Welcome to Easychess
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Welcome to Easychess
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Reviewed by the Duke of Brunswick
In Volume Four Watson was faced with a tricky task which might easily have turned into a dog’s breakfast. He had to cover all the openings which had not been covered in the first three volumes. Moreover, he had to cover them in a way which ensured the book remained coherent. Just a haphazard recitation of all the minor openings would not have been satisfactory. I believe that he has completed this difficult undertaking and written an entertaining book to boot. Let’s first look at the book’s contents.
The reader can immediately see that Watson has grouped the openings according to a theme. For instance, the Dutch Defence is covered in the chapter ‘f-Pawns and Reversed Openings’ which also includes the Bird’s Opening. In keeping with the theme, this chapter also features a discussion of the King’s Indian Attack – which is the reversed King’s Indian Defence. In the final two chapters, Watson presents his views on the importance of opening study and explains how players should best prepare and choose their openings for the level at which they play. He then looks at the future of chess openings and explains which skills will be most important as chess evolves in the forthcoming decades. The fourth volume begins conventionally enough, with two chapters on the Réti Opening. The following game and notes give a flavour of Watson’s style. I should point out that space requirements mean that I have had to be selective of Watson’s comments and this does not really do justice to the book’s comprehensive coverage of alternatives. |
The Reti sections are followed by excellent overview of black kingside fianchetto systems such as ‘Tiger’s Modern’ and the Averbakh Variation starting with 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.c4. In the chapter called ‘Modern Queenside Fianchetto’, he discusses various queenside fianchetto systems from the perspective of both Black and White. This means he not only writes about the Owen Defence (1.e4 b6) and the English Defence (1.d4 e6 2.c4 b6), but also about Larsen’s Opening (1.b3). Here is another example of Watson’s informative style when discussing the English Defence. |
Watson clearly explains the differences between playing the queenside fianchetto with Black and playing it with White. The author takes a look at Ilya Odessky’s recent book on 1.b3 (reviewed at Odessky review) and comes up with some improvements. For instance, in the line 1.b3 e5 2.Bb2 Nc6 3.e3 d5 4.Bb5 Bd6 5.f4 f6 6.Nh3 Nge7 7.fxe5 fxe5 8.0-0 Bf5! Watson suggests 9.c4 a6 10.Bxc6+ bxc6 11.d4!? with the threat c4-c5, and this seems to be good. Watson next moves into broad-ranging waters, starting with a chapter on gambits both tactical and positional. He discusses gambits as diverse as the Göring and Morra, the Milner-Barry, various Wing gambits (with either b2-b4 and g2-g4), the famous Evans Gambit and, last but by no means least, the Benkö Gambit. The book’s next chapter is called ‘f-Pawns and Reversed Openings’. The study of reversed openings will increase your understanding of what can and cannot be achieved in such openings. The worth of an extra move isn’t a straightforward matter. In reversed positions of the English Opening, for example, it’s remarkable how seldom White can use his extra tempo over the Sicilian Defence and claim to have the better game. As Suba as pointed out, there’s a paradoxical benefit of not having the move, as Black gets a better look at what his opponent is up to and is able to react accordingly. Let’s take a look at how Watson analyses a game with the King’s Indian Attack, one of the premier reversed openings. |
Watson has a number of insights about other reversed openings pointing out that the Ponziani (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3) after 3…f5!? is in fact “a Vienna Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.f4) with reversed colours and as if Black had an extra …c6!” Or what about 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5, which the entire world knows as the Schliemann or Jaenisch Defence of the Ruy Lopez, yet is described by Watson as Vienna Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.f4) in which White has the extra move Bb5. The chapter on ‘Irregular Openings and Initial Moves’ has Watson’s typical insights. Watson points out that the Trompovsky Attack 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 has become popular and universally accepted, but one could argue that 2.Bg5 itself is not an ‘orthodox’ move. Paradoxically, the form of the Torre Attack with 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bg5 is orthodox by the classical standards of development, but it isn’t very popular any more. In a similar way, classically oriented openings such as the Ponziani Opening (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3) and the Hungarian Defence (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Be7) are orthodox in strategic terms, but rare in master practice The book’s final chapters on ‘Choosing and Preparing Openings’ and ‘The Future of Openings’ are typically both entertaining and instructive. Watson says you should choose openings according to your skill level. He then breaks players into various strength bands and recommends an opening repertoire for each band. He approvingly quotes Korchnoy saying that if you want to improve your chess, you should play a new opening. Watson also recommends playing blitz games (“in sensible, non-addictive quantities”) as a way of practising your opening preparation. He is optimistic on the future of openings and does not think chess will be played out any time soon. “These days it’s hard for us to imagine that in the 1920s Lasker and Capablanca were fretting about how opening theory had progressed to such an extreme that chess had become fundamentally limited.” On that note I will leave the reader and recommend him or her to buy Mastering the Chess Openings vol. 4. It is, perhaps, the most interesting and thought provoking work of Watson’s entire series. |
