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Round one you draw the black pieces, and your opponent opens with 1.c4. Oops. You try to treat it as some kind of reversed Sicilian Defense (which you don’t play) but you fall hard. Round two you open with 1.e4 and face 1…e6. Ha! You know the French Defense. You play the French Defense! Of course, it’s kind of playing against yourself in this game, so the drawn result doesn’t come as too much of a surprise. Tastes like cold oatmeal though. Next round you’ve got black and you’re wondering “Classical? Steinitz? Advance Variation?” against 1.e4 and maybe you’re thinking that if you see 1.d4, instead, you’ll get to play your favorite Queen’s Gambit Accepted. It doesn’t matter: your opponent starts out with 1.Nf3. Transposing this way and that doesn’t help. You always thought the King’s Indian was a Defense, not an Attack! There’s that sudden sinking feeling that goes down the drain with your game. For “fun” you then open up the penultimate round with 1.d4 and use everything you know about the QGA – to nail down another draw. Sigh. Small surprise that in the last round you go down in flames against 1.g4… Why bother to prepare your favorite defenses, if you don’t get to play them? Sound familiar? If so, International Master Richard Palliser feels your pain. And he has a prescription to get you back on your feet and feeling just great. Not surprisingly, it’s called Beating Unusual Chess Openings, from Everyman Chess. The book’s cover has a reassuring notation: dealing with the English, Réti, King’s Indian Attack and other annoying systems. IM Palliser is fast becoming one of my favorite chess openings authors. He has an upbeat attitude, a sense of humor, and a fine ability to explain plans and break down positions for the improving club player to understand and then make use of. His books have focused on the opening, and experience in writing for the “Starting Out” and “Dangerous Weapons” series has helped Palliser hone both his writing and his analytical skills. His books: Play 1d4! (2003); Tango! A Complete Defence to 1d4 (2005); The Modern Benoni Revealed (2005); The Bb5 Sicilian: Detailed Coverage of a Thoroughly Modern System (2005); Starting Out: Sicilian Najdorf (2006); Starting Out: Closed Sicilian (2006); Dangerous Weapons: The Nimzo-Indian: Dazzle Your Opponents (with John Emms and Chris Ward, 2006); Dangerous Weapons: The Sicilian: Dazzle Your Opponents (with John Emms, 2006). Upcoming titles include The Complete Chess Workout: Train your brain with 1500 puzzles! ( 2007) and Dangerous Weapons: The Queens Gambit: Dazzle Your Opponents! (with Glenn Flear and Chris Ward, 2008). Beating Unusual Chess Openings starts off by tackling the English Opening, 1.c4. Due to the possibility of transpositions, it is a bit of a hydra (IM John Watson once wrote a 5-book series on it), and Palliser devotes 4 chapters – about half of the book – toward meeting it. He recommends the Botvinnik set-up in the Symmetrical Variation, covered in the first two chapters: White Fianchettos and Plays Nf3, and White Fianchettos without Nf3.
The Botvinnik Setup Palliser shows how the Botvinnik works, how it is attacked, and how Black can respond. He tosses in some sharp sidelines ("dynamic secondary options ... for those who prefer a more complex game." For example, in the line 1.c4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.g3 g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.Nf3 he spends most of his efforts on 5…d4, but also tosses in 5…d6!? (“…if you want to make your opponent think for himself from an early stage”) and 5…a6!? (“…I must confess to having my doubts whether 5…a6 is completely sound…”) Most of the lines in Chapter 3, covering the Three Knights Variation, have Black’s king knight going to f6, and his king bishop going somewhere other than g7, but he manages the transition with enough explanations and examples that players 1600 and up (or hard workers below that level) can follow. Again, Palliser puts his major effort into the main line 1.c4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 with 3…e5, but he still finds time to look at Ljubojevic’s snarky 3…Nd4!? As for the times when White Plays an Early d4 (Chapter 4), he has Black play an early …Qb6 – 1.c4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 5.Nxd4 Qb6!? The Bibliography (!) shows that the author has kept up with the relevant literature, as his discussions reflect this as well. For example, he writes:
Palliser sometimes moves on to deeper thoughts, as when he analyzes the following position, after 1.c4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.g3 g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.a3 a6 6.Rb1 Rb8 7.b4 cxb4 8.axb4 b5 9.cxb5 axb5 10.Nf3 e5!?
Palliser later refers to Jonathan Rowson’s Chess for Zebras and Alex Yermolinsky’s The Road to Chess Improvement for similar ideas on the value of moving first. Beating Unusual Chess Openings succeeds in its goal of “supplying Black with some fairly solid but still quite dynamic set-ups” against the English. In Chapter 5, Two Advances of the g-pawn, the author touches briefly on 1.e3 and 1.d3 before taking a look at 1.g3, against which he suggests that Black go for a full pawn center with d4 and e4. Palliser’s suggestions of an early …Nc6 for those who face the tricky Grob (1.g4) (“…those who employ it normally revel in extremely obscure positions”) will hearten club defenders: 1.g4 d5 2.Bg2 Nc6!? and 1.g4 d5 2.h3 e5 3.Bg2 Nc6!?
Chapter 6, Bird’s Opening has all sorts of ideas for Black (but not the Fromm Gambit), with one idea being an early …Bg4, and another being 1.f4 d6!?. Why should White have all the fun in this opening? The Nimzo-Larsen Attack (Chapter 7) and Der Linksspringer: 1.Nc3 (Chapter 8) are given proper respect. Palliser refers to Jacobs and Tait’s Nimzo-Larsen Attack and Keilhack’s Knight on the Left: 1.Nc3 as “two of the best (in terms of both thorough coverage and independent analysis) openings books in the past decade” yet he is willing to take those openings on. Against 1.b3 he recommends a system of pawns on d5 and e5, knight on c6, bishop on d6, and pawn at f6 if needed. In an alternate line he has the bishop on d6 protecting the pawn on e5, while sitting in front of the d-pawn! (“A remarkable move, and also quite a fashionable one among grandmaster ranks.”) Against 1.Nc3 he suggests that second players first consider transposing into their favorite defense against 1.e4 – 1…c5 for the Sicilian, 1…e6 for the French, 1…c6 for the Caro-Kann, and 1…Nf6 for the Alekhine, as well as for double King Pawn Players. His analysis of 1.Nc3 is also there because "Black certainly should not neglect it in his preparation unless he wants to join the ranks of miniature victims." Against the Sokolsky (Chaper 9) Black can play a main line (“Black doesn’t really need to know too much to play this line, so long as he remembers to develop quickly and actively”) or the sneaky 1…c6!?. Either way the worst he seems to end up with is an even game. The last three chapters focus on The 1.Nf3 Problem, with White usually planning a Kings Indian Attack or the Réti Opening. To defend, Palliser hauls out everything from transposing to favorite defenses (such as 1…d5 transposing to a Queen’s Gambit Accepted/Declined) to the Botvinnink set-up of the first two chapters, to Indian-style defenses. 1.Nf3 can be as slippery as the English, but Beating Unusual Chess Openings helps the second player hold on tightly. There is a Preface at the front and an Index of Variations at the back. Everyman Chess does its usual excellent job in terms of layout (two columns per page, about two diagrams per page) organization and readability. As indicated in the above descriptions, chapters are organized by variations and sub-variations, as opposed to full game examples.
Beating
Unusual Chess Openings
is just what the doctor ordered!
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