Chess Book Reviews -

by the Duke of Brunswick

The Chess Advantage in Black and White
By Larry Kaufman

Opening repertoire books have become the staple diet of chess publishing houses. Typically, you will be told how to play a play a particular opening, what will cause your opponent the most difficulties and how to get the maximum results with the minimum effort. Armed with this knowledge you can expect to sweep away the hapless opposition in the next club match. But all too often, it doesn't happen this way.

Why not? If we leave aside the question of the native ability of individual chess players, two major difficulties suggest themselves. Your opponent does not play the opening you have prepared from the repertoire book. It's all very well if you have mastered Taming the Sicilian by Nigel Davies, but there are many other answers to 1 e4 apart from 1 … c5 – and we have not even begun to consider what you will meet when you play Black (remember this will happen in roughly fifty per cent of your games.) The other problem is a little more tricky. In any book explaining the openings, the author has to know when to ‘stop'. By this, I mean that he must know when to finish the analysis of a particular line in the opening. If the author wishes to be successful, he has to walk the fine line between overwhelming the reader with masses of variation and failing to cover what is essential.

Larry Kaufman's book is unique in that he offers a complete repertoire for both White and Black. In my opinion it is also one of the few books that carefully confines itself to that which is relevant. It seems that the stronger the player, the more is the tendency to produce a superbly detailed piece of analysis which has absolutely no chance of being remembered by the average club player. In my view, Kaufman surmounts these two problems which beset many repertoire books. For this reviewer the book had the added bonus that many of the lines recommended by Kaufman were already part of my opening system. When I read the Kaufman's introduction, I realised that this was not pure chance.

“When choosing openings you can go for ‘cheap' (meaning easy to remember) or you can go for the ‘best' (meaning the most popular in recent grandmaster play). In life too we constantly have these same decisions. Some people always go for the cheapest item which meets their minimum standards, while others say ‘only the best for me' (or my family).” Kaufman goes on to advocate the ‘second best' (in the none pejorative sense) option as the way to go in choosing a chess opening. In other words, he will not be choosing what is currently fashionable in Grandmaster chess. Nor will he will recommend a dangerous and weird gambit which may trip up your opponent, but is problematic when met correctly. What does this boil down to in practice?

As White Kaufman recommends a repertoire with 1 e4. With Black he recommends 1 …e5 against 1 e4 and against 1 d4 he wants to play the Semi-Slav complex i.e. with black pawns on d5, c6 and e6. To be more specific, after 1 e4 the four main Black defences are 1 …c5 (the Sicilian), 1 …e5, 1 … e6 (the French) and 1 … c6 (the Caro-Kann). Kaufman's proposed repertoire, is Bb5 versus the Sicilian, the Exchange Ruy Lopez against 1 …e5, 3 Nd2 (Tarrasch) versus the French and the Advance Variation (Short System) against the Caro.

From this you can see that Kaufman is not presenting main lines such as the Closed Ruy Lopez or 3 d4 against the Sicilian. Nor is he offering the slightly dubious such as the King's or the Morra Gambit. Kaufman gives you solid openings with a good reputation. I can confirm that there is no weird and wonderful rubbish in the book. This repertoire will work against the strong as well as the weak. And I now realise that my approach to the openings was that of Kaufman's. I play all Kaufman's lines against the four main defences to 1 e4 with the single exception of the French. Here I play 3 e5 (the Advance Variation) which, owing to the work of Grischuk, has become once again a fully respectable line and would happily conform to Kaufman's definition of a ‘second best' opening. His choice of 3 Nd2 against the French is my one rather selfish gripe about this book, all the more heartfelt because the Advance Variations in the French and Caro have a common pawn structure and go well together.

There is one other important consideration which must be mentioned these days. The chess computer played a vital role in the writing of this book. Kaufman says, “So overall, I think it's fair to say that moves suggested by these programs, with me acting as arbiter to choose when they disagree or to reject them altogether, are of at least as high a standard on average as moves that might be made by Kasparov or Kramnik. Since the computer is always running while I'm commenting on a game, it's rare to get past move 20 without finding an improvement for ‘our side'… All reference to ‘we' (other than the Berlin chapter for Black, co-authored by GM Alex Sherzer) should be understood to mean the computer programs and I.” So when you buy this book you get Larry Kaufman, an International Master, backed by a number of computers which can analyse at the elite Grandmaster level.

Kaufman has a gift for making things simple. I don't play the Semi-Slav, but his introduction to this section makes interesting reading. He proposes a number of simple rules whereby Black can reach the Semi-Slav complex and avoid rather drawish or annoying lines such as the Slav Exchange or the Queen's Gambit Declined Exchange Variation with the black queen's bishop locked in. Here is Kaufman:

“Let's assume that White plays d4, c4, Nc3 and Nf3 as his first four moves, in any order. Follow these rules and you will do fine:

Play … d5 first except against 1 c4. In that instance, play …d5 on move 2.

Play … e6 whenever White plays c4.

Play … c6 whenever White has played Nc3.

Play … Nf6 when none of the above applies.”

And this rule of thumb works, as the reader can verify for himself. For instance, 1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 c6! 4 Nf3 Nf6 reaches the preferred Semi-Slav position whilst sidestepping the somewhat passive 3 … Nf6?! 4 cd ed 5 Bg5 exchange variation. Kaufman is good at this sort of thing and here is one of the reasons that a thorough and solid repertoire for both White and Black can be fitted into less than 500 pages.

Kaufman does not overlook the lesser known side lines either. Here is what he has to say about the Philidor Counter Gambit 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 f5.

“The Philidor Countergambit, which was popular two centuries ago, but now extinct in high level play”. 4.exf5! ( My exclamation mark, 4.dxe5 fxe4 5.Ng5 d5 used to be regarded as normal, but, in my opinion, Kaufman's move is better ) 4...e4 5.Ng5 Bxf5 6.Nc3 d5 ( 6...Nf6 7.f3 is correctly given by Kaufman. I once had a game which rapidly finished 7 …Qe7 8.fxe4 h6 9.Be2! Bg6 10.Nh3 Nxe4 11.0–0 Nc6? 12.Nd5 Qd8 13.Bh5 and Black resigned ) 7.f3 e3 8.Bxe3 ( 8 f4 is also good ) 8 … h6 9.g4! hxg5 10.gxf5 Bd6 11.Qe2 Kf8 12.0–0–0 c6 13.Qd2. White is winning with a pawn, the bishop pair and the safer king. (analysis by Schiller & Watson).” Italicised comments are mine.

Kaufman has taken the trouble to find good lines against many of the offbeat openings which are common at club level. Along with his solid coverage of the main lines, this makes this book a first class buy.

Duke of Brunswick