DYNAMIC RETI by GM Nigel Davies is a repertoire book on 1.Nf3 that is based to a great extent on Richard Reti's interpretation of the opening. There have been earlier works on the Reti by Osnos and Dunnington, as well as related books by Khalifman, Kosten, Donaldson, Schiller and  Keene , but no one has adopted  the  approach Davies has chosen.

The English GM has White meet 1.Nf3 d5 with 2.c4 proposing a reversed Benoni after 2...d4 3.g3 and answer 2…c6 and 2…e6 with 3.g3. All this is pretty standard stuff, but before getting this book I wondered what Nigel had in mind after 2…dxc4. Certainly White can transpose to the Queen's Gambit Accepted with 3.e3, but Reti's old favorite 3.Na3 is well met by 3…a6 and 3...c5. Davies' answer is 3.e4, a move I was totally unfamiliar with. It may be little explored, but the model games by the likes of Krasenkov, Gavrikov and Makarov suggest a pretty good pedigree. After 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 c6 3.g3 Nf6 4.Bg2 dxc4 5.Qc2 Hazai and Lukacs championed 5...Qd5 6.Nc3 Qa5 in their big theoretical article in New in Chess Yearbook 9 back in 1988, but Davies feels he has found an antidote with 7.Nd1, meeting 7...e5 with 8.Ne3 capturing on c4 with tempo. The English GM shows his fine feel for this setup in the line 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 c6 3.g3 Nf6 4.Bg2 Bf5 5.cxd5 cxd5 6.Qb3 (as Davies points out, Reti setups based on b3 where Black has played ...c6 with ...Bf5 or ...Bg4 give him an easy game – when White can play Qb3 or Qa4 things are not so simple) 6...Qb6 and now 7.Qxb6 axb6 8.Nc3 Nc6 9. d3 e6 is always given better for White on the basis of the well-known game Portisch-Smyslov, Wijk aan Zee 1972. However Davies mentions that Black can do much better with 9...e5, an opinion that Yasser Seirawan shared with me many years ago. Fortunately White can still fight for an advantage with 7.Nc3!? as Davies shows.

Nigel quite rightly recognizes that setups based on g3, Bg2 and 0-0 don't offer much versus 1…c5 and 2…g6 as the White Knight on f3 costs flexibility, allowing Black good play with a kingside fianchetto and either …e5 or …e6. His solution is to grab space with an early d4. The plan is to go for a Maroczy with Nc2 if allowed. If Black goes for …e6 after d4 and ...cxd4, White delays the development of the b1 knight to circumvent some theoretically heavy English lines by 1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.g3 e6 6.Bg2. One of the most critical variations in this book is how to meet the reversed Maroczy after 1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nf6 3.g3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Bg2 Nc6 6.Nc3 Nc7. Davies likes the sideline 7.a3 with the idea 7...e5 8.b4!. One small caveat. There should be something on 1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.g3 g6 which is missing from this book. Fortunately this is an easy thing to fix and not a critical line. Khalifman covers this very thoroughly in volume 2 of his Kramnik series.

Like Dunnington, in his 1998 Cadogan (now Everyman) book EASY GUIDE TO THE RETI OPENING, Davies suggests a system based on b4 to combat the King's Indian and Grunfeld, but they don't agree exactly. Dunnington went for 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.g3 g6 3.b4, sometimes dispensing with c4 for e4, Davies goes for Smyslov and Stein's interpretation with 2.c4, 3.b4 and only later g3 and Bg2. The author gives an interesting idea on how to combat the Old Indian – 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 d6 3.Bg2 e5 4.Bg2 Be7 (4...g6 5.b4 heads to a anti-KID – the transposition works) 5.Nc3 c6 6.0-0 0-0 7.d3 Nbd7 8.e4 with a Botvinnik setup. Davies doesn't exactly spell out how to meet the Queen's Indian, but if you read between the lines you find that 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 b6 is going to either transpose into a Hedgehog (if Black ventures …c5) or a Reti (1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 e6 3.g3 Nf6 4.Bg2 Be7 5.0-0 0-0 6.b3 b6 7.Bb2 Bb7. The latter setup is particularly well covered in this book, but there is only one game featuring the popular Hedgehog. The suggestions against the Double Fianchetto line (b3 with a delayed d4), the Keres-Parma line (dxc5 and Qc2) and the Symmetrical English where both sides Fianchetto and Black gets in ...d5  (Qa4 with Qc4 or Qh4) are not going to cause Black to quake in fear but they do promise hopes for a small advantage and are easy to learn. The fact is even the more theoretical continuations in these lines don't guarantee White much of an advantage.

One of the strengths of this book is Davies pointing out that sometimes White does best to steer from a pure Reti approach. For example, against the Stonewall Dutch he likes a Reti setup eyeing e2-e4 but against the Classical Dutch (...d6 and ...Be7) and the Leningrad Variation (...g6 and ...Bg7) he suggests going to main lines with d4, c4 and b4. Likewise against the Pirc-Modern complex he advocates the Classical System with h3, suggesting that former 1.e4 players, now essaying the Reti, should consider using some of their past experience. Davies finishes off the book with the offbeat 1.Nf3 d6 2.d4 Nf6 (the popular 2...Bg4 is met by 3.e4) 3.Nc3 with 3...Bf5 4.Bg5 and 3...Nbd7 4.e4 e5 5.g3 both examined. Last but not least is 1.Nf3 Nc6 2.d4 d5 3.g3. Curiously, in such a well-thought out book, there is nothing on 1.Nf3 b6 or 1...b5. A lack of space (144 pages might well have been the limit for the book) might be the explanation. If given more room I feel confident that Nigel would have endorsed 2.e4! as covered in the Khalifman series on Kramnik's repertoire.

The Dynamic Reti offers the reader 65 well annotated games. Concrete variations are offered where needed, but the emphasis is on explanatory prose to guide the aspiring Reti player. Nigel is particularly good at explaining things, perhaps in part because he was no super-talent in his youth. It took him many years of hard work to become a GM and cross the FIDE 2500 barrier.

Should you play all the lines recommended here? Davies points out that some of the variations offered, where White sacrifices a pawn for the initiative, might not be to every reader's taste, but points out that you don't have to adopt the complete repertoire. Do you like the Catalan? Enjoy meeting the King's Indian or Grunfeld with g3 systems? It would be easy to incorporate either in this repertoire.

Highly Recommended

Click if you would like to see BAUER'S REVIEW OF THIS BOOK.

For further reading on a repertoire based on 1.Nf3, consult parts of Khalifman's five-volume Kramnik series or consult any of the following books:

THE DYNAMIC ENGLISH (1999) by T. Kosten is not a 1.Nf3 book, but in his treatments of anti-Slav and anti-Dutch setups is useful.

HYPERMODERN OPENING REPERTOIRE FOR WHITE (1999) by E. Schiller. Parts of this book are extremely basic and there are plenty of typos, but this is one of Schiller's best books. It's not a repertoire book, but more a collection of games that the author found of interest.

EASY GUIDE TO THE RETI OPENING (1998) by A. Dunnington. The author considers only pure Reti lines in this 128-page monograph. There is nothing on ...c5-based systems. Those who like to employ a double fianchetto in the line 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 c6 3.b3 Nf6 4.g3 will find excellent coverage though I agree with Davies that Black is doing fine there.

A STRATEGIC OPENING REPERTOIRE (1998) by J. Donaldson. The emphasis here is on the English/ Closed Sicilian reversed line 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.g3 Bg7 4.Bg2 0-0 5.0-0 d6 6.Nc3 e5 7.d3 Nc6 to combat Black's King's Indian setup. A new edition with FM Carsten Hansen as co-author is due out later this year.

BEATING THE FLANK OPENINGS (1996) by V. Kotronias has an excellent section on the development of hypermodern openings. He covers only the English and Catalan, but his comments are quite good and make for instructive reading.

RETI (1990) by V. Osnos. This 318-page Russian language book is considerably more detailed than the earlier book by the author which was translated into English. It's worth hunting down despite the language problem.

FLANK OPENINGS (1979) by R. Keene. This was a groundbreaking work when it first came out and is still quite useful.

ZOOM 001: ZERO HOUR FOR OPERATIVE OPENING MODELS (1979) by Larsen and Zeuthen. This is an opening repertoire book advocating playing the Grunfeld with both colors. I can't say the suggestion of playing a Center-Counter with 2...Nf6 and a later ...g6 inspires confidence, but the pithy comments by Larsen to games featuring flank openings are more worth the effort of hunting this book down. Canadian GM Kevin Spraggett has praised it.