 1 of the Part on the Slav is entitled, both in the table of contents and at the start of the chapter itself, “Black’s 4th-move Deviat – Various Lines”. Chapter 2 is “Black’s 4th-move Deviat – Main Lines”, which wouldn’t make sense even if it were English: the chapter deals with main lines, not deviations. 

More worryingly, the introduction to the Part on the Tarrasch, after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c5 4.cxd5 exd5, refers to "the more-or-less 'forced moves' [why the inverted commas?] 5.Nf3 [sic] Nc6 6.g3 Nf6 7.Bg2 Be7 8.0-0 0-0 9.Bg5". I would have assumed that "5.Nf3" was a typo for "5.Nc3", but Grivas doesn't actually recommend that! The line he proposes is 5.g3 Nc6 6.Bg2, holding back the b1 knight until Black's dark-squared bishop is committed to e7.

The biggest drawback of these books is that they are so hard to navigate. This is of course a problem that has often been noted in relation to books from this publisher. None of the books in this series has an index of variations, and the table of contents conveys little information about which line is where. The table of contents gives the page on which chapter 1 of each Part begins, but not the page on which the unnumbered introductory chapter begins. The page headers tell you which Part you are in, but not which chapter, let alone which section of which chapter. To use any of these books you need to create some kind of map. My own solution is to put the lines into Chess Openings Wizard and annotate each variation with a page reference. But this really shouldn’t be necessary. 

What’s worse is that it isn’t even easy to work out which volume a particular line is in, especially since the distribution of lines between volumes appears to be quite random. The publishers could at least have provided an overall index on their website, but haven’t done so as far as I can see. So I have done a rudimentary index of my own, which others may find of some use. I have rearranged the topics into a more logical order. The number in the second column is that of the relevant volume. I have also included a brief note of the recommended line, except for those in volume 7 which I don’t have.

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3
Tartakower                  6            8.Bd3 Bb7 9.0-0
Lasker                         4            8.Bxe7 Qxe7 9.Rc1
Orthodox QGD             6            6.e3 Nbd7 7.Bd3
Cambridge Springs       6            7.cxd5 Nxd5 8.Qd2
Ragozin                       4            5.cxd5 exd5 6.Bg5
Vienna                         4            5.e4 Bb4 6.Bg5
Semi-Slav                    6            5.Qd3
Semi-Tarrasch              5            5.cxd5 Nxd5 6.e4
4...a6                          6            5.c5      

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3
Triangle                       6            4.Nbd2 (4...f5 5.g3 > Stonewall)
Tarrasch                      5            4.cxd5 exd5 5.g3
3...a6                          6            4.Bg5

1.d4 d5 2.c4
Slav                            1            3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nbd2
QGA                            4            4.Na3
Chigorin                       5            3.cxd5 Qxd5 4.e3 e5 5.Nc3 Bb4 6.a3
Albin                            5            4.Nf3 Nc6 5.Nbd2
Marshall                       5            3.cxd5 Nxd5 4.Nf3
Baltic                           5            3.cxd5
2...c5                           5            3.cxd5

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 
QID                                3            4.g3 (4...Ba6 5.Qb3)
Bogo-Indian                    3            4.Nbd2      
Modern Benoni                7      

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3
KID                                 2            Averbakh
Grünfeld                          1            4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Bg5

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5
Benkö                            2            4.Bg5
Blumenfeld                     1            4.Bg5 e6 5.Nf3
other Benonis                 7            “Bg5 schemes”

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4
Old Indian                        7
Tango                              7
Budapest                         3            4.Nf3
Fajarowicz                        3            4.Nd2

1.d4 f5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nf3
Leningrad                          2            3...g6 4.g3 Be7 5.Bg2 0-0 6.0-0 d6 7.Nc3
Classical                            2            3...e6 4.g3 Be7 5.Bg2 0-0 6.0-0 d6 7.Nc3
Stonewall                          2            3...e6 4.g3 d5 5.Bg2 c6 6.0-0 Bd6 7.Qc2 0-0 8.Nbd2 

1.d4 d6                            7            2.c4
1.d4 g6                            7            2.c4
1.d4 c5                            7
others                              7            

I hesitate to express a view about the choice of lines, since the opinions of a 1700 patzer are scarcely worth having. But to me it seems an odd mixture of main lines and dodgy sidelines. In the QGA, Delchev gives 4.Na3 a “?”, and it’s hard to disagree: 4...e5! 5.Nxe5 Bxa3 looks grim to me, though Grivas gamely claims “a tiny advantage” for White. I have my doubts about “Tromping the Benkö”, too. Grivas seems to like playing Bg5 at every opportunity! (OK, not in the Semi-Slav…) What first attracted me to the series, in fact, was his coverage of 5.Bg5 lines in the QGD, as I don’t enjoy either the exchange variation (which most authors recommend) or 5.Bf4. 

Despite my reservations I think these books are worth having, especially if you can get them for less than the recommended price (as I did). I’m happy to answer questions about the contents, with due respect to copyright of course.

mangler wrote on 12/09/19 at 16:30:05:


What kind of game white gets playing this way? Just curious. Is it followed up with g3? Thanks.

I got this book just today, looks interesting. The bibliography has a few of his works.

The language sounds a bit weird in places. On p. 143, introduction to the Slav chapter, there is a paragraph that says, 

So, either the white player has to work hard for his survivor (nobody quarantines him an advantage), or he can 'discover' a not so well analysed and played system which can offer surprise value but also it can be developed in a lethal weapon when it is well analysed.

I think that I understand kind of the second half of this sentence. However, the first half sounds baffling to me.

Good memory Bibs! 4.Nbd2 vs the slav was covered in CBM 123. No idea about Neighbours, Mangler is just a nickname.

Apart from the slightly odd repertoire, I'd be interested if in the books there is plenty of verbal explanations for the lines, too. A long number of lines and variations in quasi-ECO style, ending with a "White is clearly better" or so, won't help me in any way. I already have a lot of books in that style. So, if anyone is going to buy the book, a short review would be very welcomed.