<Bent Bexley>: Check out his recently published Play the Ruy Lopez (Everyman). It is a whopping 376 pages! I'll guess it is the largest opening book Everyman has ever published. The first 240 pages or so cover all of Black's possible replies without 3...a6 and fourth move alternatives as well. The rest of the book is devoted to the Worrall system (5.Qe2). I'm just starting to go through the book but it is already clear this is not a database dump. Greet put a lot of effort into this work and it shows up on the page. Those who play (and play against) or want to take up the Lopez should at least take a look at this book.

<notyetagm>: IM Greet is currently writing <"Play The Queen's Indian"> for Everyman Chess. At the chesspublishing.com forum he says that he should be finished by the end of June 2008.

yeah, OMGP has lots and lots of words and stories and anecdotes, and there is a reasonable amount of explanation to go with the variations in the games. i have to admit, though, many of the variations are over my head.

i know that there has been a lot of controversy and criticism regarding the OMGP's, but i like them a lot. i would suggest picking up 1 volume, maybe the one on Fischer, and seeing how you like it before buying all of them.

(original post is here: jessicafischerqueen chessforum)

_______________________________

just a kid: <<Blacksburger on Rye, Hold the Chess Books>: Hey I'm thinking of getting Kasparov's <My Not Quite as Great as Me Predecessors>.

Do you recommend it?

Is there a lot of "word discussion" to go along with the diagrams and printed lines from the games?>

I have the first book. On about pg.60 now. It is a good overview of chess history if that is what you're also looking for. If you want lines,they have a whole bunch of analysis lines. The downside though is that Kasparov does not give a bunch of explanation to those lines. He gives some of his opinions on the games though. Overall, I think it is a good book.

Then Silman in "The Amutaeurs Mind" (how the hell do you spell that word?) (spellcheck bah) wants his students to number one check out N v B positional imbalances...therefore i can see the Fishcer influence on Silman's mind...

I have the first book. On about pg.60 now. It is a good overview of chess history if that is what you're also looking for. If you want lines,they have a whole bunch of analysis lines. The downside though is that Kasparov does not give a bunch of explanation to those lines. He gives some of his opinions on the games though. Overall, I think it is a good book.>

I have the first four volumes, and I think they are absolutely fantastic. On each player covered, whether he was a World Champion or not, the selection of games is varied, the comments are insightful and revealing, and the stories regarding the human aspect of the players themselves are tremendous!

Tension, fatigue, all the things that players feel (God bless them, they are not computers) are exposed. In Spassky's case, his incredible failures and successes are narrated very powerfully.

Bronstein thinks that one should read the games in a chess book with a chessboard; very solemnly. Petrosian, on the other hand, liked to read chess books like reading a novel; he tried to follow the games from diagram to diagram without moving pieces on a chessboard.

Is it good? Are there nice stories about his life or early career?

Does anybody know a good guide on the Sicilian Dragon for somebody who would want to play it as black (aka me)?

How do I know?

Well, I read it in a book...

Y'know acirce keeps throwing around this rumor that "everything is known about the c3 sicilian" but guess what I bought a c3 sicilian book by Mr. Collins Irish Im and tviakov and Rublevsky play it all the time.

I have the Edward Dearing book:

http://www.amazon.com/Play-Sicilian...

It is excellent.

There is this:
http://amchesscoaching.com/Lessons/...

GHOD>

(By <acirce>)
Rogozenko's <Anti-Sicilians - A Guide for Black> - a comprehensive and competent guide to most of the various things you might encounter after 1.e4 c5 that is not the Open Sicilian.

Julen Arizmendi, Javier Moreno: <Mastering the Najdorf> - a very nice book written with great enthusiasm and plenty of fairly good analysis, <then> current theory and original, independent ideas. Dealing with pretty much every reasonable line for White. Useful even though the explosion of theory may well have made some parts obsolete.

From the White side of the Sicilian, I own <Experts vs. The Sicilian>, which is written by many different authors, basically assigned one main Sicilian variation each: Golubev on the Dragon, Aagaard on the Sveshnikov, Luther on the Najdorf and so on. It is not really particularly good, I think - although it contains some good stuff, it is also very inconsistent, for reasons easily imagined. And I don't personally like the recommendations that much, for example the ultra-sharp 6.Bg5 against the Najdorf or the Keres Attack against the Scheveningen, but that is just my own preferences as a - today - more positionally inclined player. I remember that some of the analysis was a bit suspect already then, and again, theory has obviously advanced by huge strides since.

I also have Nunn/Gallagher's <Beating the Sicilian 3> and Nunn's <The Complete Najdorf 6.Bg5>, but I suppose these are basically antiquated by now...

Finally, I might mention Aagaard's little book <Easy Guide to the Sveshnikov Sicilian>, although I have not used it much. It's mostly lines, lines and lines and I don't know about the quality of the analysis/recommendations. But it has a short introduction dealing with some typical plans and ideas. Perhaps useful, I am not sure. I think that's all I have specifically on the Sicilian. My personal recommendations from the Black perspective would be Rogozenko and particularly Arizmendi/Moreno. From White's perspective, I honestly don't know.

(Here is the original link: blacksburg chessforum)

<And some follow-up by <KingG>:

<KingG>: I don't really have much to add to <acirce>'s recommendations on the Najdorf, other to say that another decent book I could recommend would be <Easy Guide to the Najdorf> by Tony Kosten. If I had to name just one book on the Najdorf and one for the Anti-Sicilians, they would be the ones <acirce> already mentioned:

Rogozenko's <Anti-Sicilians - A Guide for Black> and <Mastering the Najdorf> by Julen Arizmendi and Javier Moreno. I highly recommend both, particularly the Najdorf one, which I think is probably still the best one in print on the Najdorf right now.

Another Anti-Sicilian book I plan on getting soon is Richard Pallister's <Fighting the Anti-Sicilians>. It has had some good reviews, and if it is anything like Yelena Dembo's fighting the <Anti-King's Indians> it will be well worth the money. Strictly speaking I probably don't need anything other than Rogozenko's book, but it's always good to get other points of view, and of course an update on some theory. The only slight criticism I would have of Rogozenko's book is that he suggests transposing into the Alapin Sicilian against the Smith-Morra Gambit. This makes good practical sense if you play his recommended 1.e4 c5 2.c3 Nf6 line, but it's a bit of a problem for me now that I play 1.e4 c5 2.c3 e6, although I'm fairly happy with the response to the Morra that I have at the moment.

With regards to the Najdorf, of course anything by Kasparov on the subject is worth having, and in fact I would say anything by Kasparov on chess full stop. Unfortunately he hasn't made any more DVDs in a while so perhaps they have discontinued his series, which would be a real shame. I haven't bought too many recent books on the Najdorf as I feel like the books I already have cover the ideas of the opening quite well, and for the theory I just study recent games, which I include in my games collection Game Collection: Sicilian Najdorf(<AdrianP>'s games collections might be a better source. I certainly like them a lot). However, I will probably buy the rumoured upcomming book on the Najdorf by Ftacnik, published by Quality Chess.

My very good and very funny friend <madly deeply> kept saying things like

"Remember when computers didn't have designer colors? GHOD"