ChessIsWar wrote on 03/28/22 at 19:57:55:

If you hit the books, I would start with Kosten or Burgess as they are both fairly short, and both are available as ebooks if that's your thing. Kosten's book has great explanations of strategy, though Burgess' book is more recent and should be more up-to-date. There may be some overlap with Sielecki's course, though in the main lines Sielecki actually went for a rarer setup with an early Rb1 and Bd2 instead of this Botvinnik system with d3 and e4.

Of course, ChessPublishing has more than two decades' worth of updates on the Botvinnik system and all other kinds of English after Kosten's book, both by the boss himself and by other columnists!

The Williams and Palliser course on the Botvinnik system should also be good if you like Chessable's training features, though I haven't seen it myself.

The three Marin books on 2.g3 in the English are massive and I've never studied them apart from looking up his answers to my Black defences. They were praised when they came out, and Marin is one of my favorite authors based on other works, but some say he was too optimistic for the White side in many places there.

ChessIsWar wrote on 03/28/22 at 19:56:43:

This Sielecki course was also ported to Chessable - it was one of the first courses they had by a titled player. I have it, but I can't remember now if it got a straight port or some minor updates.

Sadly the course is "unpublished" on Chessable now. You can't buy it there anymore - you either have it or you don't.

TD wrote on 03/28/22 at 13:15:36:


I am completely unstudied in these works lol. I'm 40, have been playing on and off since my early 30's and although I've studied far more than most people in my shoes, I haven't dug into books + OTB work as deeply as I should. That's next on my list of to do's.

ChessIsWar wrote on 03/27/22 at 20:24:18:

ChessIsWar, I guess you own (or know) Kosten's and Marin's works about the Botvinnik System? And maybe others, like Soltis, Williams & Palliser and Burgess' An Idiot-Proof Chess Opening Repertoire ?

THX, Konstrictor!

https://chess24.com/en/learn/advanced/ebook/english-opening-1-c4

I'm an improving adult and I've been playing the English for many games now over the past couple of months. I like it and I feel that it has the potential for both positional and tactical play. 1.c4 and then regardless of what black plays, 2.g3, and go from there.

@Konstrictor,

Do you have any thoughts on which edition of Illingworth's Dismantling the Sicilian? There seems to be some criticism of the most recent edition, but I have no experience with either.

is the English the best opening to become GM?

in my personal experience, I stopped playing 1.e4 because of the Sicilian. The sicilian requires a specific skillset of skills to play correctly as white.

1.d4 is an interesting move choice for me in theory because you can learn all the sidelines people play versus 1.d4 and pocket the points at tournaments. then you have the major replies like the KID, Nimzo, Grunfeld, Benonis and Dutches plus QGD. I consider the QGA a sideline.


then there is 1.c4 of which there are many flavors, and you could play anti-mainline systems versus the KID, Nimzo, Grunfeld, Dutches, and QGD's. In otherwords, you dont transpose to d4 lines, you play English flavored anti-systems to these major openings.

I also find in the English many opportunities to have white play something different to avoid preparation from opponents, for instance in the 4 knights english 1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Nf3 Nc6 white now has a3 d3 d4 e3 e4 and g3!

he seems to have a lot of this in many lines.

to add, I find that in the English, there are many move orders where black could find himself having misplaced pieces. for instance in the KID setups vs the English, the knight is misplaced on f6 when it should be behind the f5 pawn as opposed to infront.