Chess Book Reviews

Play the Ruy Lopez
by Andrew Greet Everyman

You play 1 e4 and want to be a serious chess player? It's time to stop playing all those half-baked gambits, the Danish, King's and I don't know what else. You are going to have to learn the opening that every World Champion has played after 1 e4 - the Ruy Lopez.

The Ruy Lopez is recognized by most experts as White's greatest chance of obtaining a lasting advantage after the moves 1 e4 e5. Nicknamed 'the Spanish Torture', the Lopez is steeped in tradition, having provided the battleground for countless clashes between World Champions of past and present. In recent times Kasparov, Fischer, Karpov and Spassky were all recognised as major experts in this opening. Andrew Greet provides the reader with a comprehensive repertoire for White, covering in detail every plausible response from Black after the opening moves 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5.

Greet spends considerable time covering the alternatives for Black at move three and four, in fact almost 250 pages are devoted to this exercise. It is on move five however, that Greet reveals the core of the book. After 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 he wants to play the Worrall attack 5 Qe2. This is a fully respectable move, if not quite so well known as 5 O-O. It has been played by grandmasters of considerable pedigree, Alekhine, Keres and Short, to name but three.

This work is full of original ideas and analysis, and you are sure to surprise your opponents with lines in this book. For instance, Greet recommends after 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 Bc5 the rarely played and surprising 4 Nxe5!? and provides plenty of analysis to back it up.

376 pages, soft back. Excellent value for money.