Equipped with an engine, the Exchange lines always looked okay for me. Over the board, I always felt that White has the much easier game if Black doesn't remember the move order move by move. 
Annoying stuff but objectively definitely okay.

Haha, I'm sorry! 

Perhaps we all need to look at White preparation more like hippies: it's all equal man, so just do what you love. 

Glad you guys enjoyed the video and found it helpful. That's definitely the best part of making videos like that - when you get a comment or someone telling you they are using your ideas successfully and it's making an impact (however small) on their game.

CanadianClub wrote on 05/08/22 at 18:23:00:


He did an excellent job in his video, and indeed the line looks good. The video also includes a link to his analysis on lichess.

My only hesitation was in playing ...h6 against the Nge2 system. I was already familiar with the Nge2 system without ...h6 and was not sure I wanted to throw ...h6 Bh4 into the mix. 

I reviewed the video again. After 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bg5 c6 6. e3 h6 7. Bh4 Be7 8. Qc2 O-O 9. Bd3 Re8 10. Nge2 a5 11. O-O Na6 12. a3 Nc7 (if it gets this far!), Tony provides good answers to the logical, human-type moves, 13f3, 13Rad1, and 13Na4.

Stockfish suggests 13Bg3 instead. After looking at it some, I've concluded that SF is stalling. With no way to improve it's position, it finds a move that does not make things worse. However, it's not clear how, or if, black can improve his position either.

Still, the game goes on and one must find moves. Perhaps something like might ensue:

13. Bg3 Bd6 14. h3 Bg3 15. Ng3 Ne6 16. b4 Qd6 17. b5 c5 18. Nf5 Qf8 19. dc5 Nc5. I can't see that either side has made much progress. Black has kept the balance. One can chalk this up as a victory for black, as long as he willing to improvise over the chess board.

Nernstian59 wrote on 03/16/22 at 23:32:43:

Once I got the actual book, I saw I erred in inferring from the sample pages that Countering the Queen's Gambit had a single column format.  Only parts of a few pages are laid out in this manner.  It looks like the higher page count in this English translation is mainly due to New in Chess adding more diagrams.  For example, the chapter on 4.Nf3 a6 has 14 diagrams in the original German edition.  There's nearly twice as many (27) in Countering the Queen's Gambit.  

One other difference between the two versions:  Prusikin refers to 1.Nc3 as "Der Linksspringer" in Das Damengambit since he thought it was a clever name.  In Countering the Queen's Gambit, it's called the Dunst Opening.

RoleyPoley wrote on 03/17/22 at 12:06:22:

You're welcome.  As you probably noticed from the Table of Contents shown in the sample pages, nearly the first third of the book covers typical pawn structures and ideas, which should be helpful in learning more about the QGD.  Keep in mind that the book offers a repertoire for Black with the Tartakower variation as the recommendation for meeting 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5.  Thus, there's no coverage of the Orthodox or Lasker variations.

"Countering the Queen's Gambit" by Prusikin (see my post #83) was just released by New in Chess.  A quick comparison of the earlier German edition to the sample pages given for this English version suggests the latter is a straight translation.  The page count for the English volume is higher, possibly due the use of a single column format.  The German edition used a double column layout.   

The only addition in the English version that I've found so far is Prusikin's statement in his Foreword that he used MegaBase 2021, ChessBase's Correspondence Database, and Stockfish 13 for reference and analysis.  Interestingly, a few paragraphs before this, Prusikin mentions that the eponymous Netflix series was his inspiration for writing a book on the Queen's Gambit.